Page 37 of Class Studies

“Did you make this?” I asked, swallowing another big bite.

Abe gave me an odd look. “Yes. Now, don’t bother me. I didn’t expect you so soon. I need a moment. And hide those scales in your pocket before I take them from you again.”

I sucked in a breath and choked on a piece of pasta. It hadn’t even occurred to me she might take them back. Lacking a pocket in my GS uniform, I stuck them in my other sock, kinda like a dimensional sock pocket. I snorted.

Abe narrowed her eyes, but I didn’t explain. I demolished her pasta and sat quietly, waiting.

Eventually, she had a spread of long thin objects I recognized across her table. Different catalysts for charging potions and helping kids focus their growing magic. She still believed she could teach me how to use my magic.

I curled in on myself. “None of these will work.”

“We won’t know until we try.” Abe smiled and pointed at a small carved gray rock. “Now, from left to right….”

* * *

Two fat tears rolled down my cheeks, and I scrubbed them away. Although my body was still in Abe’s stone office, my mind flickered between the cold walls of reality and the soft velvet of Damon’s old apartment existing in my memory.

I’d spent the last hour reliving my tweens, the years before my magic awoke when Damon tried to coax it out of me. Just like then, Abe instructed me roll each catalyst in my hands and focus on it, trying to move my magic through it. But each time, my magic sat inside me, watching.

She made me drink three potions, one at a time, designed to simulate magic. They stimulated something all right, but my magic didn’t move into the catalyst. After the third potion, she made me swallow a brown sludge that tasted like charcoal and dirt. I violently vomited, emptying my stomach of the brews and pasta.

A fourth concoction already sat on her desk. Surprise, it didn’t help either.

Now we were at the last catalyst. I picked the ornate silver and copper rod up with shaking hands. Unconscious pain ghosted between my legs. I didn’t know if it was this object or I finally got old enough to manifest my power, but this was the start of all of it.

I dropped the catalyst before I even tried to push my magic through it. Images assaulted my memory.

I hadn’t wanted it. He’d flipped me over on our workstation. The edges dug into my thighs. A copy of the rod I dropped sawed over my private area. When I didn’t get wet enough, he’d spit on himself. Something too big and warm pressed against me before splitting me in half as pain and burning filled my world. But my magic moved for the first time, soothing the physical hurt.

I blocked this, all of this.

I didn’t want to remember it.

“You’re amazing, my Aphrodite,” Damon said. He pulled out and pushed back into my little panting body. I struggled to get away, my body wanting more, but my mind shutting down. “Your power.” He grunted and split me again. “Your tight little pussy. All of it belongs to me. Twelve years I’ve waited for you to bloom.” He grunted. “The wait was worth every minute.”

Pain bit into my cheek. It took me a moment to realize Abe slapped me. I blinked at her scowling face.

“He did a number on you, didn’t he?” Abe asked.

I cupped my cheek, damp with tears. The vivid memory I spent my life burying now burned into my mind.

“I didn’t want to remember that.” I shook. “Why are you making me do this?”

Abe narrowed her eyes. “Was it Damon Heliot?”

I sucked in a breath, and Abe scowled before turning from me.

“Did you know him?” I leaned toward her. “Have you known this entire time? Did you know he had me….that he was….”

“No.” Abe’s eyes blazed with anger. “I didn’t know him. We, all the staff, don’t get names with reports on students. Only their situations.” Her sharp shoulders sagged. “I didn’t know your master and had I, well, I know a lot of ways to kill a man like that.” She dug her long fingers into her palms. “Painful ways.”

I stared at her and fought to control my breathing. My lungs burned.

Abe turned back to me. Her thin body shook with anger. “The good fortune potion I tried to recreate and tested was one of his. I’d no idea he even held you, much less what he was doing.”

She stepped to my side and put a hand on my shoulder. I flinched back, and her eyes softened. She let go of me but didn’t move from my side.

“You cannot charge a potion.” Her shoulders sagged. “And, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I couldn’t see past my ego to trust you at your word a second time.”

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