Page 18 of The Pretty Savage

"It isn't?" I was getting confused.

"No, silly." She chuckled. "The moment we shook hands in the dean's office, I felt like I had known you my entire life. My mom says our family has this gift, or whatever, where we read energies even when we're not aware of it. I know you're dangerous, Vega." Her face turned serious. "I don't need a file on you or to know your last name to know that you might as well be one of the most dangerous animals on these grounds." Wow. "It's in your eyes, you know? It's the blank look, the coldness, the way you've been checking your surroundings the entire time while we walked here. I didn't miss the way our dean looked at you when you got up, or the evident fear in his eyes, and that is the man everybody else around here fears. I know a monster when I see one, Vega." Ouch. "And you know why I know?"

"Why?" I rasped, unable to say anything else, when there was nothing to be said.

"Because I grew up surrounded by monsters."

"And you still want me to go with you?"

"I do." She nodded. "Because there are two types of monsters." She came closer to me, lowering the tone of her voice. "Those that kill for pleasure," she looked over my shoulder at something, "and those that kill because they have to. It's up to you to decide which one you are."

If she had hit me I would've been less shocked than I was now. Yolanda Engström may not have been a monster, not like the rest of us, but I had a feeling that her upbringing made her more perceptive than most people, and that could be a useful tool—but also a curse.

For the first time since she showed up, resembling a unicorn with her bubbly personality, overly bright clothes, and that blonde hair, I saw her in a different light.

"You know what, Yolanda?" I smirked, shedding off the mask I kept wearing around her, thinking it would help. "I think we might become really good friends."

The bright smile that took over her face just as she extended her hand toward me could probably brighten this entire campus, but I would never say that out loud.

"I think so too." She beamed. "And I'll see you downstairs in an hour. We're going to do this thing even if it is the last thing I do."

She didn't wait for an answer from me before she started walking backward, going toward the grand staircase we came from.

"Let's just hope it won't come to that," I mumbled as I fished out the key I was given, unlocking the door in front of me. Let's hope this party, or whatever the fuck it was tonight, wouldn't be the last thing either one of us would do.

8

VEGA

I thought I was ready for winter in Germany, thinking it would be the same as what it was back in the States, but I was so fucking mistaken. My teeth chattered as I stood by the side of our dorm building, waiting for Yolanda one hour after she left me to my own devices, freezing my fucking ass off.

The coat I always wore did nothing to protect me from the vicious wind blowing from all sides, and I had a feeling it was even colder now that the rain had stopped. I knew we were technically located just at the bottom of the mountain, but God, did it really have to be this cold?

I was usually okay with every type of weather, but I had to admit that in the last couple of years I didn't have to worry about extreme cold temperatures since most of my jobs were located in areas where I didn't have to dress up with ten layers of clothes so that I wouldn't freeze. And this annoyed me.

The air smelled like snow now, the cold, unforgiving bitch of a wind blasting into my face every second. I looked up, toward the dark mountain looming above us, and I wondered how much history this place had seen. What little I knew about this place was that it had been around far longer than most other places I’d been to, and with history, especially European history, always came the knowledge of a darkness so great it had a tendency to suffocate those that had managed to survive through it.

And this place had more ghosts than the haunted asylums in America.

I wrapped my arms around myself, regretting not taking my scarf with me, but I had no idea what we were about to walk into, and any piece of clothing that could be used as a weapon against me was one big no-go. I was pestered enough about my long hair and the fact that my enemies could use it against me, but I was also grateful that The Schatten didn’t force me to cut it off.

I guess it was my one rebellious act when I was still too young to even understand what being a rebel meant, but my hair was something I took great pride in, and no one was going to touch it unless I allowed them to. The only thing I ever did to it was the white lock on the right side of my face, contrasting against my dark hair.

Deep inside I knew there was more to it, to me not allowing anyone to touch my hair, and that something had everything to do with my mother, but I didn't allow myself to think about her for more than a few minutes every other month. If I had to start thinking about Elvira, my mother, I would never stop, and that was a black hole I didn't want to touch even with a ten-foot pole.

I stepped out of the shadows where I was standing, looking at the entrance to the dorms, but Yolanda was still nowhere to be found.

"Seriously," I bit out to no one in particular, huddling closer to the wall as I stepped back, trying to make myself as invisible as possible. Not that I had seen a lot of people walking outside at this time of the night, but still. You never knew what lurked in the woods that surrounded the place and I didn't forget the prickling sensation when I'd just arrived, and again walking to the dorm, of someone watching me.

Our senses were our greatest allies, and if we failed to listen to them, we were as good as dead. Especially with the kind of jobs I was tasked to do.

I relied on my instincts, on the spidey senses, as Alena called them, more than my heart, and I was never wrong. Yolanda joked that she could read energies, and maybe that was what it was, but I always somehow knew. I always had a feeling about people.

Looking at them felt like looking into their souls. I caught on to the way they said things, the way they breathed in and out, the way their eyes flickered from one spot to another and the way they smiled. I caught on to their little gestures and the way they behaved with strangers, or the way they looked at kids, women, and other men, and each one of these things helped me to create an image of every single person I had met, and I was never wrong.

I wished I could say this place gave me warm and fuzzy feelings, especially because it was built for people like me, but it didn't. If anything, every single nerve ending in my body screamed at me to get the fuck away from here. It wasn't safe, it was haunted by the past and by the future that was looming ahead of us, but I couldn't. Not right now.

Not when I was so close to finding out what happened to Tyler. He was as close to a brother as I would ever get, and it ate me piece by piece all these years that I could never say goodbye. I never saw his body. I was never able to see his coffin lowered into the cold ground. I spoke to the wind, imagining it was him, hoping he would somehow get the message.

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