Chapter 558 | That Feels Like Data

Chapter 558: 558 | That Feels Like Data

Cross let the groan die out across the room, then tapped her pen against her chin and smiled at the back rows.

"Class dismissed, my darlings," she said. "Mr. Monroe, you will stay behind for a moment."

Fifty chairs scraped the floor at once, and thirty of those students found a reason to walk past my desk on their way to the door. A Sapphire girl with a silver bob mouthed the words "extra credit" at her friend and nearly tripped on the stairs. A Ruby transfer patted my shoulder on his way by and told me to pray.

Belle snapped her laptop shut and reached across Naomi to grab a fistful of my sleeve.

"If she offers you a private tutoring package, you call me first," Belle hissed. "I need to review the terms before you sign anything with your mouth."

"I don’t sign things with my mouth, Fox."

"You sign everything with your mouth, and I have the spreadsheets to prove it."

Naomi squeezed my knee under the desk before she stood. Her ears had not recovered from the support catch footage, and she kept her notebook pressed against her chest like a shield.

"Drink the tea and come find us at lunch," she said. "If you’re late, Belle will bill you for my worry."

"Your worry costs extra now?"

"It has always cost extra, Jace, and you just never checked the invoice."

Javier hauled Jordan out of his chair by the collar, and Jordan let himself be dragged toward the door with his eyes still closed. He mumbled something about suing the academy for emotional exhaustion on the way out.

Blair stood last. The corner of her notes had a black crescent burned into it, and she shoved the whole stack into her bag hard enough to crush it flat. She did not look at me once. She looked at Cross for two full seconds instead, and the air near the doorframe got hot enough that the door’s metal kick plate ticked before she walked out.

Then it was just me and the most dangerous woman on the faculty who wasn’t named Tsukishima.

"Close the door, would you?" Cross said.

I closed the door and turned around. She hadn’t moved off the edge of her desk. She had one boot hooked behind the other ankle and her glasses pushed up into her hair now, and without them her violet eyes looked a lot less like a professor’s and a lot more like a problem.

My Snake Eyes went off on reflex, because my brain has the impulse control of a raccoon in a dumpster.

◆ SNAKE EYES FAILED ◆

Target rank exceeds limitation (2+ ranks above user)

Bust: 34FF (physical observation only)

Rank: ERROR - Too high to analyze

Great, so the overlay had failed to tell me anything except what my own eyeballs had already reported to headquarters on day two.

"Did you just try to read me, Mr. Monroe?"

My face did nothing, because I am a professional liar with years of experience. "I’m not sure what you mean, Professor."

"Your pupils jumped. Every analysis user does the same little twitch when the skill fires." She smiled with half her mouth. "You aren’t the first boy in this room to try it on me, and you won’t be the last one to fail."

"For the record, I didn’t fail on purpose."

"Nobody fails on purpose, sweetheart. That’s what makes it so cute."

She patted the desk beside her hip, which was either an invitation to come closer or a test to see if I would. I walked down the steps and stopped at the front row, because I have died twice this month and I’ve learned to respect a combat radius.

Cross noticed the distance and looked pleased about it.

"You died twice on a transport last week," she said, and the playful tone thinned. "I read the medical log from the Void Gate extraction. Asystole, then a restart, then asystole again in the back of an FGRA truck."

"I got better, Professor."

"You got healed by a Gold-rank field medic, which is different." She tilted her head. "I’m House Amber’s homeroom lead and I have a doctorate in hunter psychology. Students who die are required to see me, and it’s written in my contract in very small print."

"So this is a therapy session?"

"This is me deciding whether you need one." Her eyes moved down to my hands, then back up to my face. "You make jokes every time someone asks about your body. Dominic does the same thing, and I hated it on him too."

There it was again, another woman in this academy who said Vale’s first name like she’d had to yell it at him across a kitchen. I filed that under things I would never ask about if I wanted to keep my organs.

Cross uncrossed her legs. A thin sweet smell came off her skin, warm vanilla and something darker under it, and it moved through the front row like heat off a parking lot in August. My spine went loose. My face got hot, and the rest of my blood made a hard left turn and headed south for the weekend.

"Professor, I can’t help noticing that the air in here just changed."

"Relax, Mr. Monroe. I only turned it up to level one." She studied my face and her smile got wider. "Desire amplification only works on what’s already there, and you walked into my classroom halfway gone."

"That feels like entrapment."

"That feels like data." She flicked her fingers and the smell faded out as fast as it came. "I wanted to see how fast you recover from external stimulus, and the answer is four seconds, which is very good for a boy carrying that many bite marks."

My hand went to my collar before my brain could veto it.

Cross slid off the desk. She covered the distance between us in two steps and the boots made that sharp click on the tile. She hooked one red fingernail into the edge of my collar and tugged it down an inch, and she looked at my neck the way a mechanic looks at an engine that should not be running.

"Three different sets of teeth," she said. "One of them is fresh from this morning, and you smell like lavender soap."

"I shower regularly, Professor."

"Lavender comes in the Summit House supply order, and only one resident requests it." She let go of my collar and fixed it for me with two little pats. "I sign that order every month, Mr. Monroe."

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. My entire career as a con artist, across two lives and one dimensional transfer, had just been ended by a purchase order.

Cross laughed at my face for a solid five seconds. Then she reached into her blazer and pulled out a cream card with her name embossed in gold, and she tucked it into the breast pocket of my uniform.

"Office hours are Tuesdays after four," she said. "The couch in my office is real, the tissues are free, and the door locks from the inside for privacy."

"Is that a therapy offer or a threat?"

"It’s a door with a lock on it, Mr. Monroe. What you bring through it is up to you." She stepped back and pulled her glasses down onto her nose again, and the professor came back like a curtain dropping. "Your squad is getting watched now by scouts and by the Commission. I would like you alive through winter, so please come talk to somebody before you climb another monster."

"I’ll keep it in mind, Professor."

"You won’t, but I’ll keep the couch warm anyway." She waved me toward the door. "Go, before Ms. Davenport sets my hallway on fire."