Page 26 of Dazed By The Gods

“Second floor, two doors down from the ladies bathroom. If he’s not there, try the arena. You’re excused from classes for the rest of the day. I want you shadowing Mr Hades, understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” I repeat before heading in the direction he pointed. I make my way to the dorms wing and then to the second door, just like he said, only there’s no answer when I knock on the door. I try the handle anyway, but find it locked. After waiting a few more minutes, I head on down to the arena. I’m still not entirely sure what I’m supposed to say or do once I find Tanner, but he’d be better company than anyone else right now.

FOURTEEN

ERIC

The moment Ryxa is out of the classroom, I turn on Nyssus. “You said you’d help get her away from them, not get her kicked out.”

“I did help. They won’t kick her out. They think she’s a victim in all this. All they’ll do is put her with a God sooner. I’ll go put my name in and she’ll be free to be with you and I’ll get to keep her away from them.”

“No. You just made everything worse. I’m not helping you anymore.”

Nyssus laughs, plopping down into the chair beside me. “You think you can convince her on your own, that she needs you now? After what you just said?”

She’s right. I know she is but I couldn’t help it. The thought of Ryxa being close to any of them, let alone all three of them, had me seeing red. I completely short circuited. Couldn’t think, only reacted. I know Ryx will forgive me. She always does.

I glare out the window as Mr Wolfe gives us all a lecture on bullying. Ryxa wasn’t being bullied so I have no idea why he’d be going on about this crap, but I ignore him all the same.

Ares and a couple of other Gods pass the classroom window while I’m staring outside. I know I need to find a way to get Ryxa away from the triplet Gods and I think I know just the person, or rather God who can help.

FIFTEEN

RYXA

I finally find Tanner standing in the middle of the arena, his back to me as he looks out over the field. “Ah, Ryxa,” He says, without turning around. “I was beginning to think you’d lost your way. Come on, we’ll sort your room out then I believe you’ll be shadowing me for the remainder of the day. This should be fun.” Tanner’s rather chipper today, it lifts my mood considerably.

He finally turns to look at me and his smile slips, I’m not sure what my face looks like, but from his reaction it mustn’t be good. “I’ve been told to put you in the dorm room next to mine. It’ll make it easier to keep an eye on you, also after the way the female students have been talking about you, I believe it’s in your best interest to remain with me as often as possible.”

“People have been talking about me?”

“Unfortunately. Not all of it has been nice, so to help stop some of the more insidious rumours, Mr Wolfe and I believe it would be better for you to shadow me for a while.”

I only left the classroom about ten minutes ago, so how could he know all this already? “How will that effect my studies?” I ask.

“It won’t. Some of your classes will just be self-paced if you’re okay with that. The rest of what you need to learn will be taught by me. Think of it like being assigned to your God already.” He sighs, “I know it’s not what you’d prefer, but I thought it would be for the best considering everything that has happened today. Don’t think it means you get out of work duties though, you’ll still have to do the mandatory hours of those, starting with being the server for the drinks at tomorrow’s Arena Event. Most of the servers there are well trained, so I hope you can keep up.”

“I’ll do my best.” I hesitate before asking, “Tanner, you’re a God, does that mean you know all the answers?”

“No one knows everything, being a God doesn’t make us all knowing, it just means we have different bloodlines from humans and really cool powers that let us do things like this.” He waves his hands and the entire arena goes from a dull green field of grass to a forest teeming with flowers and exotic plants.

“Is it real?” I can’t hide the awe in my voice as I stare out at the expanse of forest. It’s almost more beautiful than the rooftop garden in the tower. Almost. This forest doesn’t appear to have any of the deadly but beautiful night flowers in it, so the rooftop garden gets the extra points.

“It’s as real as you or me. All I’ve done is relocate the forest to this plane of existence, when I revert it later, it’ll go back to its own plane and the grass will return to ours. This is part of why the school hired me, I’m able to manipulate planes so they get me to set up the combat courses for the God students to use in the afternoons. You won’t be anywhere near here when that class begins though.”

“Are there animals in there?”

“No. That’s one thing that I can’t transport between planes.” He looks me in the eyes and whispers, “Everything has it’s limits. Even us Gods, but don’t tell anyone that or they’ll all realise they’re not as bigger deals as they think they are.”

My laugh sounds hollow in my own ears, but it makes Tanner smile in return. I’m not sure what it is about him, but he feels like family to me. Like a brother or a cousin that I never knew. Everything is easy with him, relaxed with no expectations. I wish we could hang out like this all the time. It sure would make being stuck in this place more enjoyable.

“You know I have a theory about you. I don’t believe you’re what everyone thinks you are.” He says as we climb the stairs leading to the dorms. I can’t figure out what his theory could be so I take my time thinking it over.

After far too long, I roll my eyes and ask, “Cryptic much?” I laugh nervously as we finally stop in front of the dorm room I’ve never even slept in yet was supposed to share with Eric.

My laughter dies as I open the door. The room is a mess, clothes strewn everywhere, like someone’s come along and thrown the biggest tantrum, but the thing that brings tears to my eyes is the fact that it’s only my stuff that’s been destroyed. Not a single thing on Eric’s side of the room has been touched.

“I’m going to assume you didn’t leave it like this.”

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