Ethan took a deep breath.
He felt the weight of all those stares, a dozen pairs of eyes locked on him, and for a split second, he thought about lying, deflecting, making something up. But he didn't have the energy for it. He was too tired, and deep down, he had already shown way too much to hide the rest.
— Well, for starters — he said in a calm voice —, I'm a werewolf. But I can also use magic.
The silence grew even heavier.
Then, as if on cue, every single gaze drifted away from him at the exact same time and locked onto Hope.
Alaric, Caleb, MG, Rafael, even Landon, who had just dropped his gaze back to the floor. Everyone's eyes traveled from Ethan to Hope, and from Hope to Ethan, and the conclusion—which nobody needed to say out loud—hung thickly in the air.
He was just like her.
Hope felt her face heat up again, but this time it wasn't from embarrassment. It was from shock. She took a step forward, her eyes fixed on the boy.
— How is that possible? — she asked, her voice coming out lower than she intended. — How can you use magic and be a werewolf at the same time?
Ethan looked at her. For a second, the seriousness on his face gave way to something softer, almost like a memory, and he nodded slowly without answering the question.
Inside his head, a warm wave of nostalgia washed over him.
Those exact questions, he thought. The exact same ones, with the exact same shocked faces. That's how they looked at me the day I arrived at this school.
It felt like a lifetime ago. For him, over twenty years of darkness separated that day from the present. For the rest of the world, it had been two. And yet, here were the same doubts, the same stares, except now none of them knew him.
Hope kept watching him, and something on her face slowly shifted from shock to a strange, almost frightened kind of recognition.
— So you're a pure hybrid — she said in a low voice —, just like me.
That's impossible. I was an anomaly of nature; it took several mishaps and very specific circumstances for me to be born. Another one like me would be... impossible.
She paused, and the next words came out heavy with an emotion she herself didn't understand.
Ethan looked at her, and for the first time since he'd clawed his way out of hell, his smile reached his eyes.
It was a small, crooked smile, full of an intimacy he had no right to feel and yet couldn't hide.
— I think we have more in common than you think — he said, looking straight at her.
Hope opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
Heat rushed up her neck, flooded her cheeks, reached all the way to her tips of her ears, and she knew with humiliating clarity that she was blushing in front of everybody. She looked away, looked back, then looked away again, not knowing what to do with her hands, which eventually ended up gripping her wolf pendant.
Why does she always do that? Ahhh, what is going on inside my head? she thought.
The reaction did not go unnoticed.
Near the wall, Landon felt his stomach drop. His arms, already crossed, tightened across his chest, and his jaw grew so rigid it hurt. Jealousy flared back up, stronger and more bitter, and he couldn't hide it. His eyes darted from Hope to Ethan, from Ethan to Hope, and a deep furrow formed between his eyebrows.
Caleb let out an awkward throat-clearing cough. MG stared at the ceiling, whistling softly, as if he suddenly found the gym's acoustic tiles intensely interesting. Alaric, still holding the crossbow, raised his eyebrows, exchanged a quick glance with empty air, and wisely decided to put the bolt away.
Everyone had noticed. The mood in the room had shifted, and it was impossible to pretend otherwise.
Rafael frowned.
He looked at Hope, then at Landon, and back at Hope, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It didn't add up. For the longest time, he'd seen the two of them together, and he'd always assumed she liked Landon, and that Landon, obviously, liked her. He was almost certain of it. And now here she was, red as a tomato, because of some guy who had appeared out of nowhere that very morning.
Doesn't she like Landon? he thought. Then why is she blushing like that for someone else?
The silence that followed was one of those long, awkward silences where nobody knows where to cast their eyes.
A vibe so thick it could be cut with a knife settled over the place. Landon stared at the floor. Hope stared at her own hand. Ethan stared at Hope. And everyone else pretended to stare at literally anything else.
Alaric cleared his throat with the social grace of a man who had lived through too many agonizingly awkward situations and knew the only way out was to cut through them.
— Well — he said loudly, clapping his hands once. — It's late, and we've had way too much excitement for one day. Ethan, come with me. I need to find somewhere for you to sleep.
Ethan pulled his eyes away from Hope, slowly, like someone tearing themselves away from a magnet, and nodded.
— Alright.
Alaric slid the bolt back into its quiver and slung the crossbow over his shoulder, and the two of them headed toward the door. On the way, the headmaster sighed, looking a bit helpless.
— Fair warning, though. Nowadays we have way too many people and way too little space, and students don't get their own rooms anymore. — He scratched the back of his neck. — You're going to have to share with the other guys.
— Sure — Ethan replied without a single complaint. It was different from when he'd studied there two years ago, when every student had a room to themselves. But after decades of sleeping on a cave floor, sharing a room sounded like luxury.
The two of them walked through the double doors and vanished down the hallway, the sound of their footsteps fading into the darkness.
Inside the gym, nobody moved for a few seconds.
Hope, Landon, MG, Caleb, and Rafael were left behind among the gym mats like shipwreck survivors. It was Rafael who broke the silence, arms crossed and eyebrow raised.
— So — he said. — What was that with the newbie?
— What was what? — Hope replied a little too fast.
— You know what.
— It was nothing. — She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. — He just... helped me out. That's all.
Rafael stared at her for a long, heavy moment. None of the others said anything. Caleb examined his own fingernails. MG looked at the ceiling again.
Because everybody knew. Hope knew she was lying, and she knew they knew. The lie just hung there in the middle of the room, small and transparent, and nobody had the courage to call her out.
The only one who couldn't stomach the weight of that silence was Landon.
He was standing with his hands in his pockets, eyes glued to a random spot on the floor, and when he finally spoke, his voice came out flat, controlled far too tightly.
— I'm heading out.
— Landon... — Hope started.
— It's fine. — He offered a short, hollow smile that reached nowhere near his eyes. — I just need to sleep.
He turned and walked away, waiting for no answer. It was just a look, just an exchange of glances between Hope and a guy she'd literally just met, but it had been enough to shatter something inside him, and he didn't want anyone seeing what it was.
Rafael let out a sigh and went after him without a word. Seconds later, MG and Caleb exchanged a look, shrugged, and walked out too, leaving the room completely silent.
Hope was left alone.
She stood there among the empty mats, staring at the doors where everyone had just left. The gym, which minutes before had been packed with screams, smoke, and bodies, now felt immense, cold, and almost surreal.
She sat down on one of the mats and hugged her knees to her chest.
Ethan... who are you?
She tried, somehow, to organize everything she knew, like putting together a puzzle with pieces that simply didn't fit. He had shown up that morning with no warning, no background check, no name anyone recognized. He had rattled her in a way no other boy ever had—in a way she didn't even know was possible. He was a werewolf who could use magic, and by his own admission, they had more in common than she thought. He had torn a monster clean in half with his bare hands, effortlessly. And before that, he had spoken of a place he'd escaped from, a place that smelled exactly like the monster.
Hope closed her eyes.
What is going on here?