Black Beast (23 page)

“A wastrel, even by human standards. He seems rather obsessed with Catherine Pierce.”

He did not react to her name. “What did he say?”

“One doesn't need to say anything. One can simply let it be known.”

“You're speaking in riddles,” he hissed.

“But you understand.”

“My understanding has limits,” said Finn. “As does my patience.”

When they lay together, as was inevitable, the act was quick, passionless—almost cruel. He got no enjoyment from it, and yet the satisfaction it gave him on the primal level was unparalleled. Finn found himself intentionally trying to hurt her, to force her to yield. He knew she was not enjoying it, but she never once told him to stop. As blood spilled, so did magic.

All the same; neither one of them made a sound.

•◌•◌•◌•◌•

It was hard to finagle Study Hall as a class. She had it in lieu of P.E. Her school records said she had severe asthma—that was a lie. But if she had taken P.E., as she'd so desperately wanted, she would have had to spend the entire class period holding back.

“You're too much of a show-off,” her mother had said. “I know you. If someone taunts you, you're going to feel like you have to prove them wrong. You can't stand being inferior.”

Which was an unfair assessment in Catherine's opinion. She would have held back just enough so that she would be the best in the class, but only by human standards. All the popular kids were involved in sports, regardless of their reputations. But her mother wasn't having it.

It was disappointing. She could have used the A.

Catherine sat down and began to read the dog-eared copy of Don Quixote she'd fished out of the book-bin. They were reading it in Spanish but she sucked at translating, and they'd dumbed down the language so all the morons could read it. All the morons, including her.

“Catherine.” Someone tapped her lightly on the shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

She looked up and met the dark, almost black eyes of David Tran. He was wearing a button-down shirt that would have made him look annoyingly wholesome, except he hadn't shaved in a little while, so he had a bit of five o' clock shadow. Not to the point where he looked scruffy—David was never scruffy, damn him—but enough to make him not quite as clean-cut as usual.

“I always study here,” she said defensively. “What are you doing here?”

He showed her the book he'd had stuffed under his arm. “Studying for our tests.”

“But that's not for two weeks.” Her eyes narrowed as her overworked, over-stressed brain slowly began to assemble the pieces he'd handed her. “You have Study Hall, too?”

Miss Brisk, the librarian, shot them a look. She hadn't said “Shh!” yet but it was forthcoming.

Without waiting for an invitation, David sat down.

“I just quit gym. My knee gave out.”

He winked, just in case she didn't get the joke.

“Ha ha,” she said.

“My parents thought it would be a good idea. You know. With what's been going on lately.”

He had. No. Idea.

His eyes landed on the book before darting back up to hers. “You're reading Don Quixote?”

“I found it in the giveaway bin.”

But David knew her too well. With a strange, feline grin he said, “For school, or for fun?”

“Right now, for fun.”

His smile widened into a grin. Men shouldn't be allowed to look good while making fun of you. It was incredibly bad for morale.

“What's so funny?” She slammed the book shut with a muted thud. “I'm not allowed to read?”

That got rid of the laughter, but not the smile. “I just don't understand you.”

She fixed him with a look. “That's not my fault.”

He ignored the jab. “I don't understand why you aren't working up to your full potential. If nothing else, you're intelligent. Why don't you apply yourself?”

Catherine scrunched up her nose, letting him see how much she valued that idea. “What's the point? The instructors already have their opinions of me fixed in their brains. I'm not like you. I'm not like them.” She nodded towards a group of teenyboppers chatting gaily away about their plans for the weekend. “That's not something that's going to change.”

“With that attitude, sure. But you could be, if you wanted to.”

“Well, maybe I don't want to. Did you ever stop to think that maybe I'm happy with life as it is?”

“You don't look very happy.”

“I fail to see how that's any of your concern, Dudley Do-Wrong.”

He rolled his eyes and opened the book. “Because you need help,” he informed her, turning the pages. “And not necessarily the therapeutic kind.”

Her mind choked on that one. Was he saying she couldn't take care of herself? She opened her mouth and started to say that at the very least she could definitely 'take care of him', but that would be playing right into his hands. He would only point out in an irritatingly calm voice, as he had so many times before back when she had to tolerate it from him because they were friends, that she was always trying to solve her problems with violence.

Her problem, according to him, was that she never thought things through.

“Listen,” she said, after thirty seconds spent envisioning calm blue oceans. “Maybe I actually do need your help with something.”

“Like what?” He looked suspicious, like he thought she meant cheating or obtaining drugs.

Just goes to show how little he does know about me.
She tried to dismiss his scorn but it still brought her pain.

“It's about the vivisection we're supposed to do on Thursday.”

“Oh man,” David said. “I still need to review that chapter. What about it?”

“I can't tell you here.” She glanced pointedly at the librarian. “It's personal.”

David got up. Just like that, without even another word on her part.

Okay, that was kind of nice.

Outside the library there was a small enclave next to a large glass window. It had a magnificent view of the soccer field, which was currently empty. Catherine stood next to the heater, which emitted just enough white noise to mask a whispered conversation from human ears.

“Jeez,” David said, looking around a little nervously. “What's with the cloak-and-dagger stuff?”

“I can't do it.” There it was, the blunt truth.

“Do what?”

“The vivisection.”

He stared at her like she had gills peeking out from her shirt collar. “You have to do it,” he said slowly. “Labs are worth ten points each. With your grades you can't just—”

“I'm going to panic,” she told him flatly. “When I think about cutting into one of those things, I get physically ill.”

“Then I'll do the dissecting,” he said briskly. “Is that all? You could have just told me—”

“You're smart, David. Put it together. If I start freaking out, what's going to happen?”

His eyes widened. Bingo. “Oh. Oh crap. Can't you have your mom write a note excusing you?”

“Hauberk'd probably think I forged it,” she said bitterly. “It would have to be a doctor's note. And the only doctor who would write me one is—” Catherine glanced around, lowered her voice “—a shifter. And my mother's being super paranoid and trying to sever all our connections to…that. She wouldn't take the risk. She'd deem it unnecessary. Tell me to suck it up and do the lab.”

“What do you want me to do? I'm not a doctor.”

“You're going to help me break into that lab and steal the crickets.”

David said a phrase that would have gotten him kicked out of most classrooms—after the teacher had recovered from his or her heart-attack, of course.

“Careful,” she said. “If a teacher hears you carrying on like that, you're going to get a demerit.”

“You are insane,” he hissed. “You can't just break into the lab. Have you lost your mind?”

“I'm not going to take an F. I don't do Fs.”

“That's the least of your worries.” David pinched the bridge of his nose, like he was trying to hold something back. More cursing, probably. “Don't you get it? With our numbers dwindling, the bounty for our kind has gone up considerably. They won't stop until they've wiped us all off the face of the earth. The Council is more active than ever in making damn sure that nobody draws attention to our community. We've got one of their daughters in our class, and you want to pull a stunt like this? You must have a death wish.”

“It's not a stunt,” she cut in savagely.

“Karen's not stupid, Catherine. Don't you think she'll be able to put two and two together when the crickets go missing? Even you have to admit that your reputation as a rule breaker precedes you.”

“That's why it's so brilliant,” she argued. “It's so reckless that nobody would believe we did it. Trust me, I've got it all worked out. You're the school's Golden Boy—” his frown deepened at that. She pretended not to notice “—and I'm…well, I'm more subtle than that. I've got finesse. I'll botch it up when I break in and make it look like a bunch of punks did it. They'll think it's someone pulling an end-of-semester prank. Mr. Hauberk isn't exactly one of the most popular teachers.”