When Blakeney had dropped off his textbooks last night, James had been a little confused upon seeing the title of the text for Photography. Thinking he might have been the butt of a joke, he slipped Photography For Dummies, along with his history text, into his bag. He shut the door to his room and hurried up to the fourth floor, not wanting to be late. The classroom was on the opposite side of the building, next to the girls’ dormitories, and James found it easily enough. As soon as he walked in, he realized no one else had their schoolbags with them. The only accessory they happened to have was a camera. He felt a little out of place as he made his way across the room to the only friendly face he saw, Jennifer West. She smiled at James as he approached. “Well, hey, James. Could a girl have any more luck?” “Uh . . . hey,” he said, glancing around. “Did I miss something? Why doesn’t everyone have their books with them?” “Oh, you only need it on Wednesdays. And don’t worry
Sitting with this new group of friends was different, he realized. Gone was the familiarity of the sibling-like relationship of Eliza and Tres. Conversation was more refined, as if even here, while just having dinner and enjoying each other’s company, reputations had to be preserved and images upheld. It was actually exhausting. Of the three—Ceres, Rachel, and Ricky—the only one he had any kind of interesting conversation with was Ricky. They talked a lot about lacrosse and the upcoming spring season. Of course, Jennifer didn’t know much about lacrosse, so she mainly talked across James to Rachel while keeping a hand on him flirtatiously. James learned that Ricky had several big parties every year. The shorter boy’s eyes lit up at the mention of his get-togethers. “Normally I just throw one for Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and my famous End of the Year Bash. But from time to time, I like to just go crazy as hell and throw one for no reason at all.” “Let me gues
“Tres?” he said to his roommate. Hearing no response, he looked over at his friend and found him entranced in WOW—again. “Tres!?” “Huh?” Tres looked over. “Whatcha think?” James asked nervously. “Eh . . . good enough,” Tres said, and quickly turned back to his computer. James breathed deeply and let the exhale out slowly, as if his lips were the release valve of an air pump. He shook his head, wondering why he was so nervous. “It’s the first date, that’s why,” he mumbled under his breath. The last week had flown by and now Saturday night was here—his first date with Jennifer. Normally, when James was looking forward to something, time slowed down so much that it seemed the hands on a clock stood still. But this week had disappeared in a blink. A comfortable routine had probably helped with that. It seemed so easy and normal. Every day he would eat breakfast and lunch with Tres, Eliza, and Svet. Dinner was reserved for Jennifer and her friends. In between class
The library was the place of choice to avoid being cooped up in the dorm room all day. He and Tres had made their way down a few hours after breakfast to grab a table and get to work on what little homework remained. A pattern was starting to emerge. James had finished all of his assigned work yesterday—all, that is, except for Algebra. He hated the subject, so he found himself putting it off until last. James knew he shouldn’t, but he procrastinated anyway. He felt like he had been running in circles with it for the last hour. Without Tres, he recognized, he would never complete any of it. Almost done. Then I can enjoy the rest of the day. He sighed and looked around. Tres was humming merrily away across from him and fooling around on one of his tablets. He seemed oblivious to his surroundings. Tres had already finished his homework. He was home free. Meanwhile, Eliza, who had joined them shortly after arrival, was working hard on a rewrite of a submitted essay for Engli
Ms. Allie had been talking all period, but James was hardly paying attention. The past two days, the students had all been talking about the power outage, even though there hadn’t been a storm. But thoughts of betrayals and seductions had been plaguing James’s mind nonstop. He thought he was comfortable with his decision, but for some reason there was this strange and consistent tugging in the back of his mind like his subconscious was doing its best to tell him something. James couldn’t quite pin it down. He glanced at his friend next to him. Of course Tres would be mesmerized by the young and beautiful woman; he looked like he was in dreamland whenever he saw her. Hard to believe Tres could ever get any work done in this class. Eliza hadn’t talked to him very much since Sunday morning, and he didn’t like that at all. He enjoyed their battles of words and wits, and without them, he felt empty. Even Svet had been more subdued recently, as if her best friend’s emotions h
“James? You okay? You seem a little out of it,” Jennifer said. He barely registered her words. The usual group was sitting together at dinner and conversation was lively and intriguing, but his mind was simply elsewhere. James kept thinking about prophecies and creatures from the Underworld attempting to destroy everything. Why couldn’t we all just get along? He had decided to go through with all of this training business, but he still couldn’t bring himself to believe that the fate of the known world actually rested on him. I mean, if it does finally click, I’ll probably suffer a mental breakdown. That wasn’t exactly something one person should ever have to shoulder.Seeing as a lot of time would be spent training, he wondered what effect it’d have on his social life. Jennifer probably wouldn’t like it very much. She was used to being able to be with him for a couple of hours every day after dinner. Training time with Blakeney would certainly cut that off—at least a fe
The next day James’s arm was so sore, he could barely write. James usually liked to write up all of his notes instead of typing them into his iPad, but today that proved impossible. Dr. Thomas was discussing some of the missions and preparations leading up to D-Day, and he didn’t want to miss anything. Of course, some of the missions being discussed are only found in special textbooks available to descendants of demigods. Many of them were infiltrated behind enemy lines and helped to disrupt the Axis war machine. As his typing skills were not up to par, a downloaded recording application did the trick, and he taped everything for post-class review. Dr. Thomas was talking about possibly showing Saving Private Ryan—with a commentary of which characters were based on actual soldiers that were demigods—after they finished studying D-Day in order to get a better visualization of it all. It was one of James’s favorite movies, so it suited him just fine. The class bell rang, putting an end t
The low light flickered in the temple-like structure as cold, damp whispers of air filled the cave. With only a single entrance into the massive underground cavern, fresh air was a luxury, but the dark-haired young man enjoyed the dank atmosphere. It reminded him of death. He was tall, lanky, with a sharp-featured face and intense gray eyes that struck fear into whomever looked into them. Nicholas Clurife had always had the ability to manipulate and control those whom he considered weak, especially the pathetic excuse for a human he was facing now. “What have you learned?” asked Clurife in a soft baritone voice. “W-well, I’ve been watching Mr. Blakeney for an-anything different or unusual like you asked . . . and I think I may have something,” he replied, then swallowed hard. “Yes, continue.” “A couple weeks ago h-he left early on a Friday, and when he came back Sunday night, he had with him…a-another student. I’ve never seen him go and actually bring back a student l