Page 18 of Misfit Monsters
I open and close my mouth, my thoughts turning into babble that won’t help anyone.
I thought I’d said exactly what I meant. Why is she acting angry?
Jonah lifts his voice, calm but firm. “Sit down, Vim. I’m sure Peri wasn’t trying to insult you.”
A faint scoff carries from Hail’s seat. “The newbie’s going to have to fight her own battles sometime. From the looks of her, they’ll at least be short.”
Jonah shakes his head. “If we could get back on topic, please?—”
The chime of the bell interrupts. Everyone pushes back their chairs.
As soon as I can tell we’re meant to leave, I hurry to the door.
Fen touches my arm. “Don’t worry about any of them. We’ve got an hour before the next class. Do you want me to show you the courtyard? It’s really nice.”
I don’t want to upset her too, but my faith in my cheering abilities is shaken. I manage a smile. “I think I just want to rest in my room for a bit, but I’d love to see it later.”
Despite my best efforts, Fen deflates a little. “Oh. All right.”
I rush through the halls to the dorm area, my stomach twisting into knots.
Why do things go wrong when I’m trying to do something good? Why can’t I fit in properly even herewhere I’m surrounded by beings who are supposed to be like me?
It’s okay. Noteveryonehates me. I’m still figuring things out.
It’ll get better. It has to. I insist.
When I reach the dorm, I walk straight to my room. I’ll take the next hour to sort myself out, and then I’ll be ready to face whatever’s next.
Except I’m not alone. The instant I walk into the small space, I pick up on my roommate’s stormy energy from the shadows.
I turn toward the spot where I can tell he’s lurking. The question tumbles out before I can think better of it. “Why weren’t you at class?”
If he spoke from the shadows, I’d still hear him, if in a distant, blurry kind of way. Instead, he ripples out into his full, immense form, glaring down at me with his ropey muscles tensed. “Some of us have to go to different classes. Because there are more important things to worry about.”
He points at his badge—the ten-pointed star, the circle around it.
“Oh,” I mumble. “I just wondered.”
He grunts and vanishes again. I sink onto my bed and draw my knees to my chest to hug them.
I seem to be pissing people off left and right, and one of them is a shadowkind so fearsome he needs special classes to make sure he doesn’t hurt the rest of us.
All I can do is keep going, doing my best.
Because it’s either that or starve in the shadow-realm gloom.
7
Hail
Iclose my eyes to the sun, letting the rays wash over my skin. The glare filters through my eyelids with a ruddy glow. My cheeks feel as if they’re baking.
The mortal realm is a bizarre place. So many aspects of it waver on the line between pleasure and pain.
My essence responds best to the cold rather than heat. If I stand here a few minutes longer, like I sometimes do on the desert plain outside the academy, every inch of my skin will start to prickle with the impression of burning.
But then, why shouldn’t I burn?
