Page 50 of Kingmakers, Year Two

“Your Tails?” I ask blankly.

“Yeah…” He grimaces in agony. “On my arm. He was my favorite. And now look athim.”

I look at the spot on his forearm where the doubled-tailed fox used to reside. It’s nothing but a red, swollen mess now, with barely a hint of an outline where the tattoo used to be.

“Ozzy . . .” I say. “That was your worst tattoo.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It was fuckin’ hideous, man. So bad. He looked like a squirrel. Honestly, Wade kinda did you a favor.”

I say that low, because fuck Wade if he thinks I’m being serious. He’s gonna pay for this, whether the school punishes him or not.

Ozzy laughs, though it comes out more like a groan. “Tails was wonky,” he admits. “But that’s why I liked him.”

When the twenty minutes elapses, Professor Lyons applies the calcium gluconate to Ozzy’s arm. She squirts it out of a tube similar to toothpaste. It seems to ease his pain a little. The professor wraps his arm in clean gauze.

“Take him to the infirmary so Dr. Cross can check him out,” she says.

“Can I bring a couple of those poppies with me?” Ozzy asks weakly. “Feel like I might need a taste of the dragon, you know what I mean, Professor?”

“You can ask Dr. Cross for painkillers,” she says unsympathetically.

“Come on.” I grab Ozzy’s bookbag.

I’m sure Dr. Cross will be thrilled to see me again.

Ozzy stays overnightin the infirmary. When he returns to class the next day, his left hand is stiff and swollen and the whole arm is wrapped up, hung in a sling to help protect it from jostling. Ozzy tells me the flesh is still raw. The slightest contact, even over the gauze, is agonizing.

I’m fucking furious that this happened to Ozzy because of me. I hook him up with some of our best edibles to take the edge off, but I need something better than that to cheer him up. So I get up nice and early the following morning and sneak into the Gatehouse.

The Gatehouse is where the Enforcers have their dorms. The rooms are neat and uniform, having been used in the old days as barracks for soldiers. Almost no female students are Enforcers, except for Ilsa Markov, who I’ll admit is a pretty fucking badass bitch.

There’s a distinct smell of testosterone and unwashed socks in the air. Also the overpowering Aqua Di Gio Wade always wears. I’d be able to find his room even if I didn’t already know which one was his.

From what I’ve observed, he likes to get up nice and early to hit the gym in the Armory before class starts. He’s part of the 6:00 a.m. crowd, along with Dax, Dean Yenin, and the rest of the masochists.

I wait outside his door, hearing him rustling around while he pulls on his gym clothes and those spotless white tennis shoes of his. I hear three distinct spritzes as he douses himself in cologne, which assaults my nostrils a few seconds later as the sharp scent seeps through the cracks around the door.

I’m waiting to the right of said door, phone in my left hand, right hand curled around my zippo for a little extra oomph.

The hinges creak and I ready myself.

The moment Wade opens the door, I haul off and punch him in the nose with all my might. It’s a sucker punch, totally unexpected, and not something I would usually do. But in this case, it’s fully deserved.

Wade clamps his hands over his nose, blood already rocketing out, spurting through his fingers.

“Smile, bitch,” I say.

I raise my phone and snap a quick pic of his howling face. Then I hightail it out of there before the rest of the Enforcers wake up and make it something like a fair fight.

I present Ozzy the picture over breakfast. He laughs so hard that tears come to his eyes.

“That was this morning?” he says. “Where is he? I wanna see it in person.”

He looks around the dining hall, hoping to see Wade slumped over his pancakes with a couple tampons stuffed up his nose. No luck—he must still be holed up in the bathroom trying to get the bleeding to stop.

“D’you think it’s broken?” Ozzy asks hopefully.

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