Legends of Mirandis Academy

Chapter 31: Predator and Prey

 It was the eager expressions in their eyes. The way it felt like a demand, an expectation.

The bell rang, its voice a shrill clamor above what was already a cacophony. Locker doors slammed; students laughed and argued, their chatter filling the space like static on a screen. Iridia shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Noise, that's all it was. Just noise.

A girl walked past. Her skirt swayed with her stride, accentuating her hips. Her stockings were pulled up mid-calf, and Iridia could see, just barely, the shadowed outlines of muscles. Nearby, a boy called out, and Iridia reflexively looked over. He was grinning. Iridia didn't know what he was grinning at. There was another girl next to him, her lipstick dark maroon. It made sense. Iridia didn't know why it made sense.

No longer did the world pass through Iridia Trilliaris unheeded, leaving her invisible. She was something people could actually see, actually touch—people looked at her, sometimes accompanied by whispering to friends, and one person even waved. She didn't wave back. She had become electrified, passed through a wire, and everything else in that wire could push and pull her as they pleased. They could hurt her.

She could hurt them.

As she pushed her way through the crowded hallways, she tried not to think of the night of the masquerade. The way Kelam's face had gotten too close; the tenderness on his face. The tenderness! Iridia's brow furrowed. As if what he had been doing was noble, as if he had been rescuing her, as if she should be thankful. Iridia shouldered her way through a group of freshmen, ignoring their cries of protest. What had happened to the bright-eyed pupil who had listened so patiently to her lessons? The one she smiled and laughed with, the one she teased, the one who teased her back? It was a simple deduction: the Kelam in the mask was not the same Kelam who she'd taught to use the sander. Which meant that one of them was a lie.

Iridia swallowed, repressing her disgust. She just had to get to the machine shop, and it would be all right. She could continue working on her project for Brielle. Just the plain rules of measuring and cutting, of assembling the right materials and tools to get the...

She stopped in her tracks. What if Kelam had made her something?

It would have been insidious. A little gift with a costly tag. Iridia didn't want to think about what might accompany such a gift: anticipation, obligation. What she would owe for accepting it. Even something as simple as a token of affection had a weight attached to it; an emotional weight, the tension of something one-sided yet so unabashedly hungry. Iridia could only hate such an object for what it represented.

Iridia had to force herself to take steps forward. It felt like her heart was disassembling, piece by piece, metal clattering to the ground and glass shattering.

Iridia couldn't make a gift for Brielle. She certainly couldn't foist it on the poor, innocent girl. Every cut, every polished piece of metal represented a feeling that was foolish, irritating, and wrong. And she had wanted to burden Brielle with that! She had wanted to confront Brielle, to give her no escape or choice, and to press upon her the very same vile desire that Iridia had so often feared!

It hurt to remain standing. Iridia wanted to make the gift, that fact couldn't be denied. She wanted to see Brielle's face light up as she received it, to hold her, to bring her closer. To touch her. She wanted Brielle to be safe, to keep smiling when she saw Iridia, to know that Iridia had no ulterior motive or false plans. To be free.

Most of all, what Iridia wanted was to curl up in the machine shop and stay there until the sawdust had buried her.

The same line in Luna's soliloquy kept stabbing at her, cutting her tendons as she tried to walk. How could Iridia betray Brielle for the ugliness of lust? Who would she be then? Would she be any better than Kelam trying to kiss her in a crowded room hidden beneath an all-too-revealing mask? Those thoughts that plagued her of holding onto Brielle like she'd die if she ever let go, of kissing her in front of the crowd at the soccer game—that was what Kelam had fantasized and he'd almost gotten it. Who would Iridia be if she paid that sentiment forward?