Void(29)

Handle the problem.

That was all I was to them, and that was all I’d ever be. A problem that needed to be handled. I could already see the writing on the wall with the sneers shot my way. They were going to use the headmaster’s decree against me at every opportunity. I was going to be eaten alive.

The headmaster took his seat again, and students started getting up and leaving. Everyone made sure to go around my table, staying as far away from me as possible, but plenty of them openly stared. A couple of vamps flashed by me, tossing trash my direction and leaving me zero time to react before I felt plates full of old food fall into my lap. Laughter followed, and I kept my eyes trained down onto the sloppy mess of pancakes and syrup, watching as it soaked into my clothes.

Quade laughed with his other elemental friends as they went by, and Render kept a smirk on his face, even as he worked to ignore me completely. Their complete dismissal was more humiliating than the breakfast plastered onto my plaid skirt.

“No one wants you here, Void,” a shifter snarled at me as he rounded my table.

“Well, your mother didn’t want you either, so I guess we all get stuck with unwanted things every once in a while,” I shot back.

The shifter growled, and I turned my body, just begging him to come at me. I’d rip my amulet off so fast, my Void would consume him before he could even extend his claws.

“Keep walking. She wants an excuse to take your powers. That’s what she does. She’s a fucking thief.”

My eyes snapped over to Gritt’s voice. The paragon walked up beside the other shifter, giving him a knowing look.

The shifter looked me up and down. “You’re right. She’s not worth it,” he said, sneering at me one last time before stalking away with his group of friends.

Gritt stood at the end of my table, staring down at me with such fiery hate that I was surprised his ears weren’t smoking. But the rest of him was plenty hot. His shoulder-length hair was a bit wild, but it fit him. He looked entirely wolf-like the way he watched me with his predatory green eyes. He had muscles on muscles, and probably stood at a good six and a half feet. I bet if he actually stopped glaring long enough to smile, he’d be even more handsome. Why did all of these paragons have to be so damn hot? It wasn’t fucking fair.

Unlike everyone else, who made sure to stay at least twenty feet away from me, he stalked right over and crowded my space. “Let’s go.”

I clenched my teeth, reminding myself not to give him an excuse to get me kicked out of school. The last thing I wanted was to be escorted by him right now, especially while I was dressed in an ill-fitting, second-hand uniform, covered in syrup.

I never thought I’d miss Mrs. Coxcomb’s School for Troubled Girls, but right now, I’d give anything to be back there. At least there, I was relatively ignored rather than openly hated.

People watched and whispered as I stood up, soggy pancakes falling to the floor with a slap at my feet. With as much dignity as I could muster, I made my way over to him, trying to ignore as people scuttled out of the way.

Gritt pointed forward. “Walk.”

Clenching my teeth, I walked ahead of him, fully aware of his menacing presence at my back. But before I could even leave the hall, another voice stopped us.

“Miss Cainson, one moment.”

I turned around to see a smartly dressed brunette woman who was probably an elemental. Since supers aged slower, I had no idea how old she really was. She could be anywhere from thirty to a hundred. She strode forward but stopped beside Gritt like that was as close as she was willing to come.

She held out a piece of paper to me, her fingers barely grasping the corner. I took it, my eyes skimming over the list. “That’s your schedule, although the headmaster wished me to inform you that it’s liable to change,” she told me. “He also wished me to let you know that, should you be disruptive to the classes, you will be expelled.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

She pursed her lips and walked away, and I folded up the paper and held it in my fist, turning my attention back to a scowling Gritt. “The hospitality here is just incredible,” I said sarcastically while watching the secretary slink away, pressing her back to the wall and crab walking along it, like she was scared I’d do a sneak attack.

“Let’s go,” Gritt said before stomping out and leading me toward what I assumed was my first class.

“Are you going to be with me all day?” I asked while walking down the hallways beside him. Unlike yesterday, when the school was bursting with life and power, today everyone seemed scarce. “And where is everyone?” I asked while adjusting the too-tight uniform top I was given. It had stains on it like it was a lost and found reject they’d tossed on my doorstep. I only got one too. I looked like a slutty schoolgirl, which normally I wouldn’t give two fucks about, but it didn’t exactly help me fly under the radar.

“We each have agreed to take you to one class. Your schedule was picked based on classes Judge Braxton thinks will help you learn more about your powers. It’s a joke, really, considering you’ve been in human school your entire life. You’ll be so behind, you’ll just slow everyone else down.”

I looked down at the schedule again. I was supposed to take A History of Power with Professor Nero right now.

“Okay...Are you going to tell me where I’m supposed to go, or would you rather prolong this whole nightmare?”