Page 33 of Endless Anger (Monsters Within #1)

“Not an opinion. Merely an observation. What benefit do you get from staring at that guy for an hour and a half twice a week?”

I start to retort again but pause instead, considering his words. My gaze shifts to the front where Professor Dupont bids the student goodbye and crouches down, sifting through his messenger bag. A couple of girls off to the side keep stealing looks at him and giggling, admiring from afar.

It’s true that the professor is an attractive man and not much older than most of us students. He was hired on right out of grad school and looks like he just stepped off the set of a movie.

Slowly, my eyes swivel back to the man I’ve known my entire life.

Asher is jealous.

A snort tumbles out of me. “Noelle spent a lot of time helping me perfect an audition for this class last semester. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone. That was the whole reason I chose to come here in the first place, but I guess I wouldn’t expect you to remember any of that. Or to care.”

He grabs my forearm as I get to my feet and try to push past him, but he’s still not looking at me. “I remember .”

My blood hums, but I shake the feeling off, refusing to let his words affect me. Scoffing, I ignore his claim. “So should I expect you in my Environmental Justice class in a few hours?”

“Would be a safe bet.”

Irritation boils under my skin. “At a certain point, this is just harassment.”

“At what point?” he snaps, those brown eyes finally meeting mine. They glow with an animalistic intensity, fierce and unyielding as he glowers.

I swallow a tiny gulp. “What?”

He leans in, the scent of his soap surrounding me.

It’s soft, clean, and so familiar, and I stop breathing because of it.

“At what point do you consider it harassment, pup? You got all the morals between us growing up, so do tell me where I fall on your scale of impropriety. I’m dying to know where your opinion of me stands. ”

“It’s low.” I lift my chin, defiance pulsing through my veins. “I told you I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Well, that’s too damn bad. I didn’t ask what you wanted. I asked how you felt .”

I blink. “How is that different?”

“Your wants are external. Always have been. They contrast with what you feel on the inside.”

“Are you trying to gaslight me into thinking I don’t actually hate you?” I ask. “Sorry, pretty boy , but in this case, my wants and my secret feelings are one and the same.”

“You’re such a goddamn liar, Lucy.”

Rage singes my nerve endings. “How dare you call me a liar, you fucking hypocrite? ”

“Takes one to know one.”

“All I have ever done was tell you the truth, Asher. And all you’ve ever done is punish me for it.” My voice breaks, tears springing to my eyes, making me loathe him even more.

His hold on me vanishes, like I’ve burned him—yet somehow I’m the one in pain.

“Ms. Wolfe,” Professor Dupont calls from the stage. He’s at the edge, arms crossed over his chest. “Could I see you in my office before you leave?”

My face heats. Asher tenses.

“It’ll just be a moment,” Professor Dupont adds.

I nod, the muscles in my arms growing taut.

Asher gets up, gripping his backpack in one fist. With the other, he shoves a piece of torn paper into my hand, his brows drawn together and mouth in a firm line.

“You should pay more attention in class.”

The crumpled paper hosts his sketches on it but also the notes he took in between. The definition of eponymous , the entire basic structure of creating a performance in ancient Greece, as well as a site to visit for test prep.

Notes that I know he doesn’t need because retaining information has always been effortless for him.

Notes he took for me.

When I look back up to ask about it, Asher’s already gone.

Professor Dupont’s office is a small room in the Lyceum’s annex, down a back hall from the auditorium.

With a deep orange love seat, a large mahogany desk, black-and-white film posters plastered on the dark sage walls, and a bust of Shakespeare sitting in the lone window, it somehow manages to feel a lot cozier than the dean’s.

There’s something disarming about the professor too, despite the knowledge that he’s a notoriously tough grader and unforgiving in his performance critiques. But I suppose you’d need to be to keep up a decent reputation around here.

Given the Duponts’ family history as major acting industry professionals, it’s no surprise he takes his courses so seriously.

“Lucy,” he greets as I enter the room, still clutching the notes Asher gave me earlier. “Come in. Have a seat.”

He gestures toward a plastic chair across from his desk, and I perch on the edge of it, my stomach churning violently. If this is a progress report, I’m in deep shit.

“Professor Dupont, I can explain?—”

“Call me Sutton. Professor makes me sound like I’m a million years old.”

I swallow, squeezing my hands in my lap. “Okay…”

But I don’t call him that. It feels weird.

I feel weird.

“There’s no reason to be nervous,” he says, offering a small smile around a giant coffee mug. His dark green eyes are even more intense up close, like the insides of raw gemstones, his jaw just as lethal. No wonder half the campus is in love with him.

“That’s what everyone says,” I point out, though my tongue is dry.

“And so very few mean it as much as I do.”

He sets the mug down, resting his forearms on the desk. His skin has a very slight tan, as if he spent his summer somewhere sunny, and his dark brown hair is slightly tousled from how often he runs his fingers through it while lecturing.

“If you think this is going to be a crucifixion for your repeated tardiness, allow me to put you at ease: in my time teaching this class, I’ve yet to have a more memorable audition for entry than I did with yours in the spring.

That performance, your rendition of An Ideal Husband , haunts me still.

So no, I don’t particularly care whether you show up on time or not. ”

I don’t even remember doing it , my mind screeches. Even though I spent so much time practicing with Noelle and my aunt Ariana, both performers, I have no recollection of getting onstage for him. It’s like I blacked out for the monologue and woke up with a pass.

My shoulders relax slightly anyway. “Aren’t I technically failing though?”

“Omne initium difficile est. Every beginning is difficult.”

“Can this still be considered the beginning, when we’re weeks into the semester now?”

“The beginning starts whenever you decide so.”

I must have a blank expression on my face, because he leans forward and continues.

“Technically, by Avernia standards, yes. You’re failing.” He shrugs. “I don’t tend to judge by their parameters though. I think doing so can be a bit messy, and there are other ways of testing whether a person is absorbing material. Don’t get too hung up on letter grades.”

I nod, though I’m not entirely convinced. It’s not the first time I’ve been told something similar and still had the grading scale favor otherwise.

“Simply put, I only called you in here today to see how you were doing.”

“With what?”

“Well, it’s not every day a fellow student is murdered on campus. Even less common for their bodies to be deposited in a dorm room. That would shake even the strongest soldier, I’d think.”

Celeste’s face pops up in my vision, taunting me. Eyeless holes stare back as blood pours from the sockets, turning everything in my direct line of sight crimson?—

Clearing my throat, I square my shoulders and blink, dispelling the mirage. “I’m okay.”

Professor Dupont watches me for several beats, and I can’t help wondering what he’s looking for. If he finds it.

After a moment, he brings his hands up beneath his chin, balancing it on two extended fingers. “There’ve been…murmurings, Lucy.”

Panic floods my nervous system. “I didn’t do it. ”

He gives a long, slow blink. “I never said you did. I’ve heard your speeches on civility and ethics, and after you petitioned Fury Hill authorities to stop detaining students simply leaving Lethe’s intoxicated, I find it difficult to believe you’d harm your peers.

You’re an ecological science major. You protested your introductory biology class because they were using fetal pigs, for Christ’s sake. ”

Actions can be deceiving , I almost say. Just because I didn’t kill Celeste doesn’t mean I’m innocent of everything.

I didn’t help her either. That makes me just as bad—maybe even worse—than the ones who took her life.

My heart thumps loudly in my chest. “You know an awful lot about me.”

“I make it a point to know a lot about interesting students. Especially ones that cause positive disruptions on campus.” He exhales slowly, leaning back.

“God, I sound like my father when I say that. Really, Lucy, my only intent in bringing you here was to make sure you were doing okay. I know it’s been a rough few weeks. ”

Yet he’s never once come to my defense. “And I said I’m fine.”

“It would be understandable if you weren’t though. I’ve skimmed The Delphic Pages once or twice this morning.” He pauses, smoothing a free hand over his jawline. “I know it was a gruesome sight you stumbled upon.”

Meeting his gaze, I pretend the sheen of his irises doesn’t remind me of the Primordial Forest. I pretend this entire situation feels normal, him checking on me, and not like some convoluted plot to get me to confess to something I didn’t do.

All I’ve ever wanted was for someone other than my parents to be concerned about my well-being, and now that I’ve got it, I can’t help feeling like it’s some sort of trap.

Just how much does he know about the crime scene?

How much does Pythia know, and why?

“I’d probably care more about Pythia’s reports if she wasn’t always fueling the lies about me,” I tell him .

“She? Why do you assume the moderator is a woman?”

Heat fans my face. “Well, it’s not that I think the person behind her is, but she’s named after the most famous oracle at Delphi, right? And she takes on this personality of prophetess in some capacity, being the first to leak rumors and news schoolwide. So Pythia , as a concept, is a woman.”

“Interesting.” Professor Dupont considers this analysis, rubbing his chin. “I like that idea. I always just figured the dean plucked a random tie-in to ancient Greek culture to impress the alumni.”

“I guess that’s possible too.”

“Indeed. Few care more about appearances than that man.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if he was Pythia, to be honest.”

I’m not really sure why I say it, but Professor Dupont laughs anyway.

“I doubt I’d enjoy it as much if he was. But don’t go spreading that around campus,” he says after a few seconds, pinning me with a bright smile. “If the department head knew I was a sucker for that gossip site, they’d have my job, I’m sure of it.”

I huff out a breath of air that’s almost a laugh. As a founding family member of Avernia, Professor Dupont’s status at the school is basically written in stone.

If you believe the what they say about the caves, which are etched into the mountains bordering campus, his name is literally carved there.

A fate, like so many others in Fury Hill, determined long before he was born.

Beckett’s words from the other morning ring in my mind. How he’d been so curious about Celeste and the fact that I know it was him I heard out there that night.

Since the professor is his older brother, I can’t shake my suspicion that this meeting has more to it than I’m being told.

But if this is how he wants to play, I’m game.