Chapter 17

Bayla

For the first lecture, we sat in a kind of gothic but very modern seminar room, which was built like a staircase and had room for about thirty students. They also appeared and gradually spread out at the tables.

I sat down at the window that overlooked a pretty courtyard with a fountain, and Larissa followed me.

Once again, I was glad to have her here. I still couldn't believe that she had just shown up without telling me first. She was here . For me . I gave her a hell lot of credit for that.

We sat in the second row, not right in the front, but in a place that you could still see enough of the seminar. Behind us were the Blair girls and behind them the three other girls from our accommodation.

It was clear that there was no peace from them anywhere. Even on campus, they had sat down near us and gathered a bunch of other girls around them.

Behind the three of them came a few people I didn't know, and in the very back, sat Julian. Alone .

He had walked behind us earlier, and I had already feared that he wanted something from me. The probability that Julian Bardot, of all people, would end up in a course with me was so small that one could really speak of strange coincidences here.

In thought, I continued to look around.

On the other side of the seminar room, there were only six-person benches. At the very front sat Emely and a few of the guys she spent her time with. Strange people.

Just behind them in the row sat some more of them. In the middle of them was this Nash Copeland , who was Mady's ex as well as Emely's brother, as far as I understood.

He had immediately struck me as unsympathetic. Not because he was ugly, for heaven's sake. Whoever was blessed with such a body probably couldn't save himself from girls – although there weren't exactly a few of these examples here.

Nash was just arrogant and kept making jokes with his buddies about everything and everyone who didn't belong to their little gang.

When Mady had entered the room, he and his friends had gone quiet for a moment. He had visibly frozen, and Mady...the look on her face had ripped my heart apart. But she had quickly sat down next to Julian, who had then earned a devastating look from Nash.

To sum it up. This place reeked of drama.

"Why do we always have to be stuck with idiots like these?" It came snappish from Vivienna.

I ignored her reference because it was obvious, she meant us too, even though she looked at the guys on the other side, who immediately stopped talking and turned to face us.

Great job, Vivienna...

A couple of them looked at Nash as if waiting for a reaction from him. He rose from his chair.

Really great job, Vivienna....

"You think we like sitting here with you?" Nash looked at them challengingly. His blue eyes sparkled with threat. "Just because your parents own a third of the town, you think you're something better, or what?"

He sounded upset and snorted with disapproval.

"Just ignore them, Nash."

Emely apparently wanted to keep the peace, which she wasn't so successful at, as Nash ignored his sister as much as Vivienna did, who wasn't about to take Nash's accusation sitting on her head.

"You just have to be qualified to do something like that. And not..." she paused theatrically before gesturing to add the word " feral ."

Her friends laughed, and even Grace, who had looked tense until just now, had to stifle her grin.

Nash, who didn't seem to find this funny at all, moved toward Vivienna, who jerked back at her table, startled.

For a second, Nash's eyes flashed yellowish.

I froze.

Had that been the sun?

Startled, I squinted my eyes. When I opened them again, my gaze was still on Nash. His eyes were normal.

My brain often played tricks like that on me when I got nervous. It was time to take the pills, but where were they?

"Now pay attention, witch . You should control your loose mouth because the place you're in right now is obviously not your territory."

He looked deep into her eyes, and I couldn't help but get scared myself.

Everyone here was so aggressive and hateful toward each other. No wonder these big groups were forming.

But was I really any better? I had treated Julian the same way, and just like Nash he also called me a witch . Maybe that was the everyday tone in Blairville.

But it shouldn't be. I had behaved so wrong. Because even if Julian was a jerk, I didn't have to be.

Instinctively I looked behind me at him, but he wasn't looking at Nash like everyone else was, but at Emely. She in turn was about to jump up to do whatever .

"Our university, our rules. Isn't it the same at your place?"Nash provoked the now frightened Vivienna.

I saw that Larissa was about to say something, when the big double wooden doors at the end of the aisle opened.

Immediately, Nash turned away from Vivienna to go back to his seat.

In walked a man in his early forties, wearing black jeans and a navy-blue knitted sweater. A light blue shirt peeked out from underneath, giving a somewhat chaotic, though academic, impression with its crumpled ends.

The man looked like one of those actors who had given up his career to teach English to bored students.

In addition, there was the brown, slightly curly hair and the three-day beard that surely made him a ladies' man.

Friendly, he smiled at me, as I was the only one who seemed to be looking straight back, and I couldn't help but automatically smile back.

Then I turned to the electronic board that was fully embedded in the wall.

"Glad to see all of you made it to the first seminar on the very first day. I'm impressed!"

The professor looked around with a grin, and a united groan sounded from the guys' corner. I didn't miss Nash's annoyed look.

If I remember correctly, he was somehow related to the professor…his nephew? I wonder if I could get something out of him about my mother's doctor. Probably not a good idea.

"You all have just finished school, and here comes another guy who wants to teach you about English. But it's really important that you learn to express yourself and..."

The professor didn't get any further because the massive wooden door opened again, and three nobly dressed figures entered.

The DeLoughreys.

I recognized them immediately from the campus. Not only because they were well and expensively dressed, but because everyone had been staring at them earlier. They had put on quite a show, though. They also had striking, very memorable faces. Even though their overall appearance had seemed rather odd to me.

The black-haired of them headed for the last row, where everything was still empty, and all three of them finally sat down.

Between them and Nash's guys, there was still one row of seats free. Thankfully, because immediately I noticed the tension in the room reaching a new height.

Nash pulled his horrified gaze from the young men who were looking at him with hostile coldness and looked at the professor.

"Tell me this is a bad joke, Alarik, and throw them out!"

Alarik?

"I'm still Professor Copeland to you as long as we're sitting here in this seminar."

" Damn it! Throw them out!" Nash snapped in a rude tone. His jawbone pressed violently against the taut skin of his face.

"Afraid, Copeland?" it came playfully from the guy with the chin-length deep brown hair on the far right, who leaned back in the chair with his hands behind his head.

Nash jumped up and clenched his fists.

"Can they keep their gang shit off campus? This is unbearable," a girl from our row I didn't know muttered quietly to her friend with an eye roll, yet loud enough to be heard.

Professor Copeland, who didn't seem to like the conversation much either, walked over to the wall and turned on the whiteboard with a button.

"You're all here for the same reason: to learn something."

With that, he had hit the mark.

Nash vigorously grabbed his things and headed for the door. His group, except for Emely, immediately jumped up and did the same. As they passed the DeLoughreys, with the largest possible distance, they gave them aggressive looks, but this left the three DeLoughrey guys unimpressed.

"Where are you going?" Professor Copeland asked warningly.

"I'm going to tell Father what's going on. And this time, he's going to do something about it!"

With those words, they disappeared through the open door.

What was so bad about the three men? So far, they hadn't done anything.

In Sacramento, there had never been such hostilities, much less this strange cliquishness....

But what did I know about the people here? Except that they were all weird, hated each other, and, according to Grace, had some dirty laundry.

Immediately I remembered her assumptions about the drugs. The professor looked like he needed some, but he seemed like one of the sane ones here. More like he was an excessive coffee drinker who had gone to work without it this morning because he had overslept.

I didn't know if Professor Copeland was on the verge of a nervous breakdown or if he was taking it calmly because, for a brief moment, he stared hard at the door before shaking his head and going back to the desk in front of the blackboard. There, he jotted down something with a green pen, probably from the university merchandise store that Grace had gleefully told me about last night. The people here were all so excited that their town had its own university.

The professor put the pen aside. He then looked back at us to continue with the seminar.

"Now, where did I stop..." he ran his hand thoughtfully through his hair, making it even messier. "Right, yes... So, as I mentioned before, I want you to learn how to express yourself in a carefully chosen way in writing as well as orally, to get a glimpse of world literature, and over time, we'll cover some of the classics."

You could immediately see his enthusiasm, because at the word world literature his eyes began to sparkle.

"At the same time, I will intentionally leave out the rest of the nonsense that you know from your school days. For the first topic, I have brought you a few examples here."

The seminar had been over relatively quickly. We had had to compare some very lousy applications from former Vanderwood students. So much for data protection here in Canada.

"He's really nice. I didn't expect that."

Grace and Julie were just getting into a lively conversation about Professor Copeland.

"Why wouldn't he be nice?" Larissa asked, amused.

Grace was about to say something, but then looked conspiratorially at Julie. Julie's look, on the other hand, avoided her gaze.

Were they back to the drug thing again?

"Because he deals drugs?" Larissa laughed, and the group of students walking next to us gave us a dubious look.

"Guys, you should really stop with the prejudices," I interjected, lowering my voice intentionally. "Just because you heard it somewhere doesn't mean it's true."

"To be honest, I agree." Larissa joined me, and we both looked at Grace and Julie, who were exchanging conspiratorial glances. I had a feeling there was something else they weren't telling us.

"And besides, he's pretty hot for a professor."

"Larissa!"

I lightly boxed my grinning friend in the side.

Why did she always have thoughts like that?

"What? I'm sure you secretly agree with me!"

I said nothing in response.

"He's way too old for you," Julie said with indignation.

"And besides, he's off-limits to you."

Grace was right. There were rules at this university that strictly forbid romantic relationships between professors and their students. But I couldn't take Larissa seriously right now anyway.

She just laughed and tossed her loose dark blonde hair back over her shoulder.

"You guys know I'm just kidding. There are much sexier guys running around here."

Okay , I expected that reaction from her, too.

"Nash looks cute."

"But he's an asshole," I said quickly, aware that wasn't a stop sign for Larissa.

"Or that mysterious black-haired man who just walked into the room earlier..."

"You really should stay away from the DeLoughreys." Now Grace sounded seriously concerned.

"Are they dealing drugs, too?"

Larissa just had something like her five minutes; only then everything felt funny, and every guy within a mile was hot.

I might have even joked along, but I remembered Mum's words.

"DeLoughrey? Are they the ones who own the DLSC?"

I had wanted to ask earlier, but everyone had rushed to the room as quickly as if it were a matter of life and death.

"They are. How do you know about them?" Julie asked me with interest.

"My mum remembers them from her youth, no idea how exactly..."

We were just on our way out when Julian walked past us.

I had made up my mind during the seminar to talk to him again, as I regretted my prickly reactions toward him in retrospect, especially after he returned my necklace to me.

"Your mum? Who..."

Julie was about to ask me something, but I had to catch Julian before he was gone for good.

"I'll be with you soon. I just need to talk to someone for a minute."

Before either of them could say anything, I was already past the crowd of students all streaming outside.