“Are you sure you’re alright?” I asked again once he finally found the test and set it on the desk between us.
He wouldn’t look me in the eye, but he at least seemed a bit calmer.
“I really should be asking you that,” he replied, sliding the packet across until it met my fingers. “Were you close with your cousin?”
I frowned. “My cousin?”
“The one you lost…”
Oh.My cousin. The reason I tragically missed the last week of classes and subsequently all my finals. Right. I wanted to laugh, but I was too afraid it would come out frantic or unhinged. My lack of a quick response prompted even more of Holden’s sympathy, and he moved to place his hand over mine.
“If you want, I could just let you go and mark your test as passed,” he offered, with a slow glide of his thumb over my skin.
My head snapped up. He was willing to meet my gaze again, and I half expected a grimy leer as he propositioned me, but his eyes were unfocused. The dark pupils were dilated behind hisglasses as his eyes dropped to watch his finger move along the side of my wrist. I yanked my arm back and held it to my chest.
“I appreciate the offer, but I’d rather take the test.”
No way in hell was I accepting. I wasn’t even sure where it came from; he’d always been nothing but respectful in our encounters. He sat watching me, hand still resting where mine had been only moments before.
I cleared my throat. “Can I borrow a pencil?”
“Are you sure?” My response confused him, like he couldn’t believe I’d give up a free grade.
Yes, I was fucking sure. Why was he acting so odd? If he hadn’t responded and started digging for that pencil, I’d say he was hypnotized. With wide eyes and jerking movements, he put the yellow stick of wood between us and shook his head. A little animation returned to his face as he rubbed his eyes.
“Take as much time as you need.”
Thankfully, that wouldn’t be very long. As the previous TA for this class, Kai was instrumental in helping me prepare these past few days, and I wasn’t entirely convinced he didn’t just feed me all the answers in some twisted absolution of guilt. Whatever. It came in handy now. I refused to be here a second longer than necessary.
Holden was harmless, but strange things happened to people around me lately, and I was learning to trust my instincts.
He stared at me the entire time. I felt his gaze swooping over the skin my tank top left exposed. On my hair and my fingers as they wrote out the short answers to the final few questions. This was the creepiest crush I’d ever had the displeasure of being on the receiving end of.
Our skin touched one more time as he leaned over to collect my test. And I think… Did he justsniffme? I stumbled to my feet and blindly reached for the door handle behind me. There was no way I was taking my eyes off this guy.
“W-would… Do you think you’d…”
I got the door open and ran into the hall before he could complete his question. The absolute wrongness of the whole situation followed me all the way to the edge of campus and the next shit show I was forced to participate in. The Kappa Summer Bash.
CHAPTER 2
Ezra
I hated this forest. Fuckinghatedit. We had beef. And before the sensible part of my brain could argue that it was impossible to go to war with vegetation, I begged to differ.
These damn trees had it coming.
Life these past months would have been so much easier without the black hole that was this fucking place. We had too many ambushes out here, and there were countless blind spots for the enemy to hide.
Being the chosen second of my faction’s heir was not a responsibility I took lightly. Kai relied on me to watch his back, and by extension, his bonded, Eryn. I tried my best to scout ahead and maintain a safe perimeter, but my cousin’s girl getting poisoned this past spring was on me. Also, when she got stabbed… And that one time she followed the illusion pit bull and almost had her face eaten off.
It was a crazy semester. And not some of my best work. The djinn shouldn’t have made it through to her, and it killed me thatthey were able to slip past my defenses. There were just so many trees!
The fuckers were laughing at me, I could tell. I held up my middle finger and spun in a circle, making sure all their pine-smelling asses caught a look and knew where they stood with me. Pissing them off wasn’t the smartest of plans, but I never claimed to be a genius.
The crunch of dead foliage was the only sound as I stepped carefully through the tangled mess of pine needles and leaves. The afternoon sun was bright and eager, but only a few of its rays made it through the thick canopy, creating a cooler, if not portentous environment. Not even the birds chirped as I made my way toward the cliffside. An ominous sign.
It was early summer, and the thick coverage of the full branches would’ve come in handy a few months ago, but right now I was just thankful to use whatever advantages I could to aid in my hunt. I’d be one with the spiteful trees if that’s what it took to do my job.
