Millwood Academy - First Term by Dawson, Tanya (i like reading txt) 📕

I didn’t hear the school bell ring. The blond standing up alerted me that class was over. I left my books at my desk and push my way to the front of the class, barely able to grab his arm between students. I had a tight grip on his arm and yank him back to face me. “Hazen?” I stood face to face with him. Something I thought would never happen.

“Penelope. Good to see you.” The jackass smiles ear to ear and acts like he hadn’t ruined my life.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I raise my voice. I don’t care who listens as I’m about to rip him a new one.

“Chill. I just enrolled.” Hazen still has that stupid smile on his face.

I catch his arm again and whisper, so no one else can hear, “Why did you turn me in to them?” My hands shake as the blood in my veins swells in anger. I feel dizzy but ignore it to get answers.

Hazen laughs with his goofy grin I used to adore and shrugs like I just asked him if he took out the garbage. “I don’t know. Seemed right I guess.”

“Do you know what they did to me?” I stand up on my tiptoes, so we are eye to eye. I can’t control the tears as they fall down my cheeks. I see a stranger looking back at me. Someone who couldn't care less what happens to me.

“I knew you wouldn’t die.” Hazen steps back from me and shrugs. “You can take care of yourself.”

My body vibrates with anger, he risked my life, and I need to know what for. All these months of wanting to get my hands on him. Screaming at him in my sleep. Thinking of every angle possible as to how he could deceive me. Everything we had planned for the future. “What did you get out of it? You had to get something. You can’t be that evil.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, P.” Hazen said, backing away from me, eyeing the door.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a blur of black. Ivor has Hazen up against the blackboard with his fist at his throat.

“Don’t even fucking look at her.” Ivor’s voice is dark, and his fangs are out. He’s about to rip him apart.

“Penelope! Are you alright?” Clark pushes through the crowd to get to me. “What’s going on?”

“Get this moron off of me,” Hazen says as his feet dangles above the ground. He wiggles his body to get free, but nothing will stop Ivor.

“You’re going to answer all of her questions. Or we will have a little sit down together, with no one else around.” Ivor hisses at Hazen and tightens his grip around his neck.

“Did you cheat on me with a vampire?” Hazen calls out to me. For a moment I see it, the part of him I miss. It was easy for him to turn it on and then off again.

“Cheat on you?” I hold onto a desk, once the blackness sets in. I could barely see through it, my body shaking. “We were over the moment you betrayed me.”

Ivor’s focus remains on Hazen, but I caught the slight eye movement my way. There would be questions for me later. I should have held back my anger, but I couldn’t in that moment. I had waited months to question him, and just when I think it doesn’t matter - he’s in front of me, acting like nothing happened.

“Let him down, Ivor.” The teacher was standing among us now. He steps carefully into the circle with his hands up, scared of the hyped-up vampire.

Ivor’s response is to lift him higher, almost to the point of causing him to black out. His hands tight around his neck. “I’ll let him down when he answers, Penelope’s, questions.”

“Penelope,” Clark breaks into the circle. His eyes meet mine first. His heart begins to visually beat faster as he takes in what is happening.

“Step back, wolf.” Ivor threatens him, all while keeping Hazen off the ground.

“Hazen? What are you doing here?” Clark said, taking a step backward. Clearly shocked to see him here.

“You know him?” I scream at Clark, who is supposed to protect me. What the hell is going on?

Chapter 10

“How could you not tell me you know him?” I pace back and forth in my dorm room. Clark is sitting at my desk, not answering any of my rants.

I wasn’t prepared to see him. He was packaged perfectly at the back of my mind, not inhibiting any primary brain space. Then he just shows up out of nowhere. In a full blood academy. How the hell did he get in?

“I didn’t know he was coming. I swear, Penelope.” Clark speaks. It’s clear from the expression on his face that he didn’t. I can’t be mad at him as much as I want to be.

“How did he get in here?” I demand to know but knew I was asking the wrong person. “And more importantly, how do you know him?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Clark said, as he walks over to the door. He opens it and looks out into the hallway, then closes the door. “I want to tell you more, but I can’t.”

I take a deep breath in and try to settle my mind. I wish the teacher had not walked in on Ivor and me. I wish I never stepped foot in that class and that I was happily oblivious, even for a few more hours. After several deep inhales, my body felt lighter. My mood better. But I still crave answers.

“What can you tell me?” I asked, Clark, in the most civil tone I could find within myself. Sure, I hadn’t known Clark very long, but he seems to hate Hazen as much as I did. And really, who else did I have to trust? Everyone I knew had been ripped away from me. I was starting over from scratch.

“I’m aware