I’m in danger? Me?
I was not sure what to say when I heard her say that. However, she wasn’t joking. She wasn’t the type to joke about such things and the look on her face was serious.
Still, what worried me was the fact that she had pulled me aside to talk about it before we even entered the restaurant. Was she scared of something inside the restaurant?
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re being watched inside the Academy. Someone is making moves against you.”
There was one name that instantly appeared in my mind, Derek. He was the only person that even had a reason to do something like that. However, she had seen how I had handled him, so could he even be considered a threat?
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know…all I know is that you’re being followed. Even now, they are looking at us.”
My eyes drifted around me. I hadn’t felt the slightest pressure around me. Had my senses become dull?
I got closer to her and whispered in her ear. “Where are they?”
She got on her tiptoes and discreetly pointed toward a black car parked beside our limousine, which was currently driving away. However, it might be too late; our behavior was definitely strange.
I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her closer to me, as if we had just finished an intimate moment. We headed for the restaurant’s entrance.
“How do you know?” I whispered again. If she was able to spot them when I hadn’t even known of their presence, then something was clearly wrong. “Who told you?”
“No one told me anything. I saw him. It all started yesterday.”
“Wait, let’s talk about it inside.”
I had a feeling that it might be related to the black heart I had discovered inside the Cyclops…
We entered and were quickly guided to a table. We sat face to face beside a window with a beautiful view of a small illuminated lake. The plates and utensils looked extremely fancy, with gold threads on them.
I couldn’t help but wonder how much it had cost her to organize this whole thing just to talk to me about her daughter and the fact that I was in danger…
We could have probably stayed at the Royal Academy and talked about it there. We would have brought less attention upon us, but I trusted Ava had a good reason for doing this. So, when we sat, we stared at one another for a few seconds. None of us spoke up just yet, and after some time, I couldn’t help but start the conversation.
“So, what happened yesterday?”
“Shh…quiet down. They might be inside. That’s why I talked about it outside.”
I frowned. Just who the hell were they?
“Right, sorry,” I said, adjusting my voice’s tone.
“Ok, so it all started like this… I was walking down toward the Apex Building right before the start of your first class, wanting to know more about the test that you had prepared for the students… I had been planning on telling my daughter about it.
Was it cheating? Maybe. But if no one knew about it, then…it was all fair game.
I walked inside the building and headed toward the classroom, where I found a big bag. Without much surprise, there was a Cyclops inside, which was the test you had prepared. However…there was something strange about that monster. I noticed it instantly.”
I interrupted her for a moment, holding my finger up discreetly. “Yes?”
“Quick question. Was it drooling intensively inside the bag?”
She frowned. “I think so…not sure, to be honest. Either way, that’s not the important part about this.”
Not important? I shook my head and let her continue.
“What I noticed was much more telling than some sort of drooling. It was his eyes; they were bloody as if someone had just given him a drug enhancement.”
His eyes were bloody…
“When was this?”
“Uh…I’m not sure.”
“The time,” I insisted. “I need it.”
She noticed the anger in my eyes the moment she mentioned the color of the Cyclops’s eyes, but she couldn’t understand. She didn’t have the same amount of information as me. She didn’t know about Derek and what had happened in our fight.
She rubbed her chin, trying her best to figure out the time. “It was barely an hour before the first class started.”
I nodded. I remembered dropping the bag in my class one hour before the start of it and going to the bathroom… That means either the Cyclops was already corrupted, just like I thought, or someone corrupted him the moment I left.
“Did you see anyone?”
She sighed. “Just let me continue, will you?”
I nodded. I was just too excited to know about it.
“Alright, so when I discovered that his eyes were bloody, I knew something was wrong with it. I was pretty sure that you wouldn’t be the one to give a drug to a Cyclops, especially if you were planning to test your students with it. That’s why…I tried to look around your desk to find a clue. But…there wasn’t anything. I peeked outside the classroom and spotted someone.”
I leaned forward a little more, making sure that I wouldn’t miss the slightest word coming out of her mouth next. Those would be the most important ones.
“You see, this someone was wearing a long black cape and a mask that covered his face. I wasn’t able to figure out who he was. However, it told me enough that someone was trying to play tricks on you.”
“Let me hear that again. You saw someone leaving my classroom, and the Cyclops’s eyes were bloody.”
“Yes.” She nodded.
“Let me ask you something else. Those bloody eyes, would you say they looked like those of demons?”
She glanced around herself, once again scared that someone might hear her. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth…
“I-”
I have created a character profile for Caedrel on the main page of the book. Please vote for him and write some of his personality traits. I’m interested in what you think of him.
