Page 183 of Blood of Hercules
I checked my thighs and sighed heavily. Sure enough, there were purple bruises where he’d gripped me.
At least my ears aren’t bleeding anymore.
The bar was set alarmingly low.
Carefully, I pulled my new treasure around my shoulders and hobbled to my feet.
With a yawn I checked the clock on the wall; it was only three in the morning. The sun hadn’t risen yet, which was why the other initiates weren’t back from the symposium yet.
I had a few hours to myself.
Sighing again, I slumped into the seat I always studied in, and fingered the corner of my Thagorean textbook, where I’d written my name on the cover.
I might as well use this time to do a little studying.
I’d never admit it to the other initiates, because they complained about the class constantly, but I really enjoyed how complicated the Thagorean equations were.
I loved the rush of untangling the steps and finding the solution.
That was the nice thing about math: there was always a right answer. The process might be messy, but the solution was black and white.
Nothing else in life was as simple.
Ever since the stupid Spartan merit test, everything was confusing.
The back of my neck prickled, and I groaned but refused to look around.
No one is watching you. It’s all in your head.
Ignoring my deteriorating mental state, I cracked open the textbook, desperate for a distraction.
An index card fluttered out.
I turned it over with a yawn. Words were scratched messily across it in ink:
Rolling my eyes, I tucked it into the flap at the back of the book.
What a corny threat.
It felt like something a child would do if they were trying to scare someone.
I was trapped at an academy, starving to death and studying until I couldn’t trust my thoughts. The fact that someone wanted me gone was the leastof my problems. Jessica had been meaner with her insults.
Titus or Alessander had probably done it.
They both had access to my books and had been way too quiet after the library incident, but I’d been expecting a much harsher form of retaliation.
Chuckling to myself, like I’d lost my mind (I had), I tucked the blanket tighter around my shoulders and repositioned my chair. It knocked against something heavy.
I bent over and picked up the offending object.
It was a medium-sized box.
It was wrapped in red velvet, a black silk bow with gold trim tied at the top. My name was written in neat cursive on a tag.
Oooh, a present.
I’d never actually gotten one before. It was a luxury Charlie and I never bothered to talk about. When you were starving, you knew the score; there were priorities, and frivolous gifts weren’t one of them.
