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I get some nods as they start to catch my drift.
“So I might paint this wall with an oppressive tilt in my direction as if it were closing in on me. Or how else might I show that?”
“You could paint bars,” someone throws out.
“Exactly. I could paint actual prison bars.”
“Or you could make the lockers look like prison bars–I know!” –Finally, one of my students gets excited– “You could have the lockers as prison bars and then have them bent open in the middle with a hole to the outside.”
“Yeah, and what if everything inside was black andwhite, and then the outside could be in full color?” Another student suggests.
I reward her with an encouraging smile. “Now that sounds like an art piece worth making.”
The janitor–Zory, I think his name is–arrives with the keys. He doesn’t look at me as he unlocks the door and pushes it open for me.
“Thank you, Zory,” I murmur.
He grunts in response and walks away without another word.
Someone has been inside the classroom recently. I catch the scent but can’t quite identify them. My clothes from last night are folded and neatly stacked behind my desk, underneath my purse.
Okay.I exhale the breath I’d been holding.
Someone had my back.
Maybe nothing is fucked here.
I go with the morning’s lesson, telling them that we’re going to take a break from their current pointillism project to try some rough sketches of the hallway.
A cheerleader raises her hand.
“Yes, Remi?”
“May I go out in the hallway to sketch?”
I hesitate. I would love to take my class out of the classroom and into the world to start seeing the world through an artist’s lens, but I’m not feeling brave enough to buck the system after my behavior last night.
That only compounds when the principal opens the door and leans in. “I need to see you after school.”
Fuck.
I’m probably about to be fired. Great. My first professional job lasted all of three weeks. I’m not sure whether Artist Me just self-sabotaged so I won’t sell out and stay inWolf Ridge, or this is the natural punishment for letting my wolf out.
I don’t know. I’m too much of a mess this morning to understand any of my failures or motivations since I arrived.
I swallow. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.”
I am so busted.
Chapter Four
Asher
My fingers close into fists as I stride down the hall. My knuckles crack and snap. Eric Damonella is going to die.
At lunch, I heard a rumor–a rumor I am going to kill him for.
Supposedly, he has a pair of Carlotta’s panties, and he’s saying he came here and hooked up with her during the full moon run last night.
