Page 299 of A University of Betrayal

“When I was alone in the bathroom the other day and got out of the shower, I discovered something on my body.”

“What exactly? Show me,” I urged her, and she still looked at me with red cheeks.

“It’s between my breasts,” she finally said, and I felt my cheeks getting warmer, too.

Still, I couldn’t help but comment on it.

“Okay...so?Blueberry?”

Bayla’s eyes widened. “Julian!”

I raised my hands defensively. “I’m kidding, okay?”

“No.I’ve been worried about it ever since. It’s a small black dot, almost a circle, much too big and dark for a mole...” She used her fingers to show me how big it should be, which made me wonder. “It looks like a tattoo, stands out slightly...”

“What if it really is just a mole?” I suggested.

But why so big? Or was she just letting her imagination run wild?

“There was something else,” Bayla continued. And then she told me about her eyes, that they had turned purple and that she had suddenly started shaking violently.

The concern that grew inside of me was indescribable. Part of me tried to explain to her that this might be a Quatura thing, but she shook her head desperately.

“No, believe me, they don’t have that.”

Another part of me tried to consider other possibilities.

“Julian, I already know why I want to talk to Julie about this. Maybe it’s just some weird side effect because I haven’t yet survived the rite of passage.”

I didn’t know what to say, and so I walked on slowly, towards my father and Mia, with Bay beside me.

“Everyone thinks I’m weird. I just want to get out of here,” she said quietly next to me.

I looked at her, feeling understood. “I don’t think you’re weird, okay?”

“Wow,that’s progress for me,” she laughed.

“Hey.Doesn’t my opinion count?”

“Yes, it does, but somehow you don’t belong either.”

Whew.That had hit home, even if I didn’t tell her.

“So, outsiders don’t count for you?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Wow,”I blurted out after all, and I looked up at the treetops again.

“No, don’t you dare take it personally... But I’d just like to be either human or what my mother is. A Quatura, plain and simple, you know?”

Itsoundedreally simple. Maybe life as a Quatura was also easier, which I couldn’t imagine with all the duties and rituals, but the memories of the pack’s Code were even more tiresome. I hated rules and rigid structures... and what I was capable of.

“We both can forget about being human,” I said, amused by the idea.

If there was a way to become human, I would take it. But not even Quatura were capable of something like that.

“We won’t even find a rabbit with all the noise you’re making,” Mia shouted angrily from where my father was standing, and both of them stopped. I saw him motion for her to calm down and how she rolled her eyes. She really reminded me of Ems.

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