The Culling Trials (Shadowspell Academy #2)(30)

“Best argument I’ve heard so far,” Orin said.

I stepped up into the bus after Ethan, following the group of guys he was stalking.

“Did you hear?” a buck-toothed girl said to her seat mate. “Someone went missing last night. That goblin who won his house challenge.”

“Ethan Helix won the challenge,” her friend returned.

The buck-toothed girl rolled her eyes. “I meant his goblin teammate, obviously…” Her words drifted away, and her eyes rounded when she spotted the man of the hour walking past her.

A hush fell over the bus, though Ethan didn’t seem to notice, his eyes locked on the other guys. He passed the group of boys from earlier without glancing their way and stopped at a random block of kids farther back. They all looked up at him, one girl’s face reddening.

He jerked his head. “Get out.”

“Wh-what?” one of the guys said, slim-faced with dark circles under his eyes.

Ethan stared him down. “Do you want me to repeat myself?” The threat in his tone was evident.

“This is getting awkward,” I said quietly, inching backward a little as the kids he’d singled out pushed out of their seats.

“It’s not awkward for anyone else,” Orin said, although he’d made our situation awkward. He hadn’t taken a step back when I had, and now he stood a little too close for comfort. I stepped forward again. “They expect this behavior from a Helix.”

As Ethan waited, he nodded in a familiar way to a guy in the back.

The guy matched his nod, clearly douche-speak for what’s up, bro? He looked familiar and I realized I’d seen him before. One of the guys who’d fallen in the first trial. What was his name?

Close up, I was able to get a better look at Ethan’s friend. Given the stranger was smoking hot and had an air of confidence, I figured they were friendly because they were on a similar level. Pretty people always seemed to gravitate toward other pretty people.

“Why didn’t we sit near the possible offenders?” Wally whispered, leaning around the side of the seat and looking down the center of the bus.

“We’re sitting behind them,” Ethan said quietly, dropping into the seat, with tense shoulders. I sat next to him.

“Yes, I am spatially aware, but why didn’t we sit behind them, and also near them?” Wally pushed, sliding into the seat behind us with Orin. Pete, odd man out, shared with a red-headed girl behind them. “So we could hear their conversation. If I had a magic notebook, I’d want to talk about it with my friends.”

“Cool people sit in the back,” Orin said with a slight smile, looking out the window. “Social standing before stakeout. It is why the social elite don’t do grunt work.”

“No, it is because we can afford to hire people to do grunt work,” Ethan replied without turning around.

“Yes.” Orin’s smile grew. I had no idea what point he thought he’d made, but I didn’t care to dwell on it.

The bus traversed the usual path and came to a stop in front of the massive gates covered in the thorny ivy.

“Wait,” Ethan said when we’d all disembarked, watching the guys he’d noticed earlier. They’d grouped together again, looking down at something between them.

“Welcome again,” the usual stunning woman said, holding her wand high and smiling down at us from atop the stone and ivy wall. “Day three of the Culling Trials. Good luck to you and may it favor the trial you choose!”

“It almost seems like they are trying to rush us through all these,” Pete said as he jogged after Ethan, who’d surged to a start, following that same cluster of guys. “But what’s the hurry?”

“Oh…I don’t know,” Wally said, waving her hand. “Maybe all the political unrest in the magical world right now? They’re sparing their resources for this. They probably want them back.”

“Their resources are an elite school, and that school is on break,” Pete returned as we hurried through the open gate. “The people running this thing are from one of the other schools, and that school is on break. No one gives two hoots about us.”

A field spanned out in front of us, and when we stepped onto it, it morphed into a plain covered in tall yellow grasses waving in the light breeze. The scene was slightly familiar, although I wasn’t sure why—there wasn’t much to distinguish it from any other prairie, though for sure it wasn’t Texas.

Night slowly fell the farther in we got, and a large crescent moon rose in the star-studded sky. The group we were following veered right, and soon their target became obvious: a lone tree bent over a small glistening pond.

No, wait…not just a pond. A watering hole.

It struck me why our surroundings looked so familiar. They reminded me of a documentary my dad had watched about the Serengeti in Africa.

Africa. Africa was full of things that could eat you. And I could bet I knew which of the big five it would be coming for us.

“We shouldn’t go that way.” I grabbed Ethan’s arm. He flung me off. “Ethan, are you out of your mind? What better place to snatch prey if you’re an alpha predator than at a freaking waterhole! We shouldn’t go there.”

“Oh,” Pete said, like a tire losing air. He’d just honed in on our surroundings. “This is bad.”