Chapter 89 First Week, New Eyes
Malia's POV
The alarm screams into the dark at 6:45 a.m. on the dot -- same tone, same volume, same merciless waking-call every semester morning. I slap it silent and lie there in my dorm room.
There are lovely young girls in long skirts and the air smells of faint salt still hangs over my favourite jumper from the island, even after two washes. It’s the only thing they have left to remind them any of it was real.
I haven’t seen Aiden since last night. He texted around midnight--just Sleep well--and nothing since. The space between our buildings seems larger than it did before the island, like someone stretched the campus while we were gone and forgot to tell us.
I drag myself up, shower in water that never quite gets hot enough, shove on jeans and a clean shirt, touch the moonstone pendant at my throat for luck I don’t believe in. The stone is cool, smooth, heavier than it should be. I roll it between my fingers until the chain tugs against my skin, then grab my backpack and go.
—------
When I walk outside campus is half asleep. Earlybirds with earbuds and looks of determination, maintenance trucks rumbling near the science building, the first leaves already turning gold at the edges of barely-september. No one gives me a second look. Yet.
First class: Supernatural Lineage 301. Room 214 Hamilton Hall 3rd floor. Aiden brought this up last semester — griped about the professor, actually, though he never got more specific than that. Said she was “intense” and “had opinions.” I didn’t pay much attention then. Could have.
I slip in three minutes early and slide into a seat near middle-left — not too eager, not too hidden. The room is gradually populated—familiar faces from other classes, strangers I have not met, the low buzz of phones and gossip and complaints about summer going too fast. I keep my head down, my notebook open, the pen tapping a tempo on the desk that matches the beat of my heart.
The door opens at exactly 9:00.
Madame Vespa bursts in as if she owns not only this room but the very idea of authority.
Tall — taller than most men here, easily six feet in heels — red-framed glasses catching the overhead fluorescent lights, dark hair pulled back into a flawless chignon that likely needed engineering.
Black blazer nipped in at the waist and buttoned just so, white blouse with the throat popped, charcoal pencil skirt, heels that click like gunshots on tile. With her leather portfolio under her arm, her very presence in the room is enough to make us all start breathing through shallower airways.
She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t say hello. Doesn’t do the typical “first day of class” bit about how exciting the syllabus is and when the office hours are.
She places the portfolio on the podium with the sound of a gavel, adjusts the microphone, despite the room being so small that she doesn’t need it, and begins.
"Roll call."
The names she rattles off—snap, crisp, each one pronounced as if it were being recorded for the ages. When she gets to mine, her eyes rise from the list and she looks at me as if she already knows exactly where I’d be sitting.
"Malia Reed."
I raise my hand halfway. "Here."
She holds my stare two seconds longer than necessary—long enough for my skin to prickle, long enough to have to make the first effort to break eye contact. Then, in flat voice, “I can confirm this is hybrid status. Scholarship student. Noted."
Some people turn their heads. A ripple of whispers breaks out like dominoes.
She ticks the box with a red pen. Next.
I look around quickly. Aiden is two rows ahead, rigid in profile, facing straight forward.
The lecture starts.
Lineage. Inheritance. Power dilution through the generations. The perils of cross-breeding, the historical meaning of bloodline purity. Her voice is like ice over steel—smooth, cold and cuts toward any warm feeling the room could have contained. All slides are immaculate. All sentences hit with intent.
And each time she utters the term “hybrid,” her eyes dart in my direction. Subtle. Not dramatic. Just enough that I feel it in my chest, in the sudden tightness behind my sternum.
"Cross-lineage bonds," she says halfway through the lecture as she advances to an image of two overlapping family trees that have a red X obscuring the meeting point, "...are volatile by definition. Studies show heightened emotional instability, physical abnormalities, unpredictable expressions of inherited characteristics."
She pauses, takes off her glasses, cleans them with a tissue from her blazer pocket. “Especially scholarship students, for they need to establish an extraordinary level of self-discipline and academic rigor to prove that they are worthy of remaining in the advanced-exam class.”
Someone in the front row—a guy with slicked-back hair and a family crest pin on his collar—snickers quietly. His friend elbows him but grins too.
My fangs itch—pin-pricks, like they’re pressing down on my lower lip as if that’s where they want to come out. Not now!
I bite down hard. Taste copper. Swallow it before anyone sees.
Aiden’s shoulders are as rigid as iron.
The lecture continues. I scriven mechanically, hardly aware of what I’m saying.
Class is over at 10:15. Vespa puts down her marker, snaps her portfolio shut with a definitive snap.
“Malia Reed. A word before you go.”
The room goes silent. Then empties fast, students gathering bags, whispering, glancing back as they file out. Aiden lingers at the door, hand on the frame, looking back at me with questions in his eyes. I nod once—go, I’m fine—even though I’m not sure I am. He leaves slowly.
Vespa waits until the last footstep fades. Until the door clicks shut. Until we’re alone.
Again, she removes her glasses. With precise motions she folds them. Puts their on the podium with calculated care as if laying a weapon on arm’s length.
“Your entrance essay,” she says with a stapled sheet of paper sliding on the desk. Red ink everywhere—margins, between lines, in the middle of paragraphs. 62/100 circled at the top in a red so dark it's almost black.
I don’t touch it. Just stare.
“You romanticize the multi-alpha bond dynamic,” she continues, voice clinical. “You take a theoretical impossibility and portray it as established fact. You cite emotional experiences rather than peer-reviewed studies. The work is,”she adds, “'really just the quality of an undergrad's work'."
“The bond exists,” I say quietly. “I didn’t make it up.”
“For you, maybe.” She advanced, heels clicking once, twice. 'But the council does not deal in romance, Miss Reed. It operates in stability. In legacy. In power. In that which can be measured, documented, and reproduced. Your… personal situation is an anomaly. Not a precedent.”
My fangs press harder against my lip. I taste blood again, sharper this time.
“You will attend remedial sessions,” she says, tone not leaving room for bargaining. “Twice weekly. On Tuesdays and Thursdays. Seven p.m. sharp. Room 102, basement level Be on time Attendance is required... Failure to keep your attendance is necessary for your scholarship Continuity."
I nod once. I did't trust my voice.
She cocks her head slightly, examining me as if I'm a specimen behind glass. “And Malia?”
I meet her eyes. Resist the urge to blink.
“If your… ‘entourage’ continues to divert you from academic greatness, your scholarship will not last through this semester. Nor will your ticket of admission. Select your priorities carefully.”
She replaces her glasses. The red frames are catching the light.
"Dismissed."
I walk away without a word. No snatching up the essay. No glance back.
—----
The hallway is blindingly bright, too loud with far-off voices and the banging of lockers and the old heating system humming to life. I’m moving swiftly—head down, hands trembling—until I reach the stairwell. I drop down on the bottom step, cup my hands over my eyes until I see stars.
My teeth can't pull back, won't settle. I bite down harder on my lip, let the blood collect, and then I swallow it and it’s metallic and warm.
The rest of the day is smog.
Ever had your lunch in the library stacks alone, somewhere between mythology and folklore, picking at a sandwich you can’t taste? None of them sits with me. Phones around me dings at other tables — whispers, glances, quick looks away when I lift my head. I’m hearing “hybrid” twice. “Scholarship” once. “Aiden” three times.”
Second class is canceled—professor sick. Skip the third class entirely, can’t do any more rooms full of eyes. By evening I'm back in my dorm room. Alone. The area seemed too vast, too quiet, the walls and floor were pressing in and pulling out at the same moment.
I touch the moonstone again. It's still cool. Still heavy. Still the only real thing I have left from the island.
I don't text Aiden. Don't want to seem needy, clingy, like Vespa said—a distraction.
He doesn't text me either.
I fall asleep with the lights on, phone clutched in one hand, waiting for the buzz that never comes.
The new semester has begun, and I'm already fidgeting.