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“You had to humiliate me? You had to stand by while your friends threw me around the room and covered me in their breakfast? I don’t fucking think so.” I charged past him.
“Aella, wait, let me— My father has me watched!”
I slowed, hand on the knob.
“Everywhere I go. Everything I do. Everyone I talk to. It’s reported back to him.” Soft hands grasped my waist, gently turning me around. “He said it’d stop when I turned eighteen, but you know what happened at the inn.”
“He came with an army squad to haul you away,” I muttered.
“Exactly. The second I moved an inch off the line. Took a little freedom for myself.” He smiled. “Wanted one night to dance and be with a beautiful girl.”
I hated myself for blushing.
“He was right there to shove me back again,” he finished. “I don’t believe for a second that he doesn’t still have people here in the academy watching me now, so yes, I said all those horrible things so those people wouldn’t start watching you too.”
“But why?” I asked despite myself. I should be stomping out the door with a string of go-fuck-yourselves on my lips, but I wasn’t moving. “Why does he have you watched? Why is he so controlling?”
Alexander sighed. Breaking away, he leaned against the toilet bowl. “He says it’s because I’m his only son and heir. With every assassination and kidnapping attempt against me—”
My eyes blew wide.
“—he’s gotten more paranoid and restrictive.”
Slowly, I closed the distance, leaning back next to him. “Why does that mean you can’t talk to me?”
He gave me a lopsided smile. “You haven’t read the handbook, have you?”
“That damn handbook,” I muttered under my breath. “I started it, but it’s thicker than the seventhHarry Potterbook.How many words does it take to say don’t drink, do drugs, wear short skirts, or set anything on fire?”
He laughed, and it broke the tension. “No idea what a Harry Potter is, but the handbook says a lot more than that. It’s got a whole section on what Sisypheans aren’t allowed to do. Fraternize with Titans is top of the list.”
“You have to be kidding me? That doesn’t make any sense. We’re in the same class.”
“Only because instructors complained about having to work double the hours to teach the same thing twice in a day. Now they’ve got us in the same room, but we might as well be miles apart.”
“Why is it so important that we be separated?”
“The monster scourge is bad. I wish there was a bigger, better word for it, but all I’ve got isbad. Monsters outnumber us. They’re stronger than most of us. Cleverer than I want to think about. They were made to slaughter us, and they do a very good job.
“That’s why those put into the Titan class are so important to Olympia. They can make a real difference to the war effort. Save countless lives. They can’t be distracted from their training by...”
“...the useless,” I finished. “It’s that serious? Hanging out with me and my friends is such a distraction it’ll tip Olympia off the edge into destruction?” I scoffed. “Sounds like a bullshit excuse for discrimination to me.”
“That’s exactly what it is. Wasn’t too long ago that people believed we were given our powers for a reason. The gods gave the best and strongest to the demigods they favored, and the demigods they thought were worthless or could never achieve glory—”
“Turned into cows and talked to horses.”
He tipped his head. “The way people see it is there’s no reason for us to have anything to do with each other. We’ll trainon the same field, but we’ll never be in the same unit. We’ll never go on missions together. You’ll never walk the halls beside me in the palace, and we’ll never marry or have kids because demigods like me aren’t—”
“—allowed to date down.” I filled in all the horrible stuff for him so he wouldn’t waste energy thinking of a nicer way to say it. “Basically, I’m useless to the army and useless to you, so why would you or any Titan talk to me?”
He hesitated, then nodded.
“What’s the punishment if we are caught fraternizing?”
“There was no punishment until five years ago,” he confessed. “Tensions heated up between the two classes. Titans were going too far. Using their powers to bully and harass the Sisypheans until one day, and one Sisyphean, got their own back.”
“What did they do?”
