Ablaze Without Flames

Chapter 9, Part 2 - Thea

Thea went to class in the hopes that it would keep her mind away from the events of the morning. A professor she liked skipped about at the front of the lecture theatre, her enthusiastic voice rising and falling depending on how close she moved to the microphone on the lectern. The slides flipping by on the front wall were colourful, key terms and phrases highlighted in bold with pictures and animations to accompany them. Usually Thea enjoyed this class.

Today she sat staring at a spot on the wall with a blank page in front of her for two hours.

Her palm throbbed in her lap. She pulled her sleeve down to cover the gauze as much as possible, her other hand tapping tunelessly on the edge of her laptop. She could hear the professor speaking, could hear every word clearly, but her brain refused to make sense of them.

What did it matter how a synthetic bone graft worked anyway?

The wood of the wall filled her vision, but overlaying it were images of Blaise. The way his eyes widened and his pupils narrowed. The way his claws curved around her wrist when he grabbed her and the shine of blood on his fangs. A human face twisted into a very inhuman snarl.

It just makes me the fool to think that at least you would respect that. The growled words echoed in her ears, drowning out the professor's lecture. They replayed in her mind. But there was something about them that didn't quite add up; something about the pure, unmasked fear she had glimpsed in the split second between waking and lunging for her, that spoke of more than just her selfishly crossing boundaries.

'Thea? Did you have a question?'

Thea blinked out of her thoughts and looked over towards the lectern, where the professor stood looking at her. Half of her classmates were already gone, and the other half were making their way to the doors.

'Um, no. Sorry, I was daydreaming,' Thea said, closing her laptop and slipping it back into her rucksack.

The professor smiled, turning to sign out of the computer. 'That's a sign you're working too hard, Thea. Make sure you take breaks, okay?'

'Yeah, okay.'

'By the way, have you thought more about your internship next term?'

Thea hadn't thought about the internship since it was mentioned in the first week of the year. She had been so focused on preparatory work to give it any serious consideration at the time and then Blaise had fallen out of the sky and chased away any and every long-term plan in her mind.

'I'll take that as a no.' The professor chuckled, gathering her notes up under one arm as Thea made her way down towards the door. 'You know there's a space going at the University of Sheffield looking at Musculoskeletal Ageing if that's the sort of thing you're interested in.'

It would have been, once upon a time, and might be again. But Thea's mind was full of human hybrids, or part-humans, or whatever category Blaise would fall under. She doubted there was a centre for that, though. 'Sure. But what're my chances of getting it if there's only one space?'

'Put it this way: you're the first I've told about it.'

'Oh. Okay. Thanks.'

'So get working on that application, okay?'

Out in the corridor, the professor strode away in the direction of the staircase and Thea paused outside the lecture hall. Her only class for the day was over, but she had no real desire to go back to her flat, which would undoubtedly be empty. She could head to the library and work there, either on an internship application or attempt to read through the lecture slides, even with her head so full already.