Page 70 of Fractured Fates

“I drew the short straw and had to oversee her undertaking her chores for York.”

My friend downs the last of his beer and pushes his stool backwards.

“Let’s go for a stroll. There are other matters we need to talk about.”

* * *

If Sundays suck,Mondays are far worse. The students are always in a bad mood and mine is no better.

Usually, I lounge around in bed until the very last moment, rocking up to my lessons five minutes late. Today, I’m in my office early again, reading through the old tomes I’ve stolen from the library, searching for a fucking solution to our current dilemma.

The students won’t expect me in my classroom until five minutes past nine, so I’m fucking surprised when there’s a knock on the door. I stare at it with disdain and return to the paragraph written in the old magical scripture that I’m trying to decipher.

Whoever it is standing the other side of the door is pretty persistent though, rapping their knuckles a second time against the wood.

But who am I kidding? I know exactly who it is. I can tell by that tug deep in my stomach, the one pulling me towards her.

Blackwaters.

I slam the book shut and stomp to the door, flinging it open.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I’m pissed off. About this situation, about our inability to find anything out about this girl, about my failure to find a fucking solution, about my life in general.

I never wanted to be a fucking teacher. But people like me have limited options. Something the authorities and my best friend’s father reminded me of when the offer was made.

Her presence outside my classroom door pisses me off a thousand times more.

“What?” I bark right in her face, satisfied when she can’t disguise the way that makes her flinch.

Good, I’m not here to be the fucking girl’s friend. I need to make that clear.

“Good morning to you too, Professor,” she says with a sarcastic smile.

Yeah, the brattiness is half the fucking problem. It isn’t just irritating. It also heats my blood.

“Lessons don’t start for another hour. This is my personal time that you are interrupting, Blackwaters, so get on with it, what the fuck do you want?”

Her face cracks. Her usually steely countenance falters. I take an automatic step towards her. “What is it?”

“My pig.”

Her pig? She’s fucking knocking on my door at eight in the morning, looking like her world ended, because of her stupid pig.

I don’t understand her. I don’t want to understand her.

I should slam the door in her face but I’m weak and so I can’t help asking, “What about your damn pig?”

“He’s missing.”

“He probably ran away. Arrow Hart Academy is no place for a pig.”

She shakes her head vehemently. “He would never do that.”

“He’s a pig. He has no logic or reason. You have no idea what he would or wouldn’t do.”

“It’s been me and him for a year. Just the two of us and the chickens. I know exactly what he would and wouldn’t do.”

I look away from her. She could have been here, at the academy, learning from me. Instead, she chose to live like that. Hiding. Alone. Barely surviving.