Page 30 of A University of Betrayal

“Why are you so cold again? Is everything all right?”

I nodded quickly and wiped the sweat from my forehead.

“Damn, you’re all so nervous. I don’t think I can go down there again. Nothing against Grace, really. I just felt so shitty after the last time.”

Bayla looked abnormally nervous. And suddenly, I hoped it wouldn’t work, that she was human or that her gifts were too weak. Her mother was an Air Quatura, which would automatically make Bayla one, too, if there had been no other elements in her family line. And I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone.

Until I found out that she had survived the Ruisangor bite, I had assumed that she had no gift, and that there had simply been an error. Sometimes female Quatura were too weak to develop an element, but I only knew of two cases in Blairville.

“What more do I have to do to prove I’m not one of you?”

I honestly didn’t know.

Bayla, who had been playing with the fabric of the white robe the whole time, suddenly stopped and looked at me as if something had occurred to her.

“You’ve met with him.”

My heart began to drum.

With shaky hands, I avoided Bayla’s gaze.

“And you didn’t text anything in the group chat.”

She smirked.

I felt stupid for assuming she wouldn’t ask me about it, it’s just that I hadn’t expected us to even see each other again.

“I, I...”

My stammering betrayed me.

“Don’t eventhinkabout lying now.”

She had caught me, and I was at her mercy again. What was I supposed to say? That I’d slept with him? That I had almost iced his car? That I had ended the friendship?

“What’s he like?”

“Nice... warm and accommodating.” I began to play restlessly with my hands. “Just like I imagined him.”

The truth was, he was better than anything I’d ever been able to imagine. His body had been a warm pulsing place of calm for mine to nestle into, his heartbeat so human, his personality so...real.

Bayla pulled the chair diagonally opposite me to one side and sat down. “That already sounds good. What did he look like?”

“Attractive, but I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, youdon’t know?What did he look like? Do you know him? Maybe we’ve seen him on campus before.”

Her questions overwhelmed me, so I answered with the first word I could think of. “Mask.”

She gave me an irritated look. “Mask?”

“He was wearing a mask, just like me.”

“No way...”

“Yes...”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what he looks like?”

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