AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Vanda,” he continued.
I stifled my groan.
“Why are all harpies born insane?”
Fury burned my throat. I wasn’t a genius or teacher’s pet, but I’d never been one to make trouble in class. I did my homework, studied, got good grades, and loved going to school. Actually, I never understood all the teen shows and movies that said school sucked. What could be better than spending most of the day with your best friends, then running out to the pickup lane to a mom waiting with surprise ice cream?
But right then, sitting in that room and being forced to say “I don’t know. I don’t know” over and over as they heckled and called me stupid... I hated school more than a millennium in the psych ward.
“Vanda.” Hondros’s voice sharpened. “Answer me.”
“I do—”
“Harpies are born mad because they’re trapped here in Olympia with us.” All heads swiveled around. “In the ancienttimes, they had the whole world as their hunting ground. A veritable buffet of evildoers to capture and torture as they hauled them screaming to Tartarus. Now, there are only us demigods, and we fight back. They enter life knowing they’ll spend their entire existence unfulfilled and unsatisfied,” said Sebastian Barba. “Wouldn’t that drive anyone mad?”
“Though your answer is correct, Barba, it was to come from her mouth, not yours. Do not speak out of turn again.”
Sebastian tipped his head. “I’m confused. Didn’t you just say we’re all responsible for each other? She clearly didn’t know the answer, so I helped out my fellow sister-in-arms.”
“Be silent,” he snapped. “Now, Vanda—”
That time, I didn’t stifle my groan.
Daciana threw me sympathy from across the room. “Why won’t he let up on her?”
“Excuse me, wolf.” Hondros spun on her. “Did you speak?”
Daciana stared him dead in the face. “Yes. I said you’re picking on her and should ease up.”
His face hardened. “Is that what you believe I’m doing?Pickingon her.”
“Absolutely,” Sebastian called.
“I will not tell you again,” Hondros roared, whirling on him. “Be silent.”
Sebastian made a show of buttoning his lip. I blinked at him, eyes huge. What was with this guy? Hondros looked ready to tear up the podium and beat him with it.
“The purpose is not to pick on you,” he said, glaring at us both. “This information is vital. You cannot defeat a monster you do not know. Something as simple as knowing what the smell of sulfur means will save a life. Don’t you agree, Vanda?”
My glare heated to destroy his. “Yes, Captain,” I forced through gritted teeth.
“Next question. What do the three heads of a cerberus represent?”
They represented something? All I knew about those three heads was they were all vicious, growling, snapping beasts with rank breath.
“I do—”
“The past, present, and future,” said a voice becoming all too familiar. “That’s why they’re near enough to impossible to kill. One head sees everything you plan to do. You’re dead from the moment you decided to attack.”
If I thought his vein was jumping before, it was out of control then. “You’re trying my patience, boy.”
He shrugged. “You’re trying mine. For whatever reason, she doesn’t know this stuff, so instead of making her classroom enemy number one, why don’t you do the job you’re paid to do and teach her?
“My guess is you won’t because torturing students is the only thing that gets your blood pumping south ever since the battlefield chewed you up and spat you out.”
Someone gasped. It was me. This was a different world from Haris Day. I went to school with a bunch of spoiled rich kids, and still none of them would’ve dared speak to a teacher that way. Daddy’s money didn’t buy your way out of a month of Saturday detention.
“Out! Out of my classroom!”
