Ignite - A Mutant Academy Novel

Chapter 12

The next two days were totally unbearable.

Amber, Holly and Joe started ignoring me. I'd never had a real friend before, and never lost one. Now I'd lost three best friends, and it was completely my own stupid fault.

Kat had started hanging out with them now, I saw them sitting together at meal times where we used to sit together - now Kat was in my seat. Like she'd taken my place.

And then there was Sam.

So the others were ignoring me, but they still acknowledged my existence somehow. Amber couldn't completely ignore the fact that I was sharing a room with her, even so she only spoke five words to me in those two days, but Sam acted like I didn't exist.

Like I'd never existed.

Everything we'd shared those last three days, was wiped out overnight for him. That was what stung the most.

Friday night, I decided to do the only thing that seemed right. The thing I always did. I ran.

No one noticed me disappear earlier than usual from dinner. There was no one to notice. I packed up the few belongings I owned and walked along the East Wing of the school. I knew it like it had been where I'd lived for years, and for the first time in my life I realised why. It was the only place that had ever felt like home.

I was stupid to think I would ever fit in, even here, even in the place that accepted me for who and what I was, a mutant. It had been the same my whole life, but I'd fooled myself into thinking that I'd finally found the place where I belonged.

I had no plan. Nowhere to go. Nowhere but the street. But the streets had been my home a few times, and I knew how to survive. At least, I thought I knew. Truthfully, I wasn't as brave as I pretended to be, and as I wallowed in self pity running away from my first true home I felt my guard slipping, and my emotions starting to come through.

Then I heard something that surprised me enough to forget I was upset. It was a voice. A sharp, shrill voice that I recognised immediately. And it was very angry.

"I can't just get rid of her Eagle, that sort of thing doesn't exactly go unnoticed - in case you thought Moñento had quietly disappeared into the dark....That doesn't make a difference! She may be a nobody but someone will notice....No....No, you know what he said. If she knows about the husband, she has to go....Well why don't you tell him that yourself?!....Hmm, I didn't think so..."

It was Motus. I couldn't make sense of what she was saying, but she definitely wasn't talking to one of the other teachers. Who was this Eagle? Judging by the silences, she was on the phone to him, and judging by the volume she was headed my way. I looked around, desperate for somewhere to bolt. Luckily whoever designed this building all those years ago decided to put in a load of pointless arched crevasses in the walls, the sort that might house a statue - or in this case a runaway. I pressed myself up against the inner wall, nearly knocking a fire extinguisher off it's perch, and prayed that Professor Motus would be too engrossed in her conversation and not pay any attention to an oddly shaped piece of wall. I heard her voice becoming closer, and picked up a little more of her conversation.

"I wouldn't trust his patience if I were you Eagle, and the same goes for that imbecile brother of yours. We're all anxious to get started, but the school is still reeling from Moñento's kidnapping....that means it's precisely not the time to act! This is why I'm in charge and not you..."

Her voice trailed off as she turned a corner down the hall. I still couldn't quite make sense of what she'd been saying, but I knew one thing. My bad feeling about her had been justified - she wasn't good news.