CHAPTER 9

KATHERINE. “Katherine Roxley, welcome to your first semester here at Blackwood University. I’m Dean Bryman. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” the dean said with a wide smile on her face as she took her seat and folded her hands on the desk. I was sitting across from her in her office, a big, circular room done all in silver, purple, and black tones, with portraits of members of the Administration on the wall. There were eight members so there were nine portraits – one for each member and one that had all of them in it – and all of them looked so strict in them. I’d never met any of the members before but the portraits made me understand why dad used to be nervous whenever he was going to meet them. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too,” I replied as I tried to figure out why she wanted to talk to me regarding my admission. I hoped it wasn’t something serious. “I trust that you’re settling in well?” “Yes. Yes, I am.” “Good. I invited you here to talk about your admission,” she said and I nodded, leaning forward a bit. “Miss Roxley, you’re on aided schooling. Do you know what that is?” ‘Aided schooling?’ I shook my head sideways. “Your pack couldn’t uh… completely afford to send you here so we aided you by reducing the fees.” ‘Oh my God.’ I knew this school had to be ‘expensive’ but I hadn’t really thought about how my pack’s council was able to get me enrolled in it because I had been too busy being angry about being enrolled in it. Now I couldn’t help but wonder… ‘Please, tell me they didn’t dip into the pack’s funds to send me here.’ “For us to keep ‘aiding’ you, you have to aid us,” Dean Bryman continued and with everything going through my mind, it took me a couple of seconds to register her words. “Aid– I’m sorry. Aid the school how?” “In two ways.” She opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out two pieces of paper that looked like forms before placing them on the desk and sliding them over to me. “The librarians in the main library need help. Nothing serious. Just some light work, really, and some of our lecturers need a TA so you have to pick one to be a TA for. Can you handle that?” I moved my gaze from her to the forms, then back to her. “Uh… sure?” She clapped her hands together as another wide smile made its way onto her face. “Great. After filling out both forms, you submit one to the main library and the other to the lecturer you want to be a TA for. You should choose a lecturer in your faculty though.” “Okay,” I replied, still not knowing exactly how to feel about this, and she nodded. She remained silent for several moments after that so I assumed this meeting was over but before I could get to my feet, she spoke up. “Do you know that Poppy Dawson is also a student here?” she asked and I gritted my teeth. Whatever expression I had on my face at the mention of her name must have answered her question because she continued, “I’m aware of the troubles between Silver Bow and River Ash but the both of you are on school grounds right now, so I’ll advise you to keep your issues as that… pack issues. Blackwood doesn’t want pack issues making its way onto school grounds and causing problems between its students.” I frowned at her words because it sounded like she expected ‘me’ to be the troublemaker. “What if Poppy wants that?” I asked and she let out a laugh as if I just told a joke. “Miss Dawson is a star student. I’m sure she doesn’t want that.” ‘Ah, she likes Poppy… So that’s how it’s going to be?’ I plastered a smile on my face, wondering if she knew about Poppy bullying students who appeared to be too close to the boys Josie had mentioned, and through gritted teeth, I replied, “Sure.” “Good,” she stated before her gaze slid to the clock on the wall. “And now that that’s handled, I do have another appointment.” That was obviously a dismissal so I got to my feet, swallowing down my frustration as I picked up the forms, and headed out of the office. **** “Are you okay?” Priyanka asked, her brows furrowed a bit with concern, and I gave her a small smile. “I’m fine. I’m just a bit tired.” “You’ve only had two classes.” “I woke up feeling like shit, I don’t remember everything that happened last night, and I’m pretty sure my brain has taken an indefinite hiatus thanks to Mechanics. Have mercy on me,” I replied and she let out a laugh. We were currently standing outside the scavenger hunt clubhouse, waiting to sign up for the club and I was still simmering with anger because of Poppy and my meeting with the dean. I didn’t want to think about them anymore though so I proceeded to try to distract myself by glancing around and it was then it dawned on me that there were a ‘lot’ of people here to sign up for the club. And way more than half of them were girls. “Wow, there are a lot of people here,” I muttered, wondering if there was a limit to the amount of people that could sign up. “Blake’s in the club,” Priyanka explained. “Ah…” I remembered seeing him last night. We had been quite a distance away from each other so I couldn’t recreate his face in my mind but I remembered how bright his smile was. ‘God, I hope I didn’t end up meeting him while I was drunk and saying something stupid.’ I groaned at the thought, letting my head loll back as I recalled going up to a lot of boys to see if they were my mate. ‘You know what, I blame that on the pack’s seer. If she had actually given me some useful information about how and where in Blackwood I was going to find my mate, I wouldn’t have done that. Instead, she had told me some nonsense about meeting him where the moon smiles and shit.’ “Don’t worry,” Priyanka said, throwing her arm around my shoulder. “Drunk you wasn’t that bad,” she added as if she knew what was going through my mind, and I raised a brow at her. “Drunk me wasn’t that bad?” “Drunk Josie flashed some guys during truth or dare.” My lips parted in surprise. “...Oh my God. Drunk me wasn’t that bad,” I replied and she snorted. “You guys were insane. I’m going to chain both of you to me at the next party.” “I won’t be drinking at the next party.” “I support that,” she said and the corner of my mouth turned up because that was the same thing Lenore said this morning. ‘...Shit, I have to apologize to Theo.’ “Okay, listen up, fresh meat,” a voice announced and I looked up to see Ethan Gresser, the boy that had addressed us last night, standing at the top of the stairs of the clubhouse. “It looks like we underestimated the amount of people that would want to sign up for our club and yes, we know ‘most of you’ are here because of Blake.” Some girls giggled at that and he shot them a look before shaking his head sideways. “Weirdos… Okay, well, we came up with a plan to make this easier and by that, I mean, we’ll be having tryouts.” “Tryouts?” a girl asked and I saw that it was the redhead that gave me my phone this morning. Chelsea. “Yep. You guys are going to be trying out for our club and Blake is going to be your coach.”