Page 210 of A University of Betrayal

Jay Varton

“What the hell was that?!” Bayla was furious and looked at her mother as if she had lost her mind.

I had immediately recognized that it was my father’s old shotgun and remembered how he had given it to her that day when Bayla had been unconscious and badly wounded by the Ruisangor bite. It should be noted that this weapon was loaded with silver bullets.

“I have to protect you, even if you don’t see it that way and never will.”

Ms. Adams cleared out the sink and handed me the plates, which I wordlessly accepted and put away into the cupboards.

I didn’t know my way around, but helping helped me not to stand around feeling stupid and superfluous.

“I don’t understand it! You let Julian, a Senseque who isn’t even allowed to be here, come to visit, but you scare my childhood friend away with a goddamn gun?”

I looked up with a guilty face.

Diana continued to calmly empty the dishwasher. “Larissa is a Ruisangor. I don’t trust these people.”

There was something painful in her voice, and I immediately thought of that day when Bastien had turned up shortly after the bite. I wondered if it had disturbed her so much that she had asked my father for the weapon.

I understood Diana’s fear. Ruisangors might prefer human blood, but if there was one species that came closest to humans, it was Quatura. As far as I knew, they smelled almost as good to Ruisangors.

Bayla looked confused but also exhausted.

“Now that you remind me, Julian...” Diana looked kindly at me before handing me another load of plates. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight. Then you can take her straight to campus tomorrow and not have to drive all the way here.”

“What?!”

Bayla looked at her mother in disbelief and annoyance. She had never been happy to see me until recently. Ever since we found the diary, and the letter from Alarik.

“Why are you being so contradictory?” Bayla threw her arms into the air and kicked the kitchen furniture in front of her.

“Behave yourself!” Diana hissed.

The unpleasant feeling that I was witnessing a private argument was growing. My face grew warmer, and I bent down, mainly so that no one would notice, aside from continuing to unload the dishwasher.

“Come with me, Julian. You’re not our house slave.” I straightened up and saw Diana blush and look at me apologetically. I wanted to say something back, but Bayla wasn’t finished yet. “And you’re notherguest anyway, you’remine,soIdecide when you come and go.”

She rushed over to me. “Now, come on.”

Determined, she pulled me around the kitchen island, away from an embarrassed Ms. Adams, up the stairs to her room. There, she slammed the door loudly.

I heard a couple of ravens take flight from the tree in front of the house.

Cellar

Jay Varton

Then I had to smile again. “You two always argue so loudly, don’t you?”

“Yes, and no!” She threw herself angrily onto her bed and crawled back to the wooden bedstead, where she leaned against it and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Only since we’ve been here. And it’s driving me up the wall.”

I noticed her trying to control herself as her eyes began to glow. Only not red, but yellowish, like a Senseque’s.

“I didn’t even know she had a fucking shotgun!”

The glow intensified as she stared at the large bookshelf across from the bed as if it were the source of all her anger. Then she looked at me.

“What?”

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