Page 15 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
That part of the memory was right on the surface for me. And it wasn’t a pleasant one. It was one that haunted me. It blew like a cold wind through my body and chilled my insides. I went cold and my face grew stiff. My fingers tightened on the steering wheel. It was a minute before I felt capable of answering. “He thought it was curing vampirism.”
“Why?”
“Because he said we lost some of the best magical minds to madness when they attempted the Unnatural spell.”
“Why’d he think joining your dad’s company was such a great idea?”
I avoided answering. The lab experiments Dad’s company had run weren’t exactly Pinnacle sanctioned. I made another turn, and I started to get a sneaking suspicion about where we were going. “Where are you taking me?”
“I asked first.”
“Dad’s company had a contract with the Pinnacle. They were investigating potential causes of the extreme reaction.” Officially anyway. Unofficially, they’d also been experimenting with cures.
“Why would an energy company do that?”
I pursed my lips. “Because my father was eccentric and couldn’t imagine spending all his money on yachts. So, he set up a non-profit lab and hired some scie—” I took a final turn and I knew exactly where Dr. Potts wanted to take me. I turned to her. “My mother doesn’t want me going …”
“Your mother doesn’t realize you’ve already been sending blood once a month, like clockwork? Nice magical regeneration spell, to do that by the way.”
My body grew hot and my face paled. It took a few seconds, but I fought to answer nonchalantly. “What?”
Dr. Potts rolled her eyes and turned back to face forward, toward the wrought iron gates of the Institute for the Vampirically Insane.
The building loomed in front of us cold and imposing. It was at least four stories and made of grey stone. Unlike a normal building, it had no windows. The parking lot was nearly empty, which wasn't a surprise, magicals who became vamps weren’t discussed, they were discarded like an embarrassment. Some families straight up shot their vamps—out in the country, that was still legal. In the cities, institutes like this had sprung up.
Melancholy started to seep into my bones at the thought that my brother was trapped inside this awful tomb-like building, but Dr. Potts didn't let me wallow.
"Chop chop! Get a move on. Your session only lasts another hour.”
I rolled my eyes and unbuckled. When we made it in, the check in process was more pathetic than any of the academies I'd ever been to—so long as Dr. Cox and I signed our lives away with their waiver, we were let in. No ID check or anything to ensure we were relatives. WTF? Where were the vamp rights activists on that one?
I hissed at Dr. Potts as we walked down the hall toward the room my brother was supposedly assigned. "Anyone can get in here. It costs a shit-ton of money to keep Matthew safe here. They're not even keeping track to keep him safe from jerk offs?”
"Oh, way worse than jerk offs come here, sugar," she said as she shook her head. “That stupid dare, to see if you can live long enough to cum in front of a vamp—those kids aren’t a threat, even though I think one in ten of them ends up eaten.”
“What?”
She shook her head. “You think they invest in ballistic level glass for this place? Bullshit. Get those vamps worked up enough and they’ll bust through. But … what was I saying? Yeah. The real threat are the purists.”
I glared at Potts. "That does not make me feel better!" The thought of those crazies always rips me open like I’ve been stabbed.
"It wasn't supposed to." Dr. Potts lifted her finger and pointed. "102, right?"
We opened the door, which wasn't even fucking locked, and stepped inside. I'd never actually been able to visit my brother before, and the room wasn't at all what I expected. It looked like one of those observation rooms in a cop show. There was one-way glass from our little segment of the room. Looking through it, we could see Matthew pacing like a tiger inside his cage. And that’s all his room was, a 12x12 cage of solid walls. His red eyes gleamed in the darkness, and when he scented us, he let out a roar that sent a shiver down my spine. He rushed to the glass and banged against it, slamming his hands on it again and again. His claws raked down the glass, scratching it.
The brother I had once loved and admired had been reduced ... to this. His dark brown hair and freckled face were the same, but everything else about him–his hunched posture, the massive white claws extending from his fingers, the two huge saber-tooth like fangs that overlapped his bottom lip, and his mind—had been overtaken by the darkness.
The sight made my chest raw. It was like standing on a bridge, peering down at the water, seeing the end writhe and snarl and spit at me. I knew if that glass window broke, I would die. My brother would kill me—I knew it without a doubt. My nerves lit up with that knowledge and terror made me want to back away. At the same time, my heart keened. In that moment, I knew exactly why my mother had never wanted me to visit in person. She hadn’t been trying to stifle me. She’d been trying to protect me. Because seeing Matthew rabid was the most awful thing that I could imagine.
I shrank back, both in terror and in sadness.
"Least he made himself a bit of a nest," Dr. Potts observed, pointing to a back corner of my brother’s dark chamber. His bed had been torn apart, but he'd used bits of fluff from the mattress to create a pile in the corner. "That's more than most vamps can think to do," she continued.
She took a step toward Matthew, unafraid that he was now scratching white streaks into the mirrored window with his jagged claws. She sat down in one of the folding chairs I hadn’t noticed.
“What cushy visitor accommodations they’ve got,” I snarked, focusing on the chairs instead of my brother. I kept my eyes trained on Potts and tried to ignore the fact that Matthew was trying to break into the room to kill us. But the snarky attitude I normally kept up cracked like ice. I swallowed hard.
"You gonna sit or you gonna donate?" Dr. Potts asked.
