The Culling Trials (Shadowspell Academy #2)(44)

The booming voice cut through the really lovely, really hot and steamy shower I was having, and I stood there, water streaming off me, as the names were read through the PA system.

Heath Percival.

Gregory Goblin.

Lisa Danvers.

I towelled off quickly and pulled on my sports bra, wrestling the too tight material over my still damp body. I yanked my sweats on and all but tumbled out of the bathroom and into our dorm.

The three guys looked up, eyebrows raised. Pete shook his head. “Holy cats. I can’t believe you got by even one day without anyone guessing.”

“She didn’t,” Orin corrected him.

I shook my head, a plan already forming. “The names they called out. Do you guys know the others? I thought there were more missing the first day?”

Pete yawned and flopped into his bed. “Lisa was a shifter. A snake shifter to be exact. I think. I heard that the first kids ‘missing,’” he made air quotes with his hands, “had just taken off from the trials and the supervisors found them on the nearest road hitchhiking out of here.”

One shifter. One from the House of Unmentionables. “What do you want to bet that Heath was a future Shade?” All from the same house trials that we were doing at the time they went missing. My head was spinning with the possibilities. Someone was taking the kids, and Rory had said that as far as he knew, they weren’t being killed. So why were they being taken?

“What does that matter?” Orin climbed into bed.

The pieces clicked inside my head, realigning themselves, trying to make sense of what was still missing. “Because it means that whoever is taking the kids is using the trials specifically to weed out the ones they want. And specifically, out of the trials that we are in at the same time.”

I paced the room, thoughts whirling as fast as a hurricane, whipping up everything I’d learned so far. I could almost taste the answer. I clenched and unclenched my fingers as I walked.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Pete said. “And even if you’re right, what then?”

Before he could answer, the door swung open and Wally strolled in, pillow and bag in hand.

Pete jumped up. “Whoa, whoa, you can’t be in here!”

Her eyes were puffy and red and her chest rose and fell at a speed that I knew all too well. She swept toward me first, then stumbled to a stop. “Wild. Are you a girl?”

“No one knows.” I hurried past her to the door to make sure it was shut tight. “Please, my brother’s life is on the line.”

“You never asked me nicely,” Ethan muttered to himself.

“Because you’re a twat, and we only put up with you because we have to!” Wally snapped, shocking us all into silence, right before she burst into tears.

The guys all seemed to freeze, as if a girl’s tears were more terrifying than any of the challenges they’d yet faced. I moved first, having spent more than my fair share of nights comforting Sam.

Wally leaned into me. “Those girls are awful, just awful.”

I didn’t ask her what the girls she was rooming with had done. It didn’t really matter. That was the thing with mean girls; they were all the same, even if these mean girls were playing with a different bag of tricks.

“What did they do?” Pete asked.

“I smell blood,” Orin whispered.

I shot him a look, but it was too late. Wally sniffed and swiped at her tears with both hands.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She turned her head, and I saw the bruises on her neck. Finger marks tipped with claws.

“A vampire did that,” Orin said, and I whipped around to face him as a white-hot burst of rage shot through me. A vampire had done this to Wally? Choked her and cut her, scared her to the point of tears?

“Oh crap,” Pete said. “I see that look, Wild. That is not a good look. Do not take on a vampire. This is a very, very bad idea.”

“And letting them think they can hurt Wally is a good idea?” I grabbed my clothes off the trunk, still covered in mud and blood from the last trial. I didn’t even bother to go to the bathroom to change. I ripped off the sweats—wouldn’t want to get blood on them—muttering as I went, “Nobody messes with my crew. Nobody.”

And just like that, I claimed them as mine. My crew. Sure, Ethan was a bad apple, but he was our bad apple, and we never would have made it this far without his help.

“I’m coming with you.” Orin ghosted to my side.

“Me too,” Pete said, but I shook my head.

“Pete. You stay with Wally. I doubt Ethan has a sensitive bone in his body.” I shot a look at Wonder Bread.

“You are insane.” Ethan shook his head. “The next trial is the House of Night. We’re going to get our fill of vampires there. Going after one of them now is just stupid.”

I turned on him. “You want to look weak? Like our crew can’t hold up under pressure? They’re testing us, Ethan. Maybe this is even part of the next trial. Like the poisoned food that first night.” I pointed a finger at him. “Without your cheat sheets, you don’t know what this is, which means we deal with it.”

“You can stay here,” I said to Wally, “We have a spare bed with Gregory gone.”

She sniffed. “Thanks. But I don’t want to cause more trouble.”