“Which institution?” I asked carefully.
“If you want to go and see her, I can take you the next time I go to visit.” He moved back to the door as he spoke, hiding his expression from me, and leaving only the barest hint of vulnerability in his voice. I wondered if anyone else ever went to visit Eva.
“Sure,” I muttered. “Thanks, Jayden.”
“Anytime, Wonderkid.”
I sat inside Weston’s limousine, running my sweaty hands over a pair of stretchy workout pants. They were bunched up around my hips and tied off by a string, but thankfully Cabe’s shirt fell to my thighs, hiding how ill-fitting the pants were. I was so nervous, I had asked the limousine to pull over several times already, the need to vomit rising in my throat before I managed to calm myself down.
One night. I had been gone for one night. It was nowhere near enough time. Quillan, Noah and Cabe would be at the height of their fury, and the messenger had meant to banish me, not simply send me away for a sleepover. Hopefully Silas would still be too sick to flip out. Or was that a horrible thing to hope? I cast a quick glance to the two men seated opposite me, briefly taking stock of their appearances. They were both in their thirties, and blond. When they had spoken that morning, I had sensed some kind of European accent, and their names—Hans and Andrei—had further hinted at their heritage. They didn’t seem to be particularly communicative, but Hans had laugh lines around his mouth, and Andrei seemed more shy than cold. Considering the silent shadows Jayden had glued to me over the last few months, these two were a breath of fresh air. Hans had even patted my back as we stopped for the third time and I contemplated vomiting for a few more minutes.
When we arrived on campus, I was sweating so profusely that I could feel the droplets on my spine. The frigid wind seemed to bounce right off my cheeks, but I forced my head up and marched toward the building anyway. A quick glance over my shoulder proved that Hans and Andrei were following a few steps behind, their eyes wary and alert. It didn’t make me feel any better. The messenger rarely assaulted me in the physical sense—he didn’t jump out from behind buildings, shouting boo! Most likely, Hans and Andrei would melt in the very same explosion as me, and the messenger wouldn’t be within punishing range when it happened.
I sucked in a fortifying breath, filling my lungs with the sweet, icy mountain air before I marched in the direction of the ‘Kingsling’ building for my first class. I was hardly surprised that students scattered out of my way and whispered things as I passed, and I doubted that any of what they said was good, but I couldn’t bother myself with my college reputation when so much else was at stake. No matter what Weston said. At least people weren’t shouting things at me, or throwing things at me—but that probably had less to do with me and more to do with the two giants that marched along behind me. Since my visual arts subject seemed to have been scheduled for an hour each morning, I was expecting to find Quillan in the lecture hall when I pushed open the door. None of my other subjects needed five hours a week.
The room was as dark and quiet as it had been on my first day, but this time there was no Quillan waiting by the podium. I did a quick search anyway, even looking into the paper room—which had been converted back into a normal room—but there was no sight of him. With a frown, I slumped into one of the seats. Hans and Andrei sat down in the row behind me, one of them clearing his throat. They were clearly confused about the empty lecture hall, but I doubted that sitting by myself in an empty room could possibly get me into trouble with anyone.
I sat there for the entire hour, and then I checked the wall clock, noting that it was time to move on. I started climbing the stairs back to the hallway and my two silent bodyguards followed, one of them clearing his throat again. I grimaced a little, but otherwise continued to ignore them as I made my way out of the building and to my next class. Since it was a musical theory class, I quickly scanned the backs of the heads as I entered the classroom, wondering if Noah would be there. It was a small group; I remembered reading somewhere that it would be split into study groups of no more than ten people. I caught the side of Danny’s profile, but he hadn’t noticed me yet, and then I suddenly pulled up short. I had expected Noah to be absent like Quillan, but he was sitting right there, frowning at the cover of his textbook while his fingers tapped against the phone that was sitting in his lap. The professor walked into the room behind me, almost bumping into Hans, who quickly stepped out of the woman’s way.