Chapter 5

Chapter Five

In which it is just another first day at school.

Mariya…

“Your mother wanted you to do what?”

I’m laughing in that guilty, “I shouldn’t be laughing and I’m going to hell for this,” way, but I can’t stop.

“It’s my Da’s birthday, yeah?” Liam is shoveling eggs into his mouth as he talks. “So, Ma wanted to spread some of his ashes around this big tree where they met or some shite, so I said ‘sure, of course.’ We get to the place and it’s next to a pub – no fuckin’ surprise there – and she’s got the urn and nothing else.”

“And then what?” Tatiana’s fork is forgotten in her hand, hovering over her plate.

“So I open the damn thing and it’s just a dusty plastic bag inside and I’m lookin’ for a scoop or something and then I realize there isn’t one but my ma is already crying something fierce so I just… stick my hand in the urn.”

“Eww!” The entire table chorused, and I wonder how a group of people who are as bloodthirsty as this crew can be squeamish about ashes. For god’s sake, Meiying and Jun blocked the exits and set fire to a bunker full of soldiers from a Triad that assassinated one of their uncles, and they both have their hands over their mouths like they’re going to hurl their breakfast.

Liam finishes a slice of toast and continues. “I grab a big fistful of Da-”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Athena gags a little, grabbing her napkin.

“…and start spreading the ashes around the tree and the wind is blowing and it’s a big fuckin’ mess,” Liam continues. “Ma’s not finished havin’ her moment so I grab another handful and this goes on until she’s feelin’ good about it. And I drive home with my hand out the window because I’ve got him under my fingernails.”

I’m laughing so hard that I don’t see Konstantin and Lucca sit down at the other end of the table until Tatiana nudges me. Kon never looks up from his food after the waiter bustles over with his ridiculously large breakfast. He has a lot of nerve, pretending he has no idea I’m here when he was thoroughly inspecting my pussy not forty-eight hours earlier.

“Oy! Turgenev!” Liam shouts down the table, “Took you long enough to get back to the Academy, ya lazy bastard!” Liam’s the second son from the O’Neill Irish mob, and he’s in the Warriors division here. His family has some mysterious alliance with the Turgenev Bratva. All I know is that it didn’t involve marrying off their children.

That must be nice, I think bitterly.

The dining hall at the Ares Academy looks less school cafeteria and more five-star restaurant. It’s rumored that Dean Christie stole the head chef from Disfrutar in Barcelona, which was ranked the best dining experience in Europe a few years back. This room is my favorite at the Academy. There are glorious windows that give a spectacular view of the ocean, a blaze always roaring in a fireplace big enough to roast three oxen, and a shining mahogany bar at the end of the room. Yes, a full bar service in a student dining hall.

I’m jostled when Meiying and Jun Chen pull two chairs over from another table. “Zǎoshang hǎo, good morning,” Meiying says, “when did you all get in?”

“Late last night,” Tatiana said, leaning behind me to hug her. “How about you two?”

The Chen twins are the heirs to a Chinese Triad dynasty with a terrifying reputation. Even in a world as bloody as ours, people shudder when their names are mentioned.

“Yesterday,” Jun says. “Early enough to notice something.”

“Notice what?” I frown. His usual characteristic smirk is absent.

“Look around the dining room,” he said, “does anything seem different?”

I scan the tables, the students eating and laughing, the white-coated servers. “Everyone was supposed to be back by last night, right? It should be crowded.”

“Exactly,” Jun points his fork at me, “There should be an influx of shiny new faces for the freshman class. And I don’t see Miguel Herrera from the Leader’s Division.”

“Or Hana Aikawa,” I said, “she was a Sophomore in the Spy Division with me.”

Tatiana and Meiying lean in. “You’re right,” Tati says, concerned, “there are at least ten upperclassmen that I know that are missing. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Jun says slowly, “but no one willingly drops out of the Ares Academy.”

Some of our questions are answered when Dean Christie calls us all to the Grand Hall in the main building, which is magnificent. It’s built in the Gothic architectural style – like all the Ares Academy – with arched stained-glass windows, spires, and towers on all four corners as if even the building is always watching for danger. Ancient, intricate, frescoes on the walls have kept their vivid colors. There are dozens of banners hung here, some dating back nearly three hundred years.

The Academy was built on the isolated, windswept Inis Mor in the Aran Islands off the coast of Ireland. We’re bordered on one side by the sheer, steep cliffs the islands are famous for, and the other three sides with next to no trees, so the sightline for defense is perfect, no attacker can catch the guards by surprise.

However, what I learned last year was that the enemy could already be within these high stone walls.

“Good morning, students.”

The Dean is standing on the raised dais, and her voice is strong enough with the hall’s acoustics to be heard clearly, even in the back. “Welcome back to another school year.” There’s polite applause and she smiles blandly before her expression turns cold. “You might have noticed some of your classmates are missing. Fourteen of our upperclassmen died under mysterious circumstances, or in direct attacks over the last two months. Some of you here…” her gaze darts to us briefly and moves on, “survived an offensive of your own. We are happy to see you back.”

She puts a hand up, and all the concerned murmuring seeping through the hall stops instantly as I smother a grin. Dean Christie looks a lot like the “fun aunt” who comes back from world travels and always brings gifts to the nieces and nephews. She is short, shoulder-length brown and grey hair and prefers to dress in dark suits clearly designed for comfort over fashion. When you see the Dean in action, though, the “fun” part is very much missing. She is very fond of her power tools, which she used to cut the hands off four students last year who tried to rape Tatiana. There is not a soul in this hall who isn’t afraid of her.

“Now clearly, there is cause for concern. However, discovering what forces are behind these attacks is a task left to your families. Here on this campus, you are safer than anywhere else in the world.”

I squeeze Tatiana’s hand. Along with being assaulted last year, she was also kidnapped from campus. So I am not as confident about the Dean’s reassurances anymore.

“I expect you all to devote yourself to your studies. There are no allowances at the Ares Academy for concerns outside this campus,” her eyes narrowed, and it was clear that scary Dean Christie was back.

We all dispersed in little huddles, sharing whatever scraps of information we had.

“Your people were all packed on the same train?” Liam asks, incredulous. “Fightin’ like rats in a shoe?”

“What?” Tatiana’s frowning, trying to understand him. His Irish accent gets thicker when he’s upset. “What’s this about a shoe?”

“He thinks it’s a miracle we didn’t kill each other, much less those lokhi, those fuckers who tried to ambush us,” Konstantin translated.

“You know, it’s worth trying to find out who else has been attacked this summer,” I said, “maybe we can find some similarities that might help narrow down who’s doing this.”

“Crime families are always under attack,” Tati said. “Case in point, my brother’s Bratva last year.” The Aslanov Bratva was nearly pulled under by a constant series of attacks from three different crime families, including the Rostova Bratva. Their slime of a Pakhan tried to make an arranged marriage between Tati and our old friend Aleksandr, who killed his father and took his place.

“Speaking of that,” Meiying asks, “how is Aleks?”

“The last time we spoke, he was good,” Lucca said. “I know he’s under a hell of a lot of pressure to be the biggest, baddest Pakhan in Moscow.”

“The only thing the Academy does better than teaching us murder and mayhem is spreading gossip,” I said. “Let’s see how many students we can talk to today.”

Tatiana and I split off to head to our Digital Surveillance class. Professor Buçaj looks at us with absolutely no enthusiasm. “You might be thinking that you will all slide through this year as you did as freshmen.”

I arched a brow at Tati, and she gave me the same look. The professor thought our first year was easy?

“You should all plan to work much harder,” Buçaj warned us. She was a sallow-faced woman in her mid-forties and a genius when it came to finding her way into government surveillance systems. Rumor had it that she hacked into one of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security spy satellites last year as “a fun little example” for her stupefied class.

I would love to see that. Hopefully, she’ll show us this year, too.

It was a good first day. I had some of the best professors on campus and I was feeling optimistic until I stepped into my Combat class and there he was.

Konstantin.

That asshole, smirking as he stood against the wall with Professor Zimmerman and a couple of other seniors as we all took our places in a circle. Combat is not my favorite class. No one liked Zimmerman. He was a gigantic Austrian boxer who’d pummeled plenty of people half to death on the underground fighting circuit in Eastern Europe before Dean Christie lured him here to crush the bones and hopes of his students.

“Welcome back,” Zimmerman said, pacing the room and examining each of us. “I’m using the talents of some of my best upperclassmen to help you learn this year. “Mr. Suarez, Mr. Marshdown, Mr. Solberg and Miss Morozova, you’ll be under the guidance of Mr. Turgenev.”

Oh, no way is that happening. “Professor Zimmerman?” I said, raising my hand. “Could I be switched to O’Neill’s group?”

The towering Austrian looks at me, frowning.

“No.”

God damnit.

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