With Fire and Ice

Chapter four, in which Jay is a dick

"What's up?" I asked as I dropped into my seat.

Wolf looked over at me with a tired expression. "I hate school," he grumbled, and slammed his face into his desk.

I laughed, and bent down to get my pencil case from my backpack. "Chill, bro. What's got you so winded up?"

"I sat up the whole fucking night," came Wolf's muffled answer.

"Doing what?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and opening up my sketching book.

"Did you read the news?" he asked instead, turning his head to look at me through bleary eyes. "That dude is dead. The police think it's suicide, but they can't be sure."

Dropping my pencil, I sat straighter in my seat. Our city was a safe place, it couldn't have been murder. Then why the fuck had the man killed himself? "Details," I commanded, and Wolf groaned.

"He was found on the other side of town. In the river."

"So he drowned?"

Wolf shook his head, and screwed his eyes shut. The room was probably spinning for him. "They found poison in his system, but have no idea how it got there."

"So he poisoned himself and then jumped in the river," I said and frowned. I didn't get what was so special about this. Yes, it was a small town we lived in, but suicide wasn't unusual. Ha, that says something about this place, doesn't it?

Wolf closed his eyes for a few seconds. "It's just so fucking weird," he grumbled. "He doesn't seem like a dude with intelligence or uniqueness. Most adults just shoot themselves, shouldn't he too? I sat up and wrote a report with all the details I could find."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Just as Wolf was about to answer, however, the teacher stomped into the room with a scowl on his face. Wincing, Wolf turned away from me with a whispered "Sorry."

When we were maybe half-way into the lesson, Jay made his presence known by throwing a ball of paper onto my desk. Shooting him a raised eyebrow, I picked it up and unfolded it. The beautiful letter, *cough* sarcasm *cough*, started with You're disgusting, you know that, right? Dating another hybrid! Hah, shouldn't be allowed to do so. You're filling the world with more disgusting half-breeds. Should hang all of you. Disgusting little fucks.

Rolling my eyes, I scrawled look what our dear friend gave us on the paper and pushed it over to Wolf. I expected him to hiss at it, or flames to appear on his arms or something, but he simply huffed and returned to staring emptily at the blackboard. When I poked his shoulder with a questioning look, he shook his head and whispered, "Too tired to care."

I slapped a hand over my mouth to stop myself from laughing.

Later, when all the other pupils had left for lunch, I stopped Wolf when he went to stand up. "You need to sleep," I said.

"No shit," he mumbled, and stifled a yawn. "I can barely keep my eyes open."

I shook my head with a smile, and pulled out my lunchbox. "You can eat in the next class. I'll keep watch, and you sleep."

Wolf, apparently too tired to complain, fell into his chair again. "Keep watch?" he asked, as he slid down to the floor.

"You have no idea what these people can do," I said. "Also, what the fuck are you doing?"

Shooting me a dirty look, Wolf kicked his chair away. "No way in hell am I sleeping in those chairs. My back will hurt for days."

I laughed. "Go to sleep, Gray."