Dogtooth (Revenant Academy #2)

Capitulum XI

B ack in my room, I could finally strip myself bare. Rigel had insisted on staying with me to discuss everything, so we’d come to the compromise of him sitting in my desk chair with my duvet draped over his head. I made quick work of tying my robe around my mud-crusted body before tugging the blanket off him.

The first thing he said once free was, “Do you think Stacy would tell us what’s going on if we asked?”

I balked. “Absolutely not.”

“Then, how else are we supposed to find out what happened?” he asked, bloodshot eyes looking at me unnaturally wide. “She obviously knows something.”

“You’re not thinking clearly,” I said, pulling fresh clothes off the hanger. “I need to bathe, and you need to get some sleep.”

To my surprise, his shoulders sagged, and he muttered a wary “Fine.”

I opened the door for him, but when I turned, he’d crawled into my bed the wrong way around and fallen asleep face down.

Closing the door, I approached him just as he started snoring. Picking up the arm dangling off the side of the bed, I let it drop, his knuckles colliding loudly with the maroon carpet. He didn’t even flinch.

Too tired to argue the point, I went to the baths, worked at getting myself washed off, and changed into clean clothes. All the while, I was forcing my mind to remain quiet. The fear couldn’t spiral out of control if I didn’t think about it.

Once I finally wrestled the rats out of my hair, it was time for class. When I returned to my room to deposit my robe, Rigel was still in the exact spot where I’d left him. It felt cruel to wake him.

On my way out, I stepped over the red envelope, aware it would be some attempt to put out the impending fires of panic. Sure enough, when I came stumbling into class, the students were interrogating Professor Faun.

“What happened last night?”

“What’s going on?”

“How the hell did that thing get inside campus?”

“Who was the student?”

The questions layered over one another, sailing his way before he even had the opportunity to take a proper breath.

I utilized the chance to slip quietly into an unoccupied seat and direct my head down as he raised his hand to quiet the room.

“There is no need to panic.”

I had to choke back a surprised laugh, which brought the room’s attention to me.

What a mistake.

“You were there!” someone called.

“Agnes,” Professor Faun said over the cacophony of voices. “I figured you would take the day to rest.”

I blinked. “I don’t like to rack up absences this early in the year.”

He cleared his throat, face tight as he addressed the rest of the class. “There was an accident, but it’s been handled. None of you are in any danger,” he said, eyes flicking to me.

Even he, the pinnacle of stoicism, struggled to maintain his composure as the class’s attention returned to him.

If I were in danger, would he tell me? Perhaps not, if he thought I’d take things into my own hands, as was his constant concern. But surely, he would see the utility in not keeping me completely in the dark.

He tried to do his lesson, but people kept interrupting him with questions, which he dutifully brushed off. I don’t think anyone learned anything useful that hour.

When class was finally over, I took my time preparing to leave, curious if he would stop me. But when I looked up, he was gone entirely, as if he’d bolted out with the rest of the class.

I was still the last to get to my feet, an unavoidable reality when your foot wasn’t attached properly. As I neared the door, invisible arms wrapped around my waist, stopping me just as the last student ahead of me disappeared.

“Can I trust that you understand there’s nothing you can do?” His hot breath ghosted against my neck, and I fought the urge to shudder. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just asking you to think of yourself and stay out of it.”

My heart shot up into my throat, and I had to swallow it back down. “What if it does have something to do with me?”

Surely, he would warn me. He cared for me in whatever way he allowed himself.

But he sighed. “Whatever you think is going on, you’re wrong.”

“Then, tell me.”

“You don’t need to know. It doesn’t concern you. Please believe me when I say that.”

I gritted my teeth and tried to tug away from him.

“I’m going to be late for my next class.”

His arms tightened around me. “I am begging you. This is all hard enough as it is. Please don’t put yourself in danger for people like that.”

“People like that? What’s so wrong with her?”

“She’s not you. No one else is you. You’re the only one I care about.”

“There’s someone that feels that way about her, too.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.” He sighed, releasing me.

~

After my last class, I checked on Rigel, finding my bed empty. Part of me was desperate to rest, but something told me not knowing the location of the grief-stricken man who knew my perilous secret was not a fantastic idea.

I checked his room, which opened for me despite being empty. The dining hall was next on my list of places to look, though it was more out of wishful thinking than anything else. If I were lucky, he’d just gotten hungry, but luck clearly wasn’t the order of the day.

My pessimism was only worsened when I arrived at the dining hall to find Arlie waving me over from a table full of Reapers, making my sour mood fully curdle.

“Have you guys seen Rigel?” I asked, not trusting my ability to maintain my composure amid their usual snide comments.

Unfortunately, Arlie wilted at my question. “Why would we?”

One of the Reapers spoke up. “He’s probably in the library or lurking around the archive. That’s usually where he hides, I think.”

That was when I realized where he’d, no doubt, gone.

It had to be the spider woman. She was probably the only one who could have known we’d found our histories. So, if it had something to do with that, then it had something to do with her. The only issue being the likelihood of his head getting torn off if I didn’t stop him from waltzing down there alone.

I turned to go, but Arlie grabbed my sleeve, pinning me in place. “Can’t you stay for a little bit?”

Shane laughed, adding, “You had a front-row seat to the big show last night. Tell us the juicy details.”

Refusing to acknowledge that with so much as a sound, I pulled myself free and lumbered for the door. I was hoping I wasn’t too late and that Rigel hadn’t already fed himself to the spider woman.

I didn’t realize Arlie was following me until we were both outside in the crisp fall twilight. Her footsteps crunched through the brown leaves quickly, trying to catch up with me.

“Agnes, wait.”

I took a steadying breath, stopped, and turned toward her, hoping that if I indulged her, she’d let the interaction be brief.

“I apologize that I’m not keen to entertain your vulturous friends.”

“They weren’t being serious,” she said, and when I snorted in disbelief, she crossed her arms. “People are nosey, Agnes. You can’t blame me for human nature.”

“So, when it’s Lindy, it’s human nature, but when it’s Tom, I get treated like a pariah?”

“He was their friend.”

“And it doesn’t strike you as hypocritical?”

“Do I really have to explain to you that people have different feelings about things when they’re personally involved?” She shook her head in bewilderment. “And to think I figured you wouldn’t care either. At least Tom liked you, which is more than you can say for Lindy. Why are you suddenly so worried about what happens to people here?”

“Just because you ignored me for weeks after what happened to Tom does not mean I wasn’t feeling anything. In fact, I probably could have used some support, in the same way I could have used some support at any point in the last day. But for some reason, I was shit out of luck both times. Funny that.”

She threw her head back and groaned. “Don’t act like a kicked puppy, Agnes. You don’t want anyone’s help. You keep everything so close to your chest I’m surprised you haven’t choked yet. I’m not a mind reader. I can’t magically know when you want me around and when you’ll act like I’m bothering you.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Am I eating into your time with Rigel? With Lindy out of the way, have you finally found someone who’s worthy of you?”

I grimaced. “Ew, what the hell are you going on about?”

“Oh, please, Agnes. You’ve always been stuck up. You clearly think you’re too good for everyone else. But you could at least play along sometimes so I can justify our friendship to people.”

“I’m not a sideshow for your other friends, Arlie. And if you feel like our friendship is something you need to justify, don’t bother. I don’t feel the need to justify anything to anyone. Which is why I don’t have to tell you why I desperately need to go find Rigel right now. If that makes me stuck up, then so be it.”

With that, I turned and continued on toward the library.

Some of her anger was justified. There was so much she didn’t know, so many reasons I had isolated myself from her that I had never explained. But I just wasn’t sure I could trust her to keep a secret. She liked to showboat too much. She liked attention and gossip.

Maybe it was better that we broke off our friendship. It didn’t seem that my life was about to get any less complicated.

As I rushed through the library toward the archive stairs, I tried not to appear worried.

Students lingered, their eyes tracking me, as if debating whether asking me about what happened but thinking better of it.

Were people actually afraid of me? It had never occurred to me. I didn’t think about others that often. Maybe that was why.

Once I was down in the history-lined tunnels, I realized I only remembered the first few turns, so I hoped he hadn’t made it too far.

It wasn’t long before the distant echo of quick, long strides came within earshot.

I was on his tail.

“Rigel!” I called down the tunnel.

The footsteps stopped.

I picked up the pace, able to follow his trail of lights overhead, until his silhouette formed at the end of the tunnel.

“Coming along for the ride?” he asked, voice flat.

“No.”

He stepped forward again, and I had to speed up even more to avoid losing ground. “Then, I suggest you turn back now.”

“We need to think about this before we do anything rash.”

“I have thought about it.” He glanced over his shoulder, though his stride didn’t lessen.

“That doesn’t mean we can forgo rationality.”

“I am simply forgoing the act of sodomizing myself with my own head.”

“Even if she’s still... intact”—I winced at my own word choice—“there’s no way to know if this is who took her.”

I was getting closer.

“So, you’re saying there are multiple terrifying monster creatures with a documented love of taking students hiding somewhere on school grounds? Smart enough to cause diversions, no less?”

I scoffed. “You say that like it’s unlikely.”

With one final stride, I was within arms’ reach, allowing me to thwack the back of his knees with my cane. It wasn’t enough to topple him, but it did grant me the opportunity to tackle him.

“It was hard enough saving you the first time,” I hissed into his ear. “I value my efforts too much to let you squander them.”

He jerked around in a desperate attempt to buck me off. “They could be cutting off her head right now!”

I wound an arm around his neck, holding him in place. “Then, we’ll glue it back on!”

“Let go of me!”

“No!”

“Please.”

When his voice trembled, I knew I’d won. He collapsed against me, and my restraining posture quickly turned into an awkward sort of hug.

I rubbed his back, hoping to avoid dissolving him on the spot so we could get back to ground level at a reasonable hour.

Luckily, he pulled himself up and slumped against the bookshelf opposite me without shedding any tears. “What do we do?”

“We use our big lovely brains to think of a reasonable plan.”

“Like what? Where do we even start?”

I chewed my lip in thought.

The spider woman was still on the table as a possibility, but how would we check without the risk of getting trapped down there ourselves? The only idea that came to mind made me chuckle.

“What?” he asked,unnerved by my laughter.

“We could write her a note.”

He blinked at me in abject horror. “You want to write the giant monstrous spider woman a fucking note ?”

“Why not? I don’t think she’s particularly ashamed of what she does.”

Eyes narrowed, he scanned me up and down. “This is idiotic.”

I shrugged. “Do you have something to write with?”

He dug in his pocket, extracting a pen and the tunnel directions, which he carefully tore a corner from for us to use.

I took both items from him and balanced a random history on my knees by way of a writing surface.

He wanted to interrogate her, but I opted to write the vaguest possible sentiment.

Did you take her?

When the mice arrived after the stroke of midnight, I plucked out an eyebrow hair and held it out. One of the tiny creatures broke rank and lept into my palm to gobble it up.

Closing my hand around the glowing animal, I held it in place as Rigel extended the note. “Take this to the spider woman.”

The mouse took the paper between its teeth before wiggling free of my loosened grip. We watched it fight the tide of its fellow mouse comrades before disappearing like a lone candlewick at the end of the tunnel.

~

The weekend passed without a word, leaving me to stew in the aftermath of everything that had happened.

The only person who didn’t pick up on the tension was Connie,perhaps due to the fact that everyone already acted put off by her presence.

Rigel receded into himself in a way that felt strange to me and normal to everyone else. I was almost surprised before remembering that he had always been mean and reclusive to the general public.

Then, one night, I lay down to sleep, only to sense a tiny flicker of movement in the room. Upon opening my eyes, I found a mouse slipping through the wall beside my wardrobe. They darted through my room on occasion, sniffing around empty candy wrappers and exploring discarded articles of clothing. But this time, the small creature beelined right for me with something in its mouth.

It stopped just below the lip of the bed and craned its neck upwards, offering me the folded slip of paper between its teeth.

I plucked it free, the tiny creature running back the way it came, errand finished.

Sitting up, I pushed my hair behind my ears and unfolded the paper, fingers shaking.

Come see me. Alone.