Chapter 5 FIRST STRIKE

KIA

I stared at him, waiting. Hoping there'd be some kind of follow up explanation, or maybe a punchline where he'd admit he was joking.

I got nothing.

"That's it?" I asked, but he was already settling into the bed, stretching out like he didn't have a single care in the world.

"You've got eight more minutes before the academy water system shuts off. Makes it harder to cover the tracks when someone gets murdered."

My brows shot up. "When? Is that even allowed?"

He dragged a hand down his face, tucking the other beneath his head. "Look, a lot of rules and laws here won't make sense logically. Best thing you can do is leave your human knowledge behind and just go with it. Tomorrow I'll lay down some rules that'll make this alliance easier for both of us. Until then, stop talking to me."

"Excuse me? I still have a ton of questions, and you're literally the only person I know in this entire building. If I can't talk to you, how am I supposed to get any answers?"

"Whatever questions you have, I'll answer tomorrow. Better?" He shot me an annoyed look, and I mirrored it right back.

"How about you answer a few now, and save the rest for tomorrow? My dad just died, and somehow I'm trapped in a creepy town with a whole academy full of weirdos."

"Keep talking like that and you'll end up as someone's lunch."

My mouth clamped shut. I glared at him, hoping I could somehow develop heat vision and burn a hole straight through his skull. Rhys just threw an arm over his eyes and shut them, like he was officially done with me for the day.

Some part of me wanted to take it as an opportunity to run, but the memory of the massive wolf that had greeted me on arrival kept me rooted to the spot. Rhys really did seem like my safest bet if I wanted to make it out of here alive.

I turned toward the only other door in the room, assuming it led to a bathroom, and walked in. The scent hit me first, something earthy and musky underneath a sweeter note of lavender. A neat stack of folded towels sat in the cupboard above the sink. I climbed into the tub and turned the shower on, and the second the water hit me, my dad's body on that stretcher flashed behind my eyes.

I wasn't going to cry this time. I wasn't going to be weak. Whoever had taken him from me, whether it was something supernatural or just a man, I was going to find them. And I was going to make them pay, even if it meant learning to survive in this godforsaken academy first.

---

Someone was calling my name.

My eyes flew open and I stumbled out of the shower, wrapping a towel around myself.

"Rhys?" I called.

Silence answered.

I counted to five before reaching for the door handle. The hair on the back of my neck rose, a chill crawling up my spine, some kind of instinct screaming at me to stay right where I was. I sucked in a breath anyway and pulled the door open.

"Rhys—" the name died on my tongue.

The room on the other side wasn't the one I'd left. The bed was gone. So was the boy who was supposed to be resting in it. Plain white walls had turned into familiar faded yellow, floral wallpaper stretching on farther than any room should reasonably go. I stood frozen in the middle of it, trying to make sense of what kind of sorcery or vampirism could pull this off.

"Kia."

I spun around, expecting to finally see a face behind the voice. Nothing. Even the bathroom door had vanished behind me.

"Rhys? If this is some kind of joke, it's not funny." My voice came out shaky, swallowed by the empty space around me.

I turned back around.

My dad stood inches from my face.

I screamed.

One eye was missing. His jaw was twisted at an angle that made my stomach turn. A cut ran from his eyebrow, down past his nose, stopping somewhere near his cheek.

I jolted upright, water sloshing violently around me as my fist swung out and connected with something solid. My eyes snapped open, my chest heaving.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," I blurted, watching Rhys, crouched beside the bathtub, flick his tongue against the inside of his cheek. His eyes closed for a brief moment before opening again. Cold, midnight blue eyes fixed on me like daggers as he slowly straightened.

"That's your first strike," he warned.

I winced. "I'm sorry. I had a nightmare. I thought you were... It felt so real."

"Next time, try sleeping on the actual floor instead of a bathtub with the shower still running. Unless you’re trying to drown yourself."

It was then I noticed that the rest of me, from the shoulders down, was fully submerged in soapy water, even though I distinctly remembered getting into a dry tub with the shower still trickling down on me. My brows pulled together.

"How? You said the water shuts off in eight minutes."

He gave me a pointed look. "It's morning. You've been sitting here all night, long enough for the water to come back on and nearly bury you."

My stomach tightened. "Thanks."

I started to stand, my mind still tangled up in the nightmare, and completely forgot that under all that soapy water I had absolutely nothing on. A soft whoosh of air, a rush of cold, and then a towel dropped over my shoulders. I blinked back to the present to find Rhys already standing several feet away by the door, his expression carefully blank. I wrapped the towel tightly around myself and stepped out.

"School starts at seven. Your uniform's in the closet. If you don't want the attention that comes with walking in late, I'd move fast." He turned to leave, but my stomach growled loud enough that I stopped him without meaning to.

"What about breakfast?"

"Depends on what you catch."

I frowned. "What I catch?"

"You're in House Wilde. We hunt our own meals." He glanced back just in time to catch the horror on my face, and the corner of his mouth twitched up.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, you're joking. You really need to work on your comedic timing—"

I didn't get to finish. In one blink he'd crossed the room, something warm and heavy settling around my arms, and my feet left the ground entirely. When they touched down again, the bathroom had disappeared into the gray hush of early morning, the crunch of dead leaves under my feet, birds calling somewhere in the distance. A black robe hung off me like I'd put it on myself, and a sickle had somehow found its way into my hand.

"Aim for the head," Rhys said, expression serious, arms folded like an instructor sizing up a hopeless student. "Otherwise you'll find them a lot harder to catch than you think."

The color drained from my face. "You-You're being serious."

"Deadly."

A branch snapped somewhere off to my left. I barely had time to turn my head before something dark and fast tore out of the treeline, straight at me, and when I spun back around for Rhys, the space beside me was already empty.