The boys were going to be late getting back to their houses, but they wouldn’t leave until I had assured them, three times, that I knew where I was and I could get back to my room—no, really, it’s right there! I can see the door! I shooed them away, then stood and watched them walk down the hall.

They were a nice bunch of kids, and they made a good group. There were enough differences they complimented each other, but they had all the important things in common—like a good heart. I envied them. My own attempts to make friends in school didn’t always go so well. When it did go well, I wound up moving away. Then there was the hospital. And the hospice—

I shook my head to clear it of my dismal thoughts and sternly reminded myself that I’d had a friend at the hospice, and we’d kept our promise to stay with each other to the end. We’d made the vow in jest, but we kept it all the same.

At least, I had. Ms. Elstein had done her best, but neither of us had expected my life to get a 2.0. I could forgive her for that.

I turned and headed to my rooms. When I entered, I found Darius and Conrad waiting for me. Conrad was on the couch. Darius was in the armchair. They were both watching me. Darius’s elbows were on his knees and his expression was stern. I glanced at the wolfman. I could see a slight frown at the edge of his muzzle.

My stomach went cold.

Which was ridiculous! Totally ridiculous! Maybe the high school atmosphere was getting to me, but I couldn’t help thinking of all the times I’d had to meet with the principal of whatever my current school was, and my latest foster parents.

“Hey, guys,” I said.

“Emerra,” the count said, “we need to talk to you.”

The way he said it only heightened the principal’s office vibes.

I closed the door and walked closer. I didn’t sit down. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s about those boys.”

For a second I thought about saying “what boys?” but I caught myself. Playing dumb was a worthless coping mechanism at the best of times, and anyway, this wasn’t an argument.

The skin on the back of my neck prickled—even though it wasn’t an argument.

“You mean Wes and the others?” I said. “Is there a problem?”

“You need to be careful.”

The first blush of heat moved into my cheeks. “Darius, I can take care of myself. Despite what you think, I am an adult.”

“You’re barely an adult, and you might weigh a hundred pounds if we soaked your whole outfit in water and put weights in your pockets.”

“Cool. In the meantime, you’re a hundred-something years old and can slip through a two millimeter gap. What’s your point?”

“Most of those boys are bigger than you, and some of them have dangerous powers. You went off with four of them tonight—without telling us where you were going, I might add—”

“Are you going to pretend you didn’t hear us talking? And barely or not, I’m still an adult. Last I checked, that means I don’t have to check-in with you about anything.”

The vampire’s face darkened. “The last I checked, you had agreed to help us find out what’s happening at this school. If we’re working together, courtesy says you could have at least told one of us what you were doing.”

I clamped my mouth shut and took a second to breathe. I didn’t speak until my emotions were clear enough I could say what I needed to.

“You’re right, Darius. I’m sorry. I thought you would have heard me, and I thought you wanted me to work with the students.”

“I do. And when you work with them, I want you to be careful.”

“Why?”

“All of the online resources and brochures failed to paint a complete picture of Setlan on Lee’s student body. Wuller is trying to attract a particular kind of student to his program, but the school is new and the program is…unique. Not many parents are willing to send their children to a school where the headmaster is openly engaging in paranormal research.”

I scowled. “Wait. Wooly—Wuller advertises this place for psychics?”

“The brochures say they ‘cultivate an encouraging atmosphere for boys with unusual abilities.’ They also say that the school is a good place for ‘distinctive personalities’ and ‘a haven for those who’re misunderstood.’”

“Sounds great. Where do I sign up?”

Darius went on, “What the school actually became is a dumping ground for problem students from across the island.”

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“What do you mean?”

“Over half of the students have an underage criminal record. Many of them have mental health problems. Setlan on Lee had to take them in to pay the bills.”

“Okay. And?”

Darius paused, then laced his fingers together and brought them up toward his face. “Did you understand me, Emerra? They could be dangerous. Over half of these boys have been to the equivalent of juvenile detention. Some of them are violent. They were admitted here as a last chance.”

“Oh, wow,” I gasped. “Do you know what that means?”

Conrad’s ears flattened when he heard my tone. Vasil’s face turned into a stony mask.

“What?” the vampire said.

“Nothing. It means nothing,” I said. “They’ve been to British Juvie? Who cares! You don’t know them, Darius Vasil. And you can spare me your warnings until you do.”

“Why are you so angry about this?” Conrad asked.

When I looked over, his brow was creased and his ears were low.

That didn’t stop me from shouting, “Because you don’t know them! You don’t know what happened or why they got in trouble, and I’m not going to treat them like a bunch of hopeless criminals! Those four I met tonight—”

Darius broke in: “If you met them tonight, I don’t think you can claim to know them either.”

“I know them better than you do.”

Conrad tilted his head. “Emerra, did you have a record?”

Someone must have hauled out my internal organs and dumped them in a vat of liquid nitrogen. They were frosted over. Wisps of cold air filled me. One wrong move could shatter them all.

“That’s none of your business.” My words came out as a whisper. “And after what you’ve said, you can’t imagine I would tell you if I did.”

“Conrad hasn’t said anything,” Darius said.

I turned. “That’s right. It was you. Thank you for your concern, Mr. Vasil. Tell me when you find a boy that raped someone or tortured animals. Until then, I hope you’ll understand if I don’t lock myself away.”

Well, that was done. I’d said enough—probably more than enough—and my anger had run dry. I crossed my arms and waited to see what they would do. All the rest of my organs had thawed, but my stomach was still frozen. I could feel the icy drips.

Darius watched me for another second, then turned his eyes to Conrad. The wolfman’s ears were still low, but they weren’t flat.

The count sighed, then said in a mellow voice, “Did you learn anything tonight?”

Relief rose through me. I tried to ignore it—or, at least, not let them see it—as I told them what I’d learned from Wes and his crew.

By the time I was finished, Darius was leaning back in his chair. His hand was resting on his face, and he stared at the floor as he thought.

“So Eric…Reed?” Darius raised his eyes to me.

I nodded.

“Eric Reed thinks that this is somehow being deliberately done to them. There are probably others who think the same.”

“Probably a lot of others,” I said. “If the boys have been talking about whether or not Wuller’s been poisoning the water…”

I didn’t know where the sentence was going, so I let it wander off on its own.

“Has that been checked?” Conrad asked.

“The water specifically? I don’t know,” Darius said. “The reports from the Torr only stated that they hadn’t found an external cause for the sudden manifestations.”

“What did they check?” I said.

“I think I’ll call and ask them.” Darius stood up and went over to his laptop.

“Right now?”

“It’s early yet.” He clicked through a few screens, then shut the computer down and closed the lid. “After that, I think I might wander around the school for a while.”

Why not? I thought. This old building is bound to have two millimeter gaps everywhere.

Normally, I would have said it out loud. Darius was always willing to joke with me about being a vampire, but I was still on edge from our argument. I wasn’t going to poke those logs until I was sure the embers were cold.

As the count crossed behind the couch, he put a hand on Conrad’s shoulder. “You should get some rest.”

“It’s not even nine,” the wolfman said.

“You didn’t sleep on the plane. Tomorrow there’ll be plenty of work to do. You might as well get some rest while you can.”

Conrad raised a hand to show he’d heard the vampire. I needed to remember that trick. Acknowledgment without commitment.

Darius hesitated. When he spoke, he didn’t completely raise his eyes to look at me. “Are you thinking of going out again, Emerra?”

I swallowed and shook my head. “No. I…uh…I think I’ll curl up with those reports from Iset. Unless there’s anything you want me to do?”

“I think getting some more background information is a good idea.”

I nodded.

“Please keep the door closed,” Darius said, “otherwise the veil won’t work.”

“Got it.”

The count checked his pocket for his phone and left. The second the door closed, I put a hand to my head and groaned through my grit teeth. It made a weird duuuuuuugh sound.

I opened my mouth—the words were all lined up and ready to shoot out—but then I remembered the listening ears I was about to unload on were fluffy, pointed, and belonged to the wolfman I had promised myself I wouldn’t annoy more than necessary.

I had already done enough to alienate my friends that evening.

Friends? Ha! What was Darius always calling me? His colleague?

I had already done enough to alienate my colleagues.

I swallowed my words. They got caught by the lump in my throat, but I swallowed that too and went over to the desk where Iset’s reports were waiting.

“Do you need to use the bathroom before I get ready for bed?” Conrad asked.

I tried to smile for him. “No. Thank you. Will it be a problem if I sneak by while you’re asleep?”

“I’ll leave the door unlocked so you can get in if you need to.”

“Thank you.”

He stood up and went to the bedroom. I took the papers back to the couch and tried to read, but it was a few minutes before I could get myself to focus. I kept staring at the shimmering, purple-blue veil while my aimless thoughts chased each other around my head.

[https://i.imgur.com/f011ZNa.jpg]

The bars divided the window into tall, thin sections.

The curtains had been stripped away. White, lean rectangles of moonlight stretched across the floor. I sat with my back to the cold wall. My neck was twisted so I could look up and out the window beside me.

All I wanted was to see the night sky. All I wanted—

My neck ached. I ignored it. There were other hot spots of pain: my tailbone, my hips, the sides of my knees, my shoulder blades. I ignored them all.

This was mine. This was something they couldn’t take away from me. I would never let them know.

I would scoot myself along my bed, agonizing minute after agonizing minute, until I could push myself up and look through the bars in my window.

My heart ached and ached. There was triumph there, but it was a low tone in the long scream of yearning.

All I wanted was to go outside, lay on the grass, and look up at the sky.