I looked back at Masha, meeting her vengeful stare. I decided to lead with my brain, trying to talk my way out. “Do vampires encourage such public hazing? Seems a little crass to me. Don’t you think they prefer a good show instead—a little pomp, a little circumstance? I mean, where would we be if we all let loose and started killing one another at the drop of a hat?”
Seriously, it was a miracle any of us was alive with these girls eager to run shivs between our ribs at the first opportunity. And we were expected to take it. Thank you, ma’am; may I have another?
“Vampires encourage the natural order,” she said. “In any form.”
“Yeah, yeah. Kill or be killed. Very Darwinian of you. Like our own little Galápagos Island here, right?”
But then I considered the times the Guidons had tried to kill me—and failed. They’d locked me outside to run half-naked in the snow. They had dropped me in the middle of the island, in the middle of the night, surrounded by demonic creatures and my even more demonic fellow Acari. They’d tried to take me down, but I was still in the game.
Masha’s ragged voice brought me back to myself. “You think to challenge the way we do things, Acari?”
“No, I think you’re just pissy because you haven’t been able to take me down. But look at me.” Pulling my shoulders back, I stretched my five-foot-two-inch frame as tall as it would go. “I’m still standing.”
“Not for long,” she said, her Russian accent grown thick in her fury. “You go down now.”
“I don’t think so, comrade.” I tensed for the contact I knew was coming.
She gave a casual flick to her wrist, and her whip rippled elegantly to the ground, like a ribbon, or a cascade of black water. A smile cocked the corner of her mouth as she raised her hand, looking excited to flay the skin from my body in teensy tiny strips.
Maybe it was because of Ronan, and just Ronan. Maybe because I had a better chance of getting killed than getting kissed. But this time, when Masha came at me, I fought back.
She cracked that whip, and this time, instead of standing there to take it, I did the impossible. I caught it.
See, I’d been whipped by Masha before. She favored a girl’s right cheek. And when her whip flowed toward me, this time it moved in slow motion. This time, I turned my head to guard my face with my open hands.
The leather sliced into me, and the pain was hot and immediate, like a knife carving my flesh. But that didn’t stop me from clenching my hands, and snatching that whip, and wrapping it around and around my fists. I gave a sharp tug, and the handle flew from Masha’s grip.
In that instant, I learned that vampire blood had done more than help me heal—it had made me stronger and my reflexes faster.
My second lesson? Guidons didn’t take kindly to girls who fought back.
The dining hall erupted into chaos. I was surrounded by Initiates. There were no Tracers to be seen, or vampires, either, although they rarely entered the dining hall, anyway. A handful of Acari were smart enough to flee, while others stood, gathering close to watch the show, joined by vampire Trainees who were looking pretty gleeful at the prospect of a catfight.
Was Yasuo there, or had he left before the fight started? And if he was in the crowd, would he come to my aid? In a single, depressing flash, it struck me that he might not.
I needed to delay. The moment this fight began in earnest, the crowd would turn into a mob—and turn on me.
Swallowing hard, I shifted the whip from hand to hand so I could wipe the blood from my palms. My shorts were salty and sandy, and distantly I registered the sharp sting in my open wounds. “Isn’t this a little excessive? I mean, shoving me down stairs is one thing, but a public execution is quite another.”
“The vampires will thank me,” Masha said, and I heard Trinity giggle.
My eyes hardened as I thought of the perfect excuse. “Even Alcántara?”
Something sharp flickered across Masha’s face. I’d been wondering why she’d targeted me for her punching bag, but a possibility struck me. Maybe she resented that a vampire had taken a young upstart like me under his protection.
I scrambled for more excuses even though I knew that this train had not only left the station, but was careening down the tracks with me tied and bound to them. I backed up a step. “They’ll be here soon. The vamps. They’ll scent the blood.”
“And each will be thirsty,” Masha purred. “And your body will be carried from here, and you’ll be theirs to feed on.”
“Doesn’t this need to be approved or something?”
She strolled to the head of the table, moving casually, as if she had all the time in the world. “On the contrary, they will thank me when I finish what Lilac started. But I’ll do more than burn your pretty hair. I will hit you, and shame you, and whip you until you bleed. And then I will take your broken body, and I will hand it to the vampires myself.”
“There you go with the body thing again.” I almost laughed at the surreal and gleeful barbarity of it all. Almost. “You’ve really thought this through.”
“I’ve dreamt of it.”
A bolt of savage pleasure ripped through me as I realized I had nothing to lose. If I was going to go down, I could go down fighting. I could exact every revenge I’d dreamt of since arriving. I gripped the handle of her whip, lifting it ever so slightly. “Time for a wake-up call, I think.”
“You think to fight back? And with my weapon?” She’d spoken through clenched teeth—that whip identified her; it was an extension of her. She was furious.
“I think I can try.” Taking a deep breath, I reeled my arm back and whipped with all my strength.
But instead of snapping, the leather only flopped, catching on the table and hitting the floor with a limp thwok. I might as well have attacked the girl with a fistful of overcooked pasta.
The bravado I’d known a moment ago plummeted. Girls began to titter, and some closed in—I could sense them at my back.
I was dead meat.
Masha gave me a slow smile. But rather than lean down for her whip, she selected an empty glass from one of our trays. “Harder than it looks, Acari. Shame you won’t live long enough to master the skill.” She raised her hand and smashed the glass against the edge of the table. There had been a bit of blood left in the glass, and it trickled into her sleeve as she admired the jagged rim. She beamed at the other girls. “Where shall I carve first, ladies?”
The crowd pulsed around me, and I knew in my marrow all they wanted was to gang up on me, to destroy me. To watch me be annihilated. My Proctor, Amanda, had warned me once: The girls were wolves, blinded by bloodlust at the scent of weakness. And there was nothing weaker than one girl against several.
My right leg flexed as I instinctively felt for the throwing stars I normally kept holstered in my boot—holstered in my uniform boot. But I was wearing only my gym clothes and sneakers.
A shaky, freaked-out feeling jittered through my body, and I took a deep breath to squelch it.
Masha’s eyes narrowed. “Poor baby. Don’t have your pretty stars?”
The crowd practically throbbed now. All they required was a spark to their tinder, one tiny inducement before they were all grabbing and smashing glasses into weapons. And then they would attack, and nobody would stand by me.
Rather, Emma would. Good old stoic, prairie girl Emma. I reached my senses outward and felt her standing at my back. I smelled her, too, all gross and carroty. I fought the absurd smile that threatened my composure.
She’d stand by me, just as when we’d been attacked by that Draug, months ago, before she’d even known me. She’d stand by me again, and we’d both be slaughtered, and the others would watch with glee, jubilant that it was us, not them, taken out on stretchers for somebody’s midnight snack.
Screw that. I refused to give up any more of my blood than was necessary—I’d spill every last drop if it meant denying some creepy vampire.
“Screw this.” I snatched a glass and smashed it, enjoying the shock that flickered in Masha’s eyes.
But I’d struck the table too hard, and the glass shattered, leaving nothing but the base and a few ragged shards slicing into my fingers.
One of the Initiates sprang into action, reaching for some cutlery, but Masha spun on her. “Back off. Acari Drew is mine.” She paced around the table, quickly now, her eyes not leaving mine. The crowd gave her space, ebbing back in a single wave.
Warmth seeped between my fingers. I was really bleeding now—I imagined even I could smell it—and it was in that moment I sensed the first vampires arrive.
Thoughts whirled through my head. Chow time, boys.
Masha sprang toward me, slashing her glass. “I’ve dreamt of this.”
I hopped back a step, dodging her. “Oh, me, too.”
Killed, not kissed. The thought fueled me. I decided I might as well give them a show.
Smiling my brightest, I dove in, slashing with the glass in my right hand. But it was a feint. As Masha defended one side of her head, I landed a massive hit on the other, pounding my slightly curved hand over her ear.
She shrieked, and the crowd sucked in a breath.
Blaze of glory.
She peeled back her lips in a snarl—she would not have liked the feline sound she’d made when I hit her—and her accent came thick, making her sound like a murderous inmate escaped from the Gulag. “You. Dead.”
I heard the heavy dining hall door open and shut again, and then again. The vampires, gathering. Just in time to see me torn limb from limb by an outraged Guidon and her pals.
Masha sprang again, and I grabbed a chair, swinging it up and at her. The blood made my hands sticky and slippery, and my move was clumsy, but it was enough to stop her momentum.
A blast of cold air swirled in as the door opened again. But this time it brought a voice. “Enough.”
Headmaster Claude Fournier.
Everyone froze.
Our headmaster was gorgeous, and suave, and French—and more carelessly lethal than any other vampire on this rock.