Chapter 49 Chapter 0049

Chapter 49 Chapter 0049
•AVELINE•

"I will get your shirt dried," Matteo offered when we got inside my room. I went to the bathroom and washed my face before changing into a new shirt.

Matteo was at the door when I sat on the edge of the bed and huffed. I was irritated and wished that I had said something to Kaila before she walked away.

"It's okay, Ava," Matteo replied with my shirt in his hands. "I'll get this in the dryer and bring you something to eat. Would that be okay?"

"Don't bother yourself," I sighed as I got up from the bed and grabbed my bag from the study table. "I have a class to attend."

I walked to the door and told Matteo to lock it behind him. I didn't want to be in that room any longer. My mind was all over the place, and I needed some time alone.

To think everything through and try to understand how I ended up in room 5. It didn't make sense because no one could have paid for the room except for my father.

But he had already confirmed that he didn't when he acted surprised that my expulsion was revoked.

When I got outside the dorm building, my cell phone rang. I sighed when I saw my father's name on the screen.

I didn't want to talk to him. But when he called again after I hung up, I answered it. "What do you want, Dad? I'm going to class."

"Look," he sighed. "I understand that you're mad at me for what happened when I called you to come home, but that doesn't mean that you must call my assistant and report me. You can't get me fired from my own company, Aveline, or have you forgotten that?"

"What?" I scoffed as I stopped walking. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't call your office. Are you sure I am the one who called Kyle?"

He sighed. "Kyle confirmed it," he answered. "He responded that he spoke with you directly. That you told him I was stealing from the company accounts to cover your college fees." Another pause. "Do you understand how serious that accusation is? If it gets any further than Kyle's desk, I could lose everything, Aveline. The board would—"

"Dad." I kept my voice as steady as I could manage. "I didn’t call Kyle. I don't even have his number saved. I have never called your office directly in my life and you know that."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know. But it wasn't me."

He exhaled. "I want to believe you."

"Then believe me."

"It's just that after everything that's been happening," he replied. "With the expulsion and the room situation, I just hope that you haven't done something that could get you into worse trouble. Something that might get you kicked out for good this time."

He didn't trust me.

I stared at the path ahead of me and said nothing.

"Aveline—"

I hung up.

I stood there for a moment with the phone in my hand, and breathed through the tightness in my throat until it loosened enough that I could walk again.

I walked toward the academic building.

•••

The classroom was empty when I opened the door.

I stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at the rows of unoccupied seats and the darkened board at the front of the room, and then I checked my timetable on my phone. The class wasn't for another hour.

I almost left. But the alternative was going back to the dorm, or sitting somewhere on the grounds where anyone could approach me, and I didn't have the patience for either. So I went in, chose a seat toward the middle, and pulled my book from my bag.

For a while, it was quiet, enough that I could almost forget my father’s call.

I was three chapters further than I remembered starting when I heard the door open.

I didn't look up immediately. I assumed it was another student arriving early, maybe the lecturer doing a preliminary check of the room.

Then I heard the laugh.

"Well," Kaila answered. "Look at that. All alone."

I looked up.

She was standing in the doorway with her two minions who always followed her around.

She stepped inside and the others followed. The door swung shut behind them.

I closed my book and stood up from my chair. "Whatever you're planning, Kaila—"

"Grab her."

One of the girls moved fast before I could finish the sentence. I stepped back and felt my wolf surge upward in response, but before I could shift, something hit me at the back of my head.

It was a small object, and when it made contact with my skin, it shattered, and whatever was inside it absorbed instantly, and then the burning started.

It moved through me as if it were fire poured into my veins. I had never felt anything like it, a full-body agony that came from the inside out, radiating from my core to the ends of my fingers and dropping me to my knees before I had consciously registered falling.

My wolf retreated, and the connection to her was gone, swallowed by whatever was moving through me.

Wolfsbane. That was the only thing that felt like this.

My own voice surprised me when I screamed. I hadn't meant to. It tore out of me without permission, and my hands pressed flat against the floor as I tried to find something solid to hold onto.

Kaila's friends pulled me upright and half-dragged me to the podium at the front of the room.

I couldn't fight them. My body wasn't mine anymore. Every attempt to push back sent a fresh wave of burning through my chest that stole the air from my lungs.

Kaila walked up and stood in front of me. She looked at me and scoffed. "You should see your face right now."

I tried to speak, but what came out wasn't words.

She crouched so we were level, which was the worst part somehow, that deliberate effort to look me in the eye.

"I want you to understand something," she murmured. "Everything that has happened to you so far, the pictures, the cafeteria, the expulsion." She tilted her head. "That was just the beginning, Aveline. I am barely getting started."

She straightened up.

Another wave of burning moved through me and I bit down hard against another sound, my whole body shaking with the effort of containing it.

Kaila smoothed the front of her jacket and turned toward the door.

"Let her go," she responded to her friends.

They released me and I hit the floor of the podium on my hands and knees, gasping. I heard their footsteps cross the room, and heard the door open.

"Welcome back to school," Kaila replied from the doorway.

The door clicked shut behind them.

I stayed on the floor and focused on breathing, and the burning was already beginning to thin at the edges, but I passed out.