Page 39 of The Pretty Savage

Murder, somebody said.

Gruesome, the other person I passed murmured.

I was taller than most of them, but I couldn't yet see what was happening, until I did.

I’d seen many things in my short life, and while I was far off from being a saint, I had one simple rule—an honorable death. While some of my friends were big on theatrics with the things they did, I preferred a clean-cut death. Seeing dead people rarely ever bothered me, but even my stomach roiled when I saw a girl, a very naked girl, hanging from a rope tied somewhere at the top of the Academy, with something carved into her flat belly, smudged by all the blood that no doubt ran from her wounds.

Her fiery red hair danced in the wind, making her seem alive for a moment, but when the wind pulled the red locks away from her face, I understood what had everyone so shocked.

The skin on her face was completely removed, leaving behind the crimson-colored muscles and the visible skull fragments where the meat was chopped off. Blood ran down her chest, over her body, dried up and sinister, and I quickly realized that whoever did this must have slit her throat.

"Holy fucking shit!" someone exclaimed from behind me while I stood rooted to the spot, trying to understand what happened.

"What the fuck!" a girl screamed, louder than the rest, but it wasn't her voice that had me turning around so fast that I almost knocked over the couple standing to my right.

"Calm down, Yo," the reason for my turmoil spoke, and as my eyes connected with hers, seeing her standing not too far away from me, I could see the resentment shining in those depths. "I'm sure there's a good explanation for this," she said calmly, her eyes never leaving mine, and the way she held herself, the calmness washing over her even as most of the other people freaked out, astounded me.

Most, if not all, people in this line of work rarely flinched at the sight of death, but the sight of monstrosities… That was another thing. Yet she stood there, calm and collected, with ugly fucking bruises over one side of her face, even more visible as she put her hair up into a ponytail, mocking me with the marks I'd put there.

And I never hated myself more.

"An explanation?" The girl in front of her, Yolanda something, swiveled around, her voice becoming more than irritating. "Dude, there's a naked girl hanging from a rope in front of the Academy. I mean, we've had some fucked-up shit over the last couple of years, but nothing like this."

Vega—my cold, little Vega—just shrugged, as if what was happening did not bother her. And maybe it didn't, not like it did the others, but I saw a flicker of worry in her eyes, and just like last night, I was lost in those depths. One of her eyes was emerald green, the other one a light brown, and on anyone else it would've looked mismatched, maybe even unattractive, but on her… God, on her it made her look like a goddess, sent to destroy us all.

She walked with her head held high, but there was so much more to her than the anger she constantly shot me with, or the indifference she tried to portray.

Maybe that was the reason why I’d felt so drawn to her, so enamored with the girl I didn't know. Maybe my monsters recognized hers, and they wanted to play.

"Adrian!" Jax's voice carried over the sounds of the murmuring crowd surrounding the area, and I turned around, looking at my best friend as he waved at me from the spot right next to the main entrance, his face pulled taut, worry etched into every single line.

"Excuse me," I mumbled, pushing through the crowd and heading toward him, all the while feeling Vega's eyes on my back and the anger she was directing at me. But dealing with her would have to wait, because Jax wouldn't have called me to come here if it wasn't something serious.

The unforgiving wind slammed into me from both sides as I reached the little circle made by the guards of the Academy, keeping the crowd away from the crime scene. I nodded at one of them as I closed the distance between Jax and me.

If the word relief had a picture in the dictionary, it would've been Jax's face when I finally stopped in front of him. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his eyes kept flickering over the crowd as if he waited for another attack to happen any moment now.

Jax didn't like talking about his upbringing, or his family for that matter, but I didn't need to be a psychologist to know when a person had gone through something traumatic from the way they behaved in these kinds of situations. His entire family was assassinated when he was just a child, leaving him with nothing but scars, both visible and invisible, to carry through his life.

"You look like shit," was the first thing he said to me.

"It's nice to see you too, buttercup." I grinned, keeping my back turned to the ever-growing crowd. "Wanna tell me what's going on?"

He looked to his right, then to his left, before leaning closer to me. "This girl was in The Pit last night," he murmured, only loud enough for me to hear. "It's a problem."

"Why is it a problem?" I frowned, looking up at the tied-up girl still hanging from the rope. "And why is she still up there?"

"Andries is trying to figure out what to do with her."

"What we always do when somebody dies. Bury them or send their body back to their family. What is there to figure out?"

"Adrian," Jax groaned, rubbing his eyes. "There's more to this than meets the eye, trust me."

"Then start talking, Jax," I said impatiently. "You called me sounding like the Third World War was about to break out. Classes are supposed to start soon, and I'm in no mood to deal with Andries and his incapable ass."

Jax looked at me, realizing what kind of mood I was in. I knew my short temper and the lack of patience to deal with this today had a lot to do with the little vixen that had taken over my mind, but the bigger part of it was that I was on day four without any sleep, and it was a problem. I would usually be able to get at least one or two hours of sleep during the night, but this was becoming unbearable.

"When was the last time you properly slept, Adrian?" he asked, thankfully only murmuring, since neither one of us needed the rest of the Academy to know that I had insomnia, or that the moment I closed my eyes the nightmares began. "Adrian?" he pushed when I failed to respond.

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