Chapter 15

This feels like the longest night in existence. All the lights in the house are out—my mother and grandmother had gone to bed a while ago—and I'm left to lay in the darkness of my bedroom. It's quiet, so painfully quiet. It's gotten too cold for the crickets and now the night is filled with unsettling, infrequent gusts of wind. I'd much rather hear the wet tapping of rain than this silence, but the one night I need noise is the one night of clear skies.

Tomorrow is my first day at the Academy. I have my uniform hanging on the back of my desk chair. Contrary to my mother's beliefs, it fits near perfectly, which makes my mind wander to Adam. This situation that I've been thrown into is insane, completely unreal, but I still feel guilty for acting so cold towards him. He is clearly trying to make it work; I just can't get my mind around the idea of it actually working. There's n