4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Class continued until our midday lunch break. Polk tried to trip me up one more time but lost interest when he realised I had the answers. Sidnee got one question, which she handled beautifully, and Thorsen got one that, annoyingly, he answered correctly. Poor Jones fumbled through his question and got it mostly right, but he earned another verbal jab from the lieutenant that made me fume.

I was grateful when it was time for lunch. Nobody needed me to be tired and hangry.

Sidnee and I hurried to our room to put away our books and for me to drink a hasty cup of blood. Since we were supernats, I was allowed a small refrigerator next to my bed to store blood. The truth about us was ‘need to know’, and most of the students and instructors were not ‘need to know’ personnel, so the rest of the staff had been told I had a medical issue and needed to keep my medicine cool. The fridge had a combination lock so no one could open it and see rows of blood bags waiting for me inside.

Only the head of the academy, Lieutenant Fischer, and one of the instructors, Sergeant Marks, were in the know. Polk, Blake and Wilson knew nothing of the hidden supernat world, and Fischer had made it very clear to us on our first day that it must stay that way.

Sidnee, Margi, four male students and I were supernat recruits. Marks had commented that seven was an unusually high number for one intake because most academy cohorts only had three or four supernats, so I guessed the stars had aligned and tipped the scales in our favour. The current group, ped and supernat combined, had comprised forty students to start with although three of the peds had already dropped out.

I had a fridge but no microwave so I drank my blood cold. I tried not to gag on the thick, gloopy substance and did my thing by plugging my nose and downing it in one. Margi and Sidnee kept a lookout for me as I downed the coppery vintage. When I was done, I put the empty bag in a sealed bin marked for medical waste.

‘Are you hunky-dory, Bunny?’ Margi asked in her perpetually upbeat tone.

I gave her two thumbs up then the three of us headed down to the cafeteria. The blood boost had given me a little extra energy to fight the daylight fatigue that was pulling at me.

You’d have thought that the food would be institutional at a place like this but it was actually really good because a local restaurant had tendered for the catering and we were treated to bang-up meals every day. It was without a doubt my favourite thing about the academy: every day we had the choice of a sandwich, soup and salad for lunch. Today I left the salad well alone; we’d already done physical training, take-down training and had a lap around the obstacle course so we were all starving.

Our intake was split into four squads with ten members in each. At lunchtime we were supposed to sit with our squad for teambuilding or some such shit. Sidnee, Margi and my squads were all down a guy; the only full squad had some of Thorsen’s henchmen in it and a couple of the male supernats. Harry was a caribou shifter and Eben was a witch, though I didn’t know which type.

I grabbed a laden sandwich, some soup and a cup of water from the buffet then sat next to Danny, the other supernat in my squad. He was a raven shifter; the only other bird shifter I’d met was Edgy, but he didn’t like to shift after he’d lost his arm in a horrible accident. Danny didn’t have the same issue and every chance he got he fluttered around in bird form. I didn’t blame him; I’d do the same if I could fly. Flying was cool.

‘Hey, Danny, how are you today?’ I asked before I bit into my turkey sandwich.

‘I’m all right. I saw what Thorsen tried to do to Sidnee on the mats. She handled that well,’ he said quietly.

‘Yeah. He must have been a slippery baby.’

Danny burst out laughing. ‘Remind me not to piss you off.’

‘Don’t piss me off,’ I said absently then frowned. ‘Still, it’s a good thing she was paying attention because he could really have hurt her.’ We supernats healed fast but that didn’t mean that getting hurt was a walk in the park. For one thing, it really hurt.

When I’d been shot, I’d nearly died. Of course, that was back when we didn’t know I was a hybrid with a heartbeat, and Connor and I still didn’t know what that meant for my immortality. Living forever was the main perk of being a vampire; I’d be so pissed off if I guzzled blood and still aged and died after a normal lifespan. The thought of leaving Connor…

Danny picked up his sandwich. ‘I heard we have a new TAC officer coming in tomorrow to replace Polk.’ TAC stood for Training, Advising and Counselling. Polk may have been okay at the T part, but he sucked at the A and C. Hopefully the new guy would be better.

‘Good,’ I grunted. ‘I don’t like how Polk picks on Jones. It’s not the first time he’s done it.’

‘I talked to him about it,’ Danny admitted.

My eyebrows shot up. The balls on this guy! ‘Really? What did he say?’

‘I don’t think Polk is a bad guy. He said he thinks it’ll help Jones if he pushes him a little. I don’t agree with his tactics but his heart’s in the right place.’

I was impressed that Danny had called him out. Like me, Danny was already working in the Nomo’s office in the other supernat village in Ugiuvak. That supernatural community was far smaller than Portlock, but Danny had the confidence of a man who knew his job and knew it well. His attendance at the academy was pretty much a rubber-stamping exercise; he sure as hell knew his shit already. I guessed he’d got the same vibe from me because we’d fallen into step from the beginning. I liked the taciturn man’s hum of power; even Thorsen stepped carefully around him – another reason to hang out with Danny.

‘Any idea what the new instructor will be teaching us?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure but get this…’ He looked around to make sure no one was listening. ‘I heard he’s ex-MIB.’

That caught my attention. The Magical Investigation Bureau was a wing of the alphabet agencies and largely made up of humans; they were the bogeymen who lived in our closets and under our beds. Supernat children were told toe the line or they’d be reported to the MIB, and if that happened the chances were you wouldn’t be seen again, or so the stories went. However, Gunnar had a friend in the organisation so they couldn’t all be bad – just most of them.

I licked my lips nervously. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘I overheard Lieutenant Fischer tell Sergeant Marks.’

I couldn’t suppress a shudder. I was supposed to be tough and scary, but the MIB terrified me. A dark government entity with the job of ‘watching’ supernats, among other things, it felt creepy and stalkerish. I hoped the ‘ex’ part about the new instructor was accurate. Would he know what we were? Would he care?

I changed the topic, though I resolved to be on my guard. ‘Sidnee and I are going to go look for Jones’s missing notebook after we eat. Are you game?’

‘Sure, I’ll join in. I like the guy. He’s scattered but he’s smart, and he’ll make a good trooper.’ Like me, Danny didn’t give a fuck that Jones was human; he was a good guy, no matter that he wasn’t supernat.

‘I appreciate that. Thanks, Danny.’ I took another few bites of my sandwich. ‘Since you’re sneaking around and overhearing stuff, did you happen to hear any scuttle on what the next squad challenge will be?’

He laughed. ‘I wish. Sorry, Bunny, I didn’t hear anything useful.’

I finished my sandwich and started on my soup, glorying in not having to tip the spoon away and eat it daintily – in fact, I finished by slurping it directly from the bowl, much to Danny’s amusement. ‘Were you raised by wolves?’ he asked.

I grinned. ‘The opposite. My mum is the biggest control freak going.’

‘Got it.’ He paused. ‘So slurping is a “fuck you” to your mom?’ His grin widened. ‘You know she can’t see you, right?’

‘It’s the rest of us who are suffering,’ one of the other squad members muttered.

I sniffed. ‘It doesn’t matter. I know.’ I signalled Sidnee, Jones and Danny and the four of us set off to find the missing notebook. It was exciting to do something other than train; the repetitive nature of our activities was getting to me big time. I needed an adventure or I’d crack faster than a phoenix egg.

There was twenty minutes of lunchtime left and I intended to use it to solve the mystery of the missing journal. Okay, so maybe I was engineering a mystery because I was bored stiff but I didn’t care.

I wanted to solve something – now. My mystery muscles were in dire need of a flex.