Part 9 (1/2)
Lissa looked as green as the sweater she wore, and I pulled her away before I even finished my food and immediately launched into a string of obscenities about Natalie's social skills.
”She's nice,” Lissa said automatically. ”You were just telling me the other day how much you liked her.”
”I do like her, but she's just incompetent about certain things.”
We stood outside our animal behavior cla.s.s, and I noticed people giving us curious looks and whispering as they pa.s.sed. I sighed.
”How are you doing with all this?”
A half-smile crossed her face. ”Can't you already feel it?”
”Yeah, but I want to hear it from you.”
”I don't know. I'll be okay. I wish everyone wouldn't keep staring at me like I'm some kind of freak.”
My anger exploded again. The fox was bad. People upsetting her made it worse, but at least I could do something about them. ”Who's bothering you?”
”Rose, you can't beat up everyone we have a problem with.”
”Mia?” I guessed.
”And others,” she said evasively. ”Look, it doesn't matter. What I want to know is how this could have...that is, I can't stop thinking about that time-”
”Don't,” I warned.
”Why do you keep pretending that didn't happen? You of all people. You made fun of Natalie for going on and on, but it's not like you've got a good grip on your control switch. You'll normally talk about anything.” ”But not that. We need to forget about it. It was a long time ago. We don't even really know what happened.”
She stared at me with those big green eyes, calculating her next argument.
”Hey, Rose.”
Our conversation dropped as Jesse strolled up to us. I turned on my best smile.
”Hey.”
He nodded cordially to Lissa. ”So hey, I'm going to be in your dorm tonight for a study group.
You think...maybe...”
Momentarily forgetting Lissa, I focused my full attention on Jesse. Suddenly, I so needed to do something wild and bad. Too much had happened today. ”Sure.”
He told me when he'd be there, and I told him I'd meet him in one of the common areas with ”further instructions.”
Lissa stared at me when he left. ”You're under house arrest. They won't let you hang out and talk to him.”
”I don't really want to 'talk' to him. We'll slip away.”
She groaned. ”I just don't know about you sometimes.”
”That's because you're the cautious one, and I'm the reckless one.”
Once animal behavior started, I pondered the likelihood of Mia being responsible. From the smug look on her psycho-angel face, she certainly seemed to be enjoying the sensation caused by the b.l.o.o.d.y fox. But that didn't mean she was the culprit, and after observing her over the last couple of weeks, I knew she'd enjoy anything that upset Lissa and me. She didn't need to be the one who had done it. ”Wolves, like many other species, differentiate their packs into alpha males and alpha females whom the others defer to. Alphas are almost always the strongest physically, though many times, confrontations turn out to be more a matter of willpower and personality. When an alpha is challenged and replaced, that wolf may find himself ostracized from the group or even attacked.”
I looked up from my daydreams and focused on Ms. Meissner.
”Most challenges are likely to occur during mating season,” she continued. This, naturally, brought snickers from the cla.s.s. ”In most packs, the alpha pair are the only ones who mate. If the alpha male is an older, seasoned wolf, a younger compet.i.tor may think he has a shot.
Whether that is true works on a case-by-case basis. The young often don't realize how seriously outcla.s.sed they are by the more experienced.”
The old-and-young-wolf thing notwithstanding, I thought the rest was pretty relevant. Certainly in the Academy's social structure, I decided bitterly, there seemed to be a lot of alphas and challenges.
Mia raised her hand. ”What about foxes? Do they have alphas too?”
There was a collective intake of breath from the cla.s.s, followed by a few nervous giggles. No one could believe Mia had gone there.
Ms. Meissner flushed with what I suspected was anger. ”We're discussing wolves today, Miss Rinaldi.”
Mia didn't seem to mind the subtle chastising, and when the cla.s.s paired off to work on an a.s.signment, she spent more time looking over at us and giggling. Through the bond, I could feel Lissa growing more and more upset as images of the fox kept flas.h.i.+ng through her mind.
”Don't worry,” I told her. ”I've got a way-”
”Hey, Lissa,” someone interrupted.
We both looked up as Ralf Sarcozy stopped by our desks. He wore his trademark stupid grin, and I had a feeling he'd come over here on a dare from his friends. ”So, admit it,” he said. ”You killed the fox. You're trying to convince Kirova you're crazy so that you can get out of here again.”
”Screw you,” I told him in a low voice.
”Are you offering?”
”From what I've heard, there isn't much to screw,” I shot back.
”Wow,” he said mockingly. ”You have changed. Last I remembered, you weren't too picky about who you got naked with.”
”And the last I remember, the only people you ever saw naked were on the Internet.”
He c.o.c.ked his head in an overly dramatic fas.h.i.+on. ”Hey, I just got it: it was you, wasn't it?” He looked at Lissa, the back at me. ”She got you to kill the fox, didn't she? Some weird kind of lesbian voo-ahhh!”
Ralf burst into flames.
I jumped up and pushed Lissa out of the way-not easy to do, since we were sitting at our desks. We both ended up on the floor as screams-Ralf's in particular-filled the cla.s.sroom and Ms. Meissner sprinted for the fire extinguisher.
And then, just like that, the flames disappeared. Ralf was still screaming and patting himself down, but he didn't have a single singe mark on him. The only indication of what had happened was the lingering smell of smoke in the air.
For several seconds, the entire cla.s.sroom froze. Then, slowly, everyone put the pieces together.