Page 23 of Misfit Monsters
He gives her a couple of tips, and she beams at him with a flirty tilt of her head. More whiffs of the ripened fruit flavor reach me.
The tiger shifter teacher has a lot of fans, whether because of his muscular power or because he’s one of the school’s highest authorities. When he moves on to the next group, Isee one of the male students start preening rather than paying attention to the exercise.
With her lithe frame and flexibility, Fen has managed to evade all but one smack of the ribbon. But when our teacher prowls over to watch her, a look that’s pure terror flashes across her face.
She hops to the side, ducks, jerks backward, and nearly trips over her own feet. She might have been able to recover, except in her anxiety, a dribble of water seeps down her arm.
Her sneakers slip on the sudden puddle, and she tumbles into the mat face-first with the ribbon slapped across her back. A kick of tabasco-sharp embarrassment hits me a moment after the impact.
One of Gloss’s friends snickers. Her voice carries across the room in a false undertone. “There the drip goes piddling again.”
I clench my hands against a spurt of anger, but Gnash ignores the comment. He waits until Fen has gotten back to her feet.
“You have to get a grip on that wishy-washy talent,” he says, and stalks off without another word.
I touch her arm. “You were doing really well for most of the exercise.”
Fen nods with a jerk, but shame still seeps out of her.
Once everyone’s had their practice, the student helpers rejoin Gnash to report everyone’s scores. The tiger shifter records the numbers before unzipping a duffle bag by his feet. “For the second weapon we’ll study today, I’ve brought the real thing to show you. You won’t want to get too close.”
Using two steel rods, he lifts a mess of shimmering gray strands out of the bag.
As the glinting object unfurls in front of us, my heart lurches so hard I lose my breath.
It’s a net. Like the one—the one that caught me?—
Tansy’s barely muffled guffaw brings me back to the present. She’s staring at me. “She’s a wimp after all. Terrified just looking at the thing.”
I raise my hands to my head, and an orangey-yellow glow wavers across my forearms. A few of the other students giggle.
Swallowing hard, I breathe as evenly as I can. The glow of fear fades alongside the tension whirling inside me.
“What’s the matter, Periwinkle?” Gloss asks in a crystal-smooth voice. “You can’t get that worked up over a little silver and iron, or they’ll catch you without even throwing the net on you.”
A little silver and iron. As if those aren’t the two substances most toxic to shadowkind.
I give myself a little shake. Even though my hair has stopped glowing, I can’t totally shed the lingering wisps of terror.
“Not so tough now,” the brawny woman jeers.
Do they think this is a joke? They have no idea what can happen to you if you’re trapped in one of those nets.
“We need to watch out for those things—and learn how to escape them,” I say as energetically as I can. “But I know we can survive the hunters if we’re strong. All you have to do is listen to the lesson instead of trying to hook up with the teacher.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve made another blunder. A mix of anger and humiliation wafts toward me from all around the room like rancid salsa.
Gloss glances toward Gnash. “She’s eager—maybe she should be the first to get a close look at the net.”
Every particle of my body recoils, but the tiger shifter beckons me forward. The presence of the noxious metals nips at my skin.
As I walk up to the gleaming mass, my ankles throb. Iwobble, and Vim barks a laugh. “Look how shaky she is after all her big talk.”
Tansy sneers. “There goes her hair again, like she’s pissing herself with light.”
My teeth jar against each other. I’ll be fine. I have to be fine.
The thought feels more desperate than reassuring.
