Page 32 of Endless Anger (Monsters Within #1)

LUCY

There’s only one professor employed by Avernia College who truly has no qualms when his students show up late, so long as they’re doing well in his class.

When I slip inside the back of a dusty auditorium in the Lyceum, and meet the intense jade green eyes of Professor Dupont, I know I’ve fucked up.

Still, I quietly slide into a seat in the last row, setting my bag in the chair next to me.

I’m not that late—by my usual standards at least. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t manage my time well. Add in the fact that I spent the better half of the night giving a bland statement to the police after the nightmare in my dorm, and being on time hardly seemed like it was an option.

Avernia should be fucking grateful I’m here at all, considering.

It’s doubtful Professor Dupont will let me explain that though. Especially since I didn’t finish the Antigone assignment or any of the ones from the previous six classes.

The man is forgiving to a fault unless he thinks you’re falling behind.

A small tear in the knee of my tights draws my attention, and I groan under my breath, pinching the fabric .

Professor Dupont draws a theater on his mobile chalkboard onstage, cross-referencing the places where actors would have stood in ancient Greece.

As I try to focus on what he’s saying, my gaze snags on someone several rows ahead of me: a mop of jet-black hair obscures his face, but I’d recognize him anywhere.

I roll my eyes. Of course he’s in here. Never mind that it’s a course requiring an audition for admission and that he’s a late addition to the Avernia roster. Everything always seems to work out for him anyway.

Laughter surrounds him like a séance circle, and he sticks out like a tower in the middle.

Girls flank his sides, the two seats before him and two behind.

One with dark brown skin and tight curls tied back at the nape of her neck—Muna something.

Other than Beckett, she’s one of the only Curators to speak to me since freshman year.

Considering it’s the first I’ve seen her in this Staging the Greeks course so far, I assume she was the guide assigned to the shiny new toy.

Back home, he abhorred attention; whether people studied him because of who his parents were or because they thought he was cute, scrutiny always got under his skin, drawing violence to the surface like baking soda sucking out a splinter.

Sometimes, I think that’s why he stuck so close to my side. Being left alone is so much easier when your existence makes others uncomfortable, though he did seem to get into more fights when I was around.

Not that he ever complained.

A redhead sits next to Muna, his pale, freckled skin almost moon white in the overhead lighting. He’s got on a dark sports jacket and oval-framed glasses. He’s the only one of the group not paying Asher any mind.

At the edge of the groupie circle, Beckett has one leg crossed over the other, his frame practically spilling onto the other seats as he gawks at Asher. He toys with a strand of hair in front of his face, clearly trying to appear bored, even as his slimy gaze remains on the new student.

Asher and I lock eyes when he turns his head slightly in my direction. My lungs constrict as if trying to seal themselves off from air, while the events of the night he first showed up play on a loop in my mind.

Ever since then, my brain’s been a broken record, rotating between Celeste’s screams and Asher’s warm brown irises.

My thoughts shift back: Celeste’s pleas for those guys to stop and how they seemed to get off on it.

Then Asher’s body pressing against mine in the forest as we hid from whoever killed Celeste. How he’d been covered in wet crimson, painted in blood like a stuck pig. Soaked in sweat but breathing normally.

He never did explain what that was about.

And then he’d sent me out of the dorm when we discovered the two corpses in my room, insisting I contact the police. I didn’t see or hear from him again, and I spent my night in the Obeliskos bathroom while he was God knows where.

Not with me, that’s for sure.

Resentment seizes my heart, squeezing it inside my chest. Would it have been so horrible to stay and comfort me, even if I turned him away? Would trying to make me feel less terrified have been that difficult?

When my gaze refocuses, I notice Asher’s still looking at me.

I don’t think he ever looked away.

Unable to deal with that realization, I break contact, facing the stage once more.

Professor Dupont turns back to the class as he launches into his lecture, dusting his hands off on his slacks. The sleeves of his black button-down are rolled up haphazardly, and I can’t rip my gaze from the differing lengths.

It feels off, since the man typically seems so polished and put together, and it’s all I can look at.

For about ten seconds.

“Now, I know this may seem like a superfluous course to a lot of you. Especially those taking me as an easy credit.”

A few students cough out laughs. No one could ever accuse Professor Dupont of being easy .

You take his classes because you want to learn from the renowned actor himself, not because you’re planning on coasting through.

“But the point of life isn’t to just get by . There has to be structure. Order. Otherwise, we descend into chaos. We spent the first part of the semester discussing the schools of thought, and how they influenced art in ancient societies, and now we shift into application.”

His green eyes find mine as he finishes the sentence, and my hands curl into fists in my lap.

“We’ll start with the basic formulation of the birth of a play in ancient Greece. Beginning with its conception and moving on to the archon eponymous proposal. Does anyone know why they were called an eponymous?”

I’m jostled in my seat as someone flops down into the one directly beside me.

My peripheral vision shows black hair and a frame of lean muscle, clad in a burgundy knit sweater.

A backpack sits half-deflated in his lap, and he pulls out a notebook, flipping to a page with a dozen unfinished sketches on it.

He doesn’t look my way, even when I turn my chin fully in his direction. I scan him from head to toe, cataloging every inch to see if anything feels new or jarring. If people regenerate their skin every seven years, he should be about twenty-three percent an entirely different person.

Yet… The scar slashing across his lip remains. The one he got when a food fight with Foxe at school turned brutal. I took an elbow to the face by the tight end of the football team, and Asher shattered the guy’s jaw.

There’d been blood everywhere after that. His parents donated a new cafeteria to keep him from being sent off for his aggression.

I don’t know what happened to the football player, but it was the first time I looked at Asher and realized he always seemed to have blood on him. It was a staple.

And even though I’d spent my life building my morals around pacifism and activism through peaceful efforts, I realized I didn’t much mind how it looked on him.

Back then . Before he ruined everything .

Now when he shows up soaked in it, I’m not sure what to think.

Shrinking in my seat, I pull my feet in from the aisle and look at Professor Dupont. After three seconds of trying to focus, my gaze floats over to the group of students Asher left behind, and my heart ricochets in my chest.

They’re all staring. Glaring, really.

Especially Beckett.

“Your entourage misses you,” I huff under my breath.

Asher doesn’t comment.

I shift in my seat, then pull one leg up, folding it beneath me. “Sitting here was a mistake. Campus will probably be talking about you for a week.”

Still, he’s silent. He picks up his pencil and starts writing in the margins of his notebook, between sketches of faceless characters and monstrous creatures. Anxiety compresses my lungs as I trace the outlines of the drawings, so I quickly look away.

“They’re practically leering , you know.”

“I don’t fucking care.” He taps his pencil on the desk. “I’m trying to learn.”

Putting both feet back on the floor, I squint at the front of the auditorium, attempting to get roped into the lecture once more. But there’s a restlessness skittering through my bones, something scratching at the edges of my focus, and I can’t stop my gaze from bouncing around the room.

I feel confined, like I’m stuck in a box rather than a folding chair, and there’s no way out.

My hand swipes against the desk, brushing off debris from erasers. I repeat the motion idly as I search for something else in the room to pay attention to.

Sweeping turns to tapping, and I don’t even realize I’m doing it until a larger hand comes over mine, warm and gentle as it halts me.

His knuckles are bruised and a little scabbed over. I peer at the mangled skin, wondering what the fuck he spends his free time doing. If he was involved in what happened to Celeste that night—if I should be worried about his sudden reappearance into my life.

When I glance back up, class has been dismissed. Time has passed again without me realizing.

Students exit the room, some slinging backpacks over their shoulders, others cradling textbooks to their chests. Onstage below, Professor Dupont stands with three people in Curator blazers, listening intently as the one in the middle speaks with animated hand gestures.

Asher pulls away, and my fingers are immediately enveloped by the chilly auditorium air. He stuffs his notebook into his backpack, zipping slowly, and doesn’t look at me once.

The sharp angles of his face make him look angry. Angrier than he usually is.

“What are you even doing in a theater class?” he asks suddenly, his voice gruff and annoyed. Like he has any right to be.

“It’s an elective.”

“You’re an ecology major. I imagine there were probably a dozen more appropriate courses you could have taken.”

My molars grind together. “Who asked for your opinion?”