The Hidden Tribid's Three Kings

ELIZABETH’S POV

I was on my way to my first class when someone knocked me off from behind. “Watch it you little psycho.” The lady who knocked me off yelled. 

I turned and there was a girl with burgundy hair staring at me with two other ladies behind her.

“I’m really sorry.” I know she’s the one who walked into me but I’m powerless and this is my first day and I genuinely don’t want trouble. “I didn’t mean to get in your way.”

“Do you know who I am?” she asked.

“Lily Chamberlain.” I said. “Queen of wolves.”

She wasn’t expecting that I guessed, because she looked utterly surprised. But recovered quickly.

“Then you should know better than to get in my way.” She said.

“Aren’t you the scholarship girl from this morning’s freshers assembly?” One of the ladies behind her asked, looking me over. “Elizabeth Siege, a scholarship student with no powers?”

“Yes.” I said. Bowing down my head in shame, and trying so hard not to tear up.

She turned to Lily and laughed. “They gave a scholarship to a powerless girl? For what exactly, breathing?”

Lily looked at me for one more second then walked away. “Stay out of my path.” She yelled without turning back.

I watched them leave then turned back around and kept walking. My knees hurt a little from where I hit the ground. But I wasn’t going to think about it.

They did announce my name at the freshers' assembly this morning. Elizabeth Siege, a scholarship student with no powers. Someone laughed from the back of the hall. 

I just smiled into the microphone and said thank you and sat back down.

My mom cried when my acceptance letter came, but I didn’t. I just read it three times to make sure it was real then folded it and put it in my bag. 

A fully funded scholarship to JossStrongton School For Powers, awarded on academic excellence. 

I immediately read all fourteen textbooks on the curriculum before I arrived. I needed to know what I was walking into.

I found the classroom and took a seat. Not the front row because I wasn’t here to get seen, I’m here to learn.

The room quickly got filled up. Werewolves sat together on one side. Vampires on the other side. And witches/wizards sat in the middle. Well I sat at the back too, but at the back, and nobody sat next to me also.

The class was about to begin when Andy Jostled walked in, and every person in that room sat up straighter without realizing it.

I read about him before I came. He was the Vampire king, and he has been the top of every class since his first year.

He has the kind of intelligence teachers talk about long after he leaves the room. He sat down and opened his notes without looking at anyone.

The teacher addressed the class right after, and the day’s lesson started.

I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I was just answering questions because I knew the answers, every single one of it. 

When the teacher asked something and the room went quiet I raised my hand. When she asked something harder I raised it again. 

By the fourth question I could feel people looking at me. By the sixth question Andy Jostled was looking at me.

“Miss Siege.” The teacher said after I answered the last question. She was smiling in this surprised way she probably didn’t know was showing. “That is exactly correct. That is the most precise answer I have received to that question in six years of teaching this course.”

The room was still very quiet. I didn’t know what to do with their compliment for real. 

Back home my teachers would write good in red pen at the top of my paper and move on. Nobody had ever said something like that to me in front of other people. “Thank you.” I said, and I meant it more than she probably knew.

I didn’t look at Andy. But I could feel that he hadn’t stopped looking at me.

After class I packed my notes and headed for the dorms. The hallway was busy with students moving between classes and I kept to the side and minded my business.

Then someone grabbed my arm from behind and pulled me sideways.

I turned and it was a girl in a dark blazer with a small silver pin on the lapel. I recognized the pin from the orientation file. She was Jasmine Doni, the Vampire queen.

“You embarrassed him in there. You know that right?” She almost yelled.

“I just answered the questions.” I replied carefully, because I don’t want to get her more pissed off.

“Andy doesn’t get outanswered.” She stepped closer. “Not in his own classroom. Not by anyone, and especially not by some powerless scholarship girl who has no business being here.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” I was already thinking about how to end this conversation and get to my dorm.

But then she freaking slapped me. A full and hard slap, that it even made my head turn with it. My cheek started burning immediately.

“Apologize properly.” She said, “Apologize for embarrassing him and for thinking your little brain makes you equal to anyone in this school.”

I turned my face back to her slowly. My cheek was on fire as tears were already gathering around the corner of my eyes.

“You are powerless.” She said it quietly, which was worse than the yelling somehow. “You have nothing. You are nothing. Say sorry and maybe I won’t make the rest of your years here a nightmare.”

I opened my mouth to apologize but something happened. Something inside my chest that I don’t have words for, it was very hot, like it had been sitting still and just stood up. 

And it made my hand come up and I slapped her back before I could think about what I was doing.

She stumbled back. Then she fell. Her friends, or rather, her minors stared at me in shock.

I stood there staring at her on the floor. That wasn’t right. I only hit her with the same force she used on me, maybe even less, and she went down like something much stronger than a hand had hit her.

Then I saw the blood, they were coming out from her mouth. And even her eyes.

Her two friends started screaming. Students in the hallway were stopping and staring. Some were even videotaping us.

I looked at my hand. Then at Jasmine on the floor. Then at my hand again.

I don’t have powers. I have never had powers. There is nothing in me, no bloodline, no gene, no magic, the doctors confirmed it when I was nine years old and my mom held my hand the whole time they told us.

So what did I just do? What just happened right now?​​​​​​​​​​​​​