Page 30 of Darkness Defined

Alex looked at me. “You definitely did something. I… felt it. Both what she did and what you did. Didn’t you?”

Short answer: no. Not short answer: maybe?

Vera whistled. “Alright, enough gawking. Yes, it was a very impressive counter attack.” She smiled at me and a tiny ember of pride burned in my chest. Then she spun to address the rest of the class. “Three guesses what we’re doing this week.”

A girl whose name I was pretty sure was Colleen held up her hand.

Vera pointed at her. “Yes.”

“Making shields?” possibly Colleen guessed.

“Nope, try again.”

A guy who I knew for a fact was named Kyle by virtue of the fact that he ran with George raised his hand, but didn’t wait to be called. “Trying to kill each other?” He and his buddy Travis snickered and elbowed each other while George leered at me.

“Not quite.” Vera held her palms out by her sides. “Come on, no one else?” After another empty pause, she snorted. “Fine, y’all are no fun. Today, we’re going to play ball.” She held up her hand and a much more reasonably sized sphere appeared above it. Unlike when Alex summoned shadow, hers was always just there. “Right, so here’s the new lesson plan. You’re going to work on making grapefruit sized spheres, like this one. From there, I want you to work on keeping its shape. You’ll need to exert more influence than you do when simply calling it up.”

For once the statement didn’t seem to be directed at me, but at Alex. I felt him stiffen beside me, confirming that he believed so, too.

“When you’re confident that the ball won’t wink out of existence and rejoin the shadow plane, I want you to practice tossing it. Nothing complicated. Something like this.” She illustrated by bouncing the ball in her hand, then juggling it to her other. “After you’ve got that down, then comes the hard part. You’re going to take turns throwing your manifested shadow with your partner. Right. Those are your marching orders. Get to it.” Her sphere disappeared, and she waved her arms for us all to get started.

Alex spared me a glance before putting some distance between us. To my surprise, I was disheartened he’d felt the need to move. Maybe we weren’t becoming friends. It was probably my fault. With a huff, I focused on my hands and willed with everything I had for shadow to show up between them. Though how Vera expected me to do this when I couldn’t consistently summon shadow in my palm was beyond me.

A solid back sphere flashed between my palms. I barked out a triumphant laugh, and it promptly disappeared.

“Motherfucker,” I growled under my breath. Of course, Vera would choose that moment to walk up beside me.

“Relax, Matt. The power is there. You don’t have to wrangle it into submission.”

I huffed and dropped my hands. “Are you trying to tell me I’m trying too hard or not hard enough?”

A half smile tilted her lips. “Both.”

I glared at her back as she walked away. “Fat lot of help you are.”

Chapter 10

Sweet Dreams

A

Isetmybagdown and sank into the couch. As far as sofas went, it wasn’t too bad. The whole place wasn’t too bad. But none of it was what I’d spent the last few months looking forward to. Sure, the apartment-style set up was nice, but whatever happened to cramped dorms? Or arguing over who gets what bed? Or, well, anything. What about the college experience?

Arminius had always been the ultimate destination for me, a place where I’d finally be able to appreciate who and what I was. But while I was physically on campus and technically enrolled, I still didn’t feel like an actual student. My entire curriculum was basically Demons for Dummies. At least the tutoring thing had panned out. So that was something. Rubio was a super nice guy and the team he’d put together were equally friendly. I could already see myself becoming great friends with most of them, even if they were older.

Then there was Battle Tactics. My fears about the class had clearly been unfounded, as we had yet to do anything remotely battle-like or even complicated. Despite that, several of my classmates couldn’t seem to grasp the simple mechanics of using their innate abilities. Namely, Matt.

I sighed and fiddled with the hem of my shirt. It was clear to me, at least, that without help, Matt would likely fall behind and would more than likely be sent home. I really wanted to help him, but he’d made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested. He barely said more than a few passing words to me each day, and that was if I was lucky. What did I have to do to get him to stick around long enough to get to know me?

The small voice in my head that sounded eerily like Daniel spoke up. You’re not worth knowing.

I tried unsuccessfully to push the cruel words away. But maybe he was right, maybe it was me. I sighed again, sinking deeper into my misery. This was going to be a very long summer at this rate. There had to be something I could do to show him I wasn’t his enemy.

My heart still skipped every time I saw him, and I was starting to think that my uncontrollable yammering was why he was avoiding me. I couldn’t really blame him; it was probably annoying.

What I wouldn’t give, just to get him to talk to me.

I wanted to know about him—was practically dying of curiosity. Talking to people had never been something I’d struggled with before. Even when Daniel had been in one of his moods, I could still get him to open up, laugh even.