Page 29 of Legacy Wolf: Semester One (Legacy Wolf #1)

RAWLING

“Who’s that?”

Jack and I were in a storeroom attached to Professor Stanton’s classroom.

Astronomy was my worst subject, and I’d asked the professor if I could borrow one of his telescopes.

He had a huge array of them, mostly in a little annex that jutted out from the roof.

It was all glass with a sliding section in the ceiling.

It wasn’t clear if he owned them or they belonged to the college, but the professor treated them as if they were his children.

He reacted with horror by clutching his chest and gasping as though he was in pain when I suggested he lend me a telescope.

“Absolutely not. They are not playthings.” He’d suggested there was a small one in his storeroom. He made a face and waved his hand dismissively. “I meant to throw it out. It might be of use to you.”

Turned out, the professor’s storeroom wasn’t one room, but a rabbit warren of tiny spaces, crowded with boxes and books and projects from former students, all covered in layers of dust.

So Jack and I had spent all Saturday morning searching and alternating sneezing and sniffling and stopping for snacks. She usually had a soccer match on Saturdays but not today. “Lucky me,” she grumbled as she poked her head into a cupboard and reams of paper slid onto the floor.

But as I rummaged through a large box, full of class and sporting team photos, I found a Phoenix House one from last semester. Atticus was sitting in front with Phelan beside him. All the usual faces were there. Channon was grinning, and Bardoul looked into the distance rather than at the camera.

There was one guy with sandy-colored hair at the back, on the far right, that I didn’t recognize, and I brushed dirt off the frame and sat beside Jack as she shuffled papers back into the cupboard.

I repeated my question. “Who’s that?”

Jack shrugged. “No idea.”

I’d never given much thought to why Jack and I were given a place in second semester.

If I had, I would have assumed someone had moved to another school because Sombertooth was their second choice or they did something so unforgivable they’d been expelled.

If the latter, they mustn’t have had the connections that Atticus’s family had.

“But this was taken a few months ago.” Why was it stuffed in a box in a storeroom instead of being on a wall in one of Sombertooth’s many hallways?

“You’re right.” I took the photo and peered at it. “And there’s another guy beside him I don’t recognize. Weird. Where did you find it?”

I dragged the box between us, and we studied the photos. Some were of sporting teams, others were of interest groups such as judo or photography. The sandy-haired guy was in all of them, but the other one was only in a handful.

Jack picked up a bunch of papers from the bottom of the box. “These are assignments, dated from November.”

I was surprised that Professor Stanton kept hard copies. We sent our work electronically. Why would he print them off? A waste of time and paper.

“This essay was written by a Mika. Do we know any Mikas?”

“Nope.” Jack was more sociable than I was and knew far more people at Sombertooth.

Wherever we went, people would greet her, ask about soccer or how her current art project was going.

“But my guess is it’s one of these two guys.

” She pointed out the sandy-haired guy and the second unknown student in the first picture.

I snapped a pic of both with my phone, but as I replaced the photos in the box, I looked into the cupboard. “You’re a genius.”

“Ummm, I know.” Jack grinned. “But why in particular, ‘cause I’m sitting here surrounded by dirt and dust bunnies?”

“The telescope.” It was in a box that was falling apart, so ignoring the brittle cardboard, I picked it up.

We packed everything away as best we could.

Based on the untidiness of the room, I doubted the professor cared and possibly never entered the room.

He had a TA, so maybe it was that guy’s doing.

Making our way back to our room, we met Channon and Bardoul coming from the opposite direction.

“Who’s Mika?” I asked.

Whatever reaction I expected from them, it was nothing to what they did.

Channon shoved a hand over my mouth and glanced around, but it was just us four.

It was lunch time, and one thing Phoenix House members did better than the other houses was eat.

Some shoveled food in their mouths. Maybe it was all the shifting and hunting.

But the students in other houses did that too, and they didn’t consume as much food as my fellow Phoenixes did.

“Take that thing to your room.” Bardoul jerked his head at the telescope, “and meet us in the middle of the football field.” He grabbed Jack’s hand, turned his nose up at how filthy it was, and the three of them took off.

What the fuck? The guy must have done something really bad if they refused to talk about him. But why were we going out in the open? Why not in the courtyard? After putting the telescope in our room, I galloped down the stairs, two at a time, almost knocking Phelan over at the bottom.

“You’re dirty.”

He was stating the obvious, but it was so rare for him to acknowledge me, I replied, “And don’t you wish you were getting dirty with me?

” I flashed him a grin and took off, and when I glanced over my shoulder, he was standing there, mouth gaping.

Atticus walked in and said something before climbing the stairs, but Phelan didn’t move.

One point to me.

I loved his reaction. Nope, not loved. Liked. Yeah, no love. Never love.

If Channon and Bardoul had spilled all the deets to Jack before I arrived, I’d be peeved. I hated being the last to know. Until Jack confirmed shifters existed, I’d been the only person in Sombertooth unaware of that.

No one was playing or practicing football. Just my three friends huddled in the middle.

“Hurry,” Jack yelled. “The suspense is killing me.”

Excellent. They’d waited.

“Okay, what’s so shocking that you had to bring us out here? Did he get into an argument with a professor?” I queried.

“Or cheat on a test?” Jack asked.

“Or worse, did he sleep with Atticus who got bored with him and insisted he leave Sombertooth?”

Jack’s nostrils flared, and I swore I caught a glimpse of her missing bear.

“Sorry. That was wrong of me,” I quipped.

“Well, go on. Tell us.” Jack folded her arms.

“He died.” Channon’s bottom lip quivered.

“What?” Damn, now I felt bad for making jokes about the guy. He had his whole life ahead of him and he’d never get to experience so many of life’s pleasures. “That’s really sad.”

“Was he sick?” Jack tugged her arm in mine.

Bardoul shook his head.

“So how did he…?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Bardoul said. “No one will talk about it. But he went for a run one night by himself, and that was the last we saw of him.”

Channon interjected, “But someone said they saw him later and that he snuck into town.”

Fuck, I’d never been comfortable even close to the woods, but surely the guy was a shifter. But how could I ask if he was?

Jack picked up where I left off. “Was he a wolf?” Many of our Phoenix House members were, though not Channon, who was a fox.

“No,” our friends answered in unison. “A raccoon.”

“It’s all hush hush. No one mentions his name,” Channon added.

The sinking feeling in my belly warned me of the answer to my next question before I’d asked it. “Which room was his?”

“Yours,” they both said.

Why did I ask when I was certain of the answer?

“Who was his roommate?” Jack wanted to know.

“Kendric. He left after Mika’s death. They were besties, and he wasn’t coping well. I think he took a year off and was planning on returning to Sombertooth, but I doubt he will,” Bardoul explained.

“Too many painful memories.”

I showed them the photo I’d taken, and they confirmed the sandy-haired one was Mika while the other was Kendric.

The four of us returned to Phoenix House in silence.

I was lost in thoughts of a guy my age dying.

Had he been in his raccoon form if he died in the woods?

If so, a human might have killed him. But if that was the case, why were the Sombertooth students allowed to shift in the same area?

And was that why we weren’t encouraged to go into town if Mika died there?

I supposed it could have been accidental, such as a drug overdose or a hit and run. But why was it a secret?

I answered my own question. Because it would have damaged Sombertooth’s reputation.