Paper Tigers Page 2

  I gave the truck a few minutes to get ahead of me. In all the times I’d brought back a live ’swang since the attack, I’d never helped A.J. and Squeak carry the body into the morgue. I couldn’t stand seeing the bulky west wing lab door swing closed and hear it lock, the skull and crossbones practically smiling at me, calling me a murderer. A monster. No matter how many times I reminded myself of the bad things the aswangs had done, it never worked.

  I used to savor feeling like a killer. I used to need it. Now, I felt tired.

  I walked down the road, the turbines oscillating to my left, the airstrip and back line of useless thirty-foot fencing behind me. Cottonwood trees rustled, and the sun peeked through their limbs. Back here, in this part of the school, I could almost breathe by imagining it was months ago, during my first couple of weeks here when I’d run the fence line each evening, my feet crunching over the frost, the guards walking along the fence above me and waving as I ran by.

  But the feeling didn’t last. I broke through the copse of cottonwoods and came to the front of the school. It still smelled of burnt earth. The trees not knocked over or blown apart by the bombs that had taken out chunks of the fence’s front section were burnt hunks. They’d smoldered for weeks afterward. The courtyard, once the hub of student activity, looked like a meteor had struck it. A crew had been coming in every day to level the earth and lay the brick walkways back down, but students no longer came outside to study or eat.

  At least, the students who’d stayed didn’t come outside anymore.

  Barbed wire was strung over the fence’s gaping holes, and crews worked around the clock to repair the breaches in the university’s defenses. More guards, pulling twelve-hour shifts, patrolled the damaged fence line. Before the attack, their guns had rarely gone off. Now, barely an hour passed without the sharp retort of a bullet firing down at a ’swang trying its luck against the weakened school and the notoriously juicy students within its battered walls.

  The attack had emboldened the aswangs, and we were all feeling the toll.

  The mismatched school bricks were chipped, and bullets were still lodged in places. Workers had replaced the most damaged ones, but other blood-stained bricks remained as a grim reminder. I’d suggested to Dean that they leave them.

  It’s time for things to change, I’d told him. They need to know the real dangers they’re facing. The time for made-up fantasies has passed.

  I pressed my thumb against the new fingerprint reader on the front door, and the scanner warmed my skin. The titanium metal door hummed open. Across the entry, the same type of door barred access into the Death Dome of student dorm rooms. It was quiet in there. All the students were sitting through their first morning class, trying to keep their eyelids propped open.

  No one was sleeping well these days.

  I checked my watch. I had less than an hour to debrief with Dean before my second class, and I really needed to wash the rat blood off my skin and the smell of death from my hair. The students on campus tended to give me a wide berth these days. Once, they’d clustered at mine and Sunny’s lunch table, but now they hardly even waved. It wasn’t dislike that created the distance, but intimidation. Fear. They didn’t know my secret, but they sensed I was different.

  They knew I’d played a part in the attack. They tasted the guilt around me.

  Hex had come to cripple the university, and he’d won. I could have done more to keep him away, but I’d thought myself strong enough to fight him and save the school my mother had loved. I’d been wrong. I wasn’t strong enough. Fear University was meant to protect the world from true monsters, both human and ’swang. Yet Hex had proved we were nothing without our fences. That I was nothing.

  I headed straight to the elevator banks and rode up to the third floor. The classroom doors were closed, the professors’ voices droning on from the inside. The long glass wall revealed the empty gym, though it would be packed later with all the students taking part in mandatory defense classes that had replaced their afternoon schedules. Another one of my ideas. Dean hadn’t argued with me on that one.

  My footsteps rang off the concrete floor as I rounded the corner into the administrative offices. The window across from Dean’s office overlooked the university’s secluded corner of Kodiak Island. The sun beamed down on the late spring snowfall, melting it into snaking rivers. The place had been a prison for the country’s most infamous criminals, but it had never felt like a prison until now.

  I didn’t bother knocking on the door. Dean and I were past such civilities.

  He looked up as I came in, his coffee mug pausing halfway to his mouth, his handlebar mustache framing the ceramic rim. His desk, as usual, was a scene of barely contained chaos. Behind him, a barrage of colorful pins marked a map of the university’s grounds, noting weak spots.

  He sat his coffee aside to leave a wet ring on some paperwork. “You’re late.”

  “I’m late.” I helped myself to the rolling cart of coffee and bagels. “Where’s the orange juice?”

  “The supply envoy got intercepted late last night. The truck never made it.”

  I glanced up, the knife laden with cream cheese forgotten in my hand. “The escorting hunters?”

  “All dead.”

  I sat my food down, no longer hungry, and carried my coffee to the wingback chair across from his desk. “That’s bad.”

  “The aswangs are pushing in on us. They know we’re weak. The Barrow hunters should be out there slaughtering them faster than they can come after us. It’s the only way to put them back in their places.”

  “We’ve talked about this. It’s not up for debate. The Barrow hunters don’t understand some ’swangs are good.”

  He shook his head, disgust flattening his mouth. He would never understand.

  “If you would let the halflings into the school,” I continued, “we would have more hunters who understand the need to be careful about who we hunt.”

  “The halflings are an uncontrollable band of rogue kids. They would tear this place apart.”

  A hint of red pressed in around my vision. Dean knew nothing about my mother’s sanctuary in Anchorage, where she’d harbored young halflings. Hex had protected the place until a few months ago when I ran him off and put Thad in charge of the halflings who hadn’t sided with my father.

  Or I thought I’d left Thad in charge.

  Dean saw the uncertainty flicker across my face and pounced. “How can we even trust a group of leaderless outsiders? Thad has been missing for weeks. I never should have trusted him. I should have known he was a halfling.”

  I took a deep breath. I had no clue where Thad had gone. He’d just disappeared. Either he needed to show up again, or I had to bring the halflings here, where they’d be safe. My stomach roiled at the thought of Thad deserting us and siding with my father. After everything we’d been through, after Ghost, he might have left.

  He was simply gone. Vanished.

  “We should consolidate our numbers,” I said, grasping at straws and hoping my desperation wasn’t flashing like a neon sign. How had my mother managed to take care of the halflings in Anchorage and keep Dean in check and steer Fear University down the right path?

  “And how would we explain their arrival?” Dean’s mustache fluttered, reminiscent of a trapped bat. “An influx of new students nobody has ever heard of, especially while families are pulling their kids out faster than I can sign the release forms?”

  “Maybe you could tell the truth.”

  “The truth?” He laughed. “You intend to tell these terrified students and professors there are halfbreed ’swangs running around the halls with them? Sleeping in the room next to them? How do you think that will go over? For all you speak of truth, you haven’t even told the university what you are yet. Why is that, Ollie?”

  I froze. The line between Dean and I was drawn on shifting sand. Necessity had forced us together. Enemy of my enemy and all that. But he knew all my greatest fears, my greatest weaknesses. Fea
r University was my home, but I couldn’t guarantee people would want me here once they knew my darkest truth. “They aren’t ready yet.”

  Dean sat back in his chair, making it squeak in complaint. He folded his hands across his round belly and said with an intention that worried me, “We both know that wasn’t the case.” He smirked. “You aren’t ready, and for all your preaching about some aswangs being good, you know, in your heart, they’re all monsters. That’s why you won’t tell the truth.”

  “I know—”

  “Because,” he said, white teeth emerging from beneath his mustache, “if you thought they weren’t monsters, how would you justify hauling them in here for me to lobotomize?”

  My fingers clenched around my coffee cup. I wanted to hurl it at him. “I’m making a statement to the aswangs who attacked us, and I’m keeping those dead hunters you exhumed and operated on in the ground where they belong. Every day that passes without another organized attack is from my name keeping the rogues at bay. Remember that and imagine what would happen if I left.”

  “You’d never leave,” he sneered. “You can’t walk away from your mother’s ties to this place.”

  “If I left,” I said, correcting him, “I would take this place with me. I would take its values and mission of protecting the world from evil. I would take the good, loyal hunters and the students who want to fight for a better world, not just a family name. I would take all of that, and I would leave only ash behind. You know I would, so watch how long you sit there and smirk at me.”

  His smirk fell away. We knew each other well. Our threats were promises hidden away for future use. Soon, one of us would die by the other’s hand.

  I couldn’t wait.

  “You better go,” he said, “or you’ll be late for class.”

  I rolled my eyes. “This class ruse is getting old. We both know I’m better than all the fifth-years combined.”

  “Which is why I skipped you and Sunny to the third-year class. It’s the best I could do without explaining where you’d been all winter break.”

  “That’s what you get for answering to stuffy old men with important last names.”

  “Those last names fund this school. More importantly, they won’t listen to a young, brazen student, nor will they follow her, especially once they know what you are. You need me to navigate the politics.”

  “Fuck the politics,” I growled. “If they can’t get behind Fear University’s true purpose, then they can fend for themselves.”

  Dean shook his head, and for once, he seemed sad for me, like I had so much to learn. My hackles rose. I shoved to my feet and sat the full cup of coffee on the cart. When my hand was on the door, ready to throw it open, Dean said from behind me, “We must work together on this, Ollie. It’s the only way Fear University will make it to the other side of this war.”

  I looked back at him the way he’d looked at me only a moment before. Sad-like, because he had so much to learn about this war. The war I’d been right in the middle of all winter break. The war he’d only heard about from behind a desk as real hunters reported to him.

  “Fear University will make it, but you won’t. Not if I can help it.”

  T W O

  Sunny

  A flash of light blinded me. An acrid scent and the unmistakable smell of burning hair followed. The hissing spray of a fire extinguisher accompanied a string of vile—but creative—curse words.

  Unsurprised, I kept my eyes on the microscope, careful not to lose count as I tracked each altered white blood cell on my sample of antidote-infused blood. “Do I need to call the guards again?” I asked without lifting my face from the eyepieces, still counting.

  Behind me, I imagined Nyny Vasilievna rolling her eyes and slinging her lavender braid over her shoulder. Today, she wore pink corduroy overalls, yellow wellies, and a fuzzy white sweater that was causing a static storm in her hair. The fire extinguisher thunked as she set it on the lab table with a huff.

  I finished counting and swiveled around on my stool to level a long glance at her. “We should go to sleep. We promised if we set another fire it was time for bed.”

  “Technically,” Nyny said, licking the tip of her finger and stroking it along the length of her singed eyebrow to tame the frazzled hairs, “it was an explosion. Not a fire. I might have caused a catalytic decomposition with some hydrogen peroxide.” I sucked in an alarmed breath, my eyes going to her station, but she stepped in front of me to block my view. “Besides, it’s almost nine in the morning. You’re late for second period.”

  “Son of a biscuit!” I jumped off my chair and yanked off my gloves as I raced toward the clean-up station to wash out of the lab. “I wanted to take another trip through the fear sim before class this morning, and I’m already so behind in Weapons Application.”

  “Heavy is the weight the prodigy carries.”

  “No,” I said, biting off the word as I turned on a blast of scalding water. “I jumped from first-year to third-year with little preparation and no time to catch up in the classes. If I fail a class, my mom will tell my grandmother and then I’ll really be up a creek.” I scowled as I cleaned my fingers, stabbing the bristled brush under my nails. It was a twisted notion, but I thought I could make up for Nyny’s lack of sanitation protocol by scrubbing with more fervor when I washed out of the lab. Call me crazy.

  I shot a glance at Nyny when she didn’t have a smart-butt quip. She lowered her goggles into place—always a bad sign if she thought she needed eye protection—and widened her large blue eyes at me. “What? Oh, did you say something? There’s a ringing in my ears.”

  I sighed. She was practically yelling. Great. She was already partially deaf in her left ear from a similar explosion back in her university days, and it had caused miscommunications between us in the past, like when I’d asked her to order a hundred petri dishes and she showed up with honeyed meaty quiche. It was disgusting. Grabbing my book bag from the hook by the door, I waved at her and pointed upstairs.

  “Peace out,” she shouted.

  I’d made it two steps out of the east wing lab before the deep trance music started blaring from the speakers inside. I cringed, but at least we had the lab to ourselves. Dean had set up a temporary lab in one of the old first-floor classrooms for the other scientists. He’d made our antidote research a priority, with no limits on our budget and the blunt reminder to all my third-year teachers that my attention would be dedicated solely to finding the right balance of wolf’s bane and proper solvent to counteract ’swang saliva effects in hunters. We’d been close to finding the perfect solvent in a drug that treated hypertension, but it wasn’t powerful enough to sustain a long-term reaction against the saliva. We needed something stronger. Something more lethal. Something that could go toe to toe with the saliva’s powers, and even though A.J. and Squeak had been members of Hex’s pack, they had no idea what ingredients the Anchorage halflings had used. They were big and furry and completely useless to me. Go figure.

  Before bounding up the stone steps, my gaze lingered on the west wing lab’s door at the far end of the lab. A skull and crossbones marked the door, and like the other doors around school, it had a new thumbprint reader and reinforced hinges. It was also the door Ollie’s pack of aswangs used at least once a week to carry in lumpy body bags. I knew what they carried in the bags and what happened when Dean disappeared behind that door for hours on end, only to reemerge smelling of chemicals and something I didn’t want to think too long on.

  Sometimes, if Nyny and I were quiet, we heard the screams.

  And sometimes, if the air circulated just right and I took a deep breath, I could smell it. The scent wafted out from under the west wing lab door and slithered toward me. It was a punch to the gut, and it would linger on my tongue for days afterward.

  After discovering my reaction to ’swang saliva—my fearlessness—I’d uncovered something else in the weeks during my recovery: I could smell fear.

  I hadn’t told anyone, especially
not Ollie. She worried enough and reeked of fear almost constantly. I didn’t want to add to her plate.

  I had no time for a shower or breakfast before sneaking into Weapons Application. The professor didn’t bother glaring at my late arrival, but the students tracked my every step. Their eyes were wide and unblinking, a mixture of awe and unease. No one called me the Cowardly Lyon anymore.

  The scent of fear was stronger here, and I was thankful I hadn’t had time for food, because it would have been burbling in my stomach.

  I took my seat at one of the many empty desks and opened my notebook to take notes, but my mind returned to the bane and fear, as it always did.

  In a dark spot in the back of my mind, I felt it calling. A low curl of heat, hissing and flicking toward me, called me with a sensuous voice that made my spine tingle.

  I was craving ’swang saliva again.

  * * *

  Fear—my own—clogged my nose. My heart pounded, and the slender throwing knife in my hand was slick with sweat.

  Tick

  The ’swang circled closer. Its lips twitched over yellow fangs. Within black obsidian eyes, my reflection glinted upside down. The creature stalked closer, and pain lanced through my body.

  Tock

  I fell to a knee as the bones in my body bent backward, the breath in my chest sucked dry and my lungs flattening thinner than paper in the wind.

  Tick tock

  A ’swang had fed on my fear when Dean tested Ollie and me during Fields. The sensation of being sucked dry, which had only been in my head, and the fear being licked from my skin had crippled me.

  The ’swang was close enough to breathe on me and draw its tongue from my jaw to my hairline. I fought back its control on my mind and shuddered.