Page 40 of Skalterra By Nightmare (The Skalterra Duology #1)

A million excuses ran through my head, but none of them could explain away the stolen flyer in Liam’s hand.

“Why do you have this?”

he asked, still staring at Riley’s wrinkled picture.

“Did you go through my backpack?”

The anger that rose inside me was a defense mechanism. I knew that. If I was angry, how could I be guilty? But I clung to it. That was my bag, after all. Nothing gave Liam the right to go through my things.

“No. It was on the floor.”

Liam raised his eyes from the flyer to my face.

“Why do you have this?”

“It’s probably an extra from when I reposted the flyers a few weeks ago,” I lied.

“It has Sabrina’s lipstick on it.”

My heart sank further. That first flyer we’d posted, Sabrina had stood on her tip-toes to give it a kiss, and Liam had laughed about her lipstick staining the paper.

I shook my head. I could feel my guilt written across my face, and Liam, who had only ever looked at me with kindness, even when I’d been rude, glowered back.

“I don’t know what to say,”

I admitted.

“Say that you’re the one who took down all of Riley’s posters.”

“I am.”

There was no use lying. He was holding the evidence in his hands.

“Who told you to do it?”

“No one.”

The lie was easy, but my delivery of it wasn’t nearly convincing enough.

“You wouldn’t do this, Wren.”

Liam held the flyer up. It felt like both he and the picture of Riley were glaring at me.

“So who told you to do it?”

I shook my head. He loved Gams. I’d take the fall a thousand times before I ruined that.

“I told you. No one.”

He lowered the paper and nodded.

“Ethel, then.”

My silence confirmed his guess, and his shoulders heaved with the weight of a sigh.

“And when she told you to replace them, was that even real?”

His voice broke, betraying the hurt that lay beneath his simmering anger.

“Yes and no,”

I said.

“I wasn’t supposed to post new ones, but I did. Or I tried to. She took them down again after those girls came to the shop.”

Liam dropped the paper and ran his hands over his face.

“She was trying to protect you—”

I started.

“I didn’t ask for that,”

he snapped.

“I don’t care how many people come to gawk at me if it means Riley is found.”

“I know—”

“Then why did you take them down?”

His voice rose into a shout, but he immediately retreated back a few steps and hid his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry.”

“My best friend is gone, and everyone is rushing to forget he ever existed. The same way they did when my parents left.”

I felt tiny and stupid standing in the entryway of the hotel room in my blazer and pencil skirt. I knew taking the posters down had been wrong. I knew he’d be hurt if he found out. I had no defense for myself.

“Liam—”

“Do you know how to get to campus from here?”

He wouldn’t make eye contact with me, staring instead at the door behind me.

“Yes.”

“And you remember where College Hall was?”

I nodded, and even though he refused to look at me, he must’ve seen the affirmation in his periphery, because he nodded too.

“Okay. I’ll be at the train station. If you get lost, you can call me.”

He grabbed his hoodie and his backpack from the bed, and I stepped back into the bathroom to clear him a path to the door.

“Liam, I’m sorry,”

I said as he passed. He paused with his hand on the door handle.

“Don’t overthink your interview.”

He pulled the door open, and finally looked back at me. His features were set in a stern frown, but his eyes were wide with hurt.

“You’ll do fine.”

He stepped into the hall, and the heavy, metal door swung shut, leaving me alone in the hotel room.

I didn’t even have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself, because no matter how I looked at it, I deserved Liam’s anger. I knew it had been wrong to take the posters down and that it had been wrong to lie about it.

And it had been dumb to never get rid of the evidence. The flyer was now ripped to shreds in the trash basket of the hotel room, and every step I took along the sidewalk loosened the knot in my chest a little more as I put distance between me and it.

I wished Liam had been meaner. I wished he’d said something terrible that would put him on the same field as me. Instead he’d made sure I knew how to get to my interview and wished me luck.

He really was the worst.

He deserved better.

Von Leer University’s campus was just as beautiful as it had been the day before, and as I traveled between the spots of shade provided by the oak trees, I kept my eyes on the squirrels, counting their tails and wishing Liam was here to help.

In a weird way, my blunder with the flyer was helping me. I was much more worried about Liam than I was my approaching interview.

I felt like a faker walking up the steep, stone steps to the massive double doors of College Hall, like the building itself knew I didn’t belong there. The entry hall smelled like an old book, with a dusty quality that was more inviting than off-putting, and I took a deep breath, trying to let the cozy scent calm me.

A plain white print-out taped to a music stand that rea.

“Admissions Offices”

stood in the middle of the hall with an arrow pointing to the door on my right. The frosted glass of the windows showed several silhouettes already inside, though it was hard to make out much else.

I took another steadying breath, vaguely wondering if Liam was okay at the train station, and then pushed into the office.

“Name?”

The woman at the front desk wore glasses on top of her head as she typed at her computer. She kept her eyes glued to her screen as I approached, seemingly unaware that her bun was already unraveling despite the bits of hair that hung in her face.

“Wren Warrender.”

She typed a bit more and then exhaled heavily.

“Sorry, one of our admissions officers called out today, so we’re running behind, but we can squeeze you in with someone else here in a little bit.”

I waited for further instruction at the desk, but after another moment of typing, she finally looked up at me.

“Did you have a question?”

“Oh!”

Embarrassment burned in my face.

“Um, no. Sorry.”

She gestured to the waiting area, and I pivoted on my heel, trying not to look at the other waitlisted hopefuls as I took a seat. A girl two chairs over repeatedly clicked on a pen. The boy in the seat next to me tapped his foot so rapidly that the floor beneath us trembled. He mumbled under his breath, apparently in the middle of a practice interview with an imaginary admissions officer.

I set my backpack between my feet and checked my phone, hoping for a text from Liam. I wouldn’t have even cared if it had said that he hated me. Anything would’ve been nice.

I only had a text from Mom.

“Good luck and have fun today! I’m proud to be your mom!”

Fresh guilt frothed inside me. I’d betrayed her last night, and sure, I’d reaped the punishment for it, but I still felt bad. She’d tried to protect me. I’d ignored her.

A girl with her head bowed low hurried out of a closed door down the adjoining hall, clutching a folder to her chest and refusing to look up. She burst through the door I’d come in through, and disappeared into the main corridor of College Hall.

“Mr. Parker?”

The woman at the desk looked at the boy next to me.

“Office number three. Second one on your left.”

The mumbling boy shot to his feet and staggered down the hall with short, nervous steps to the office the girl had just exited. His nerves set mine on edge, and I tried for another deep breath.

The thought of Liam alone at the train station made me choke on it, and I erupted in a fit of coughing as another prospective student came through the main door.

I closed my eyes. It would be fine. If I didn’t get in, maybe I could go to community college with Sabrina. I was pretty sure she hated me, but so did most people. I would get over it. Carpooling would be awkward, but maybe we’d agree on some nice audiobooks to fill the silence.

And then I could transfer to Von Leer next year. There was a chance Liam would still hate me by then, but after a year of carpooling with Sabrina, I would be toughened up.

If I failed my interview, it would be a setback, sure, but I would land on my feet. I’d find a way forward.

But then I remembered the plastic mannequin Linsey had hung from the trees, and the look of anger on my father’s face the night before when he’d learned who I was.

No.

I had to get in, even if it was just to spite them.

“Miss Warrender?”

I bolted to my feet, looking wildly at the woman at the desk.

“What?”

My heart rate soared to the point of being painful. I hadn’t even noticed Pen Girl get called back to her interview.

“Office Five?”

The woman said it in a tone that implied she’d already told me this.

“Right.”

My voice was too high-pitched.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. I was just making sure.”

I got quieter with each word, and then after an awkward pause, I scooped my backpack up and hurried down the hall. The previous student had left the door to Office Five open, and the admissions officer stood with his back to me, messing with the filing cabinet behind his desk.

“Come in, come in! Please!”

he called.

Summer sunshine poured through the large window to my right. That and the bookshelf full of old, leather-bound tomes and knick-knacks to my left made the office feel a little more inviting than daunting. I stepped in, steadying my breathing as I closed the door behind me.

“Sorry about the wait,”

the admissions officer said. He messed with the sleeves of his button-up that he wore under a wool waistcoat, rolling them up to his elbows.

“Give me just a moment to pull your file up on the computer. Things have been a bit crazy this morning. What was your name?”

He turned around to take a seat, and flashed me a wide, assured smile that glinted white under his cockatoo-coiffed hair.

My breath caught, and my palms turned sweaty even as all the heat seemed to seep out of the office, leaving me frozen in place. For all the hours I’d spent going over practice questions with Liam, nothing in either of the two worlds could have prepared me for this.

My admissions officer, the only man standing between me and admittance to my dream school, was Ferrin Quillguard.