Unfamiliar (Unfamiliar Series #1)

Chapter 33

I don't get a single text from Luke the next morning. 

Every minute of my classes grinds by like broken glass under bare feet. It's agonizing to try and listen to anyone when my thoughts are so loud that they're deafening. It's impossible. To be in limbo, to be waiting. To be wondering why. If he was going to say anything at all, if I even wanted him to say anything at all. 

What could I even want him to say in all of this? 

Where did I go wrong? Where did I miss this side of him? 

What happened to the gentle friend I thought I knew? 

Knots form in my chest, twisting and digging under my blouse with a violent fury that is enough to steal my breath. I find myself having to loosen the grip on my pencil in my classes several times to reveal divots on my fingers. I didn't know if he even knew what had happened to me. 

If he did know and he didn't contact you, is that something you can forgive him for?  

Deep down, I didn't have any answers for that. 

I slog through the hours that tick by ever so slowly. Exhaustion threatens to drag my eyelids closed. I barely slept. Even when I did, I quickly woke up several times during the night. I kept feeling like, somehow, someway, someone was watching me while I slept. It left me more unsettled and paranoid than rested. 

"Kara? Are you okay?" 

I look up at Tessa as she sits across from me at dinner. Today, her lips are a deep shade of gold and her eye shadow is a matching shade. Her bottom lip is pressed thin and her eyes are narrowed as they tick across my face, tracking something I can't see as she maps out my frazzled state with efficient ease.  

I glance over at her and reach up to itch at the enchanted healing patch that Garret had given me. I readjust the thin scarf I had wrapped around my throat to cover the bruises as I carefully clear my throat to speak for the first time today.

"Yeah," I murmur, carefully testing my voice as it catches in my throat. 

She winces, Astrid pausing from taking a bite of her pizza. Sympathy flashes across both of their faces and I feel so painfully embarrassed that I wished I knew Indigo's invisibility spell. 

That would be such a relief right now. 

"Have you...have you heard anything from Luke?" I ask softly. 

Tessa has to lean in to hear me before the answer is written plainly across her face. She opens her mouth to speak but there's a sudden crackling sound that fills the hall, like someone is turning on a microphone. Astrid looks up toward the ceiling of the dining hall. I follow her gaze to see that there are speakers mounted to the beams as a voice floats over the intercom system.

"Attention students, please report to the gymnasium, all additional classes and labs after dinner are canceled," a voice, one that I recognize as being Ms. Laroche's, says over the intercom. "Again, please report to the gymnasium after dinner."

Tessa exchanges a quick look with us as her eyebrows arch questioningly, "I wonder what this is all about."

"It may be a ceremony for Finn," Astrid suggests quietly.

The bruising around my throat throbs with a fresh wave of pain as I swallow. There is a finality to it, that all of this is real and that there are consequences. Death is something that could easily come for all of us. 

"Kara, you need to tell us about what happened last night," Astrid suddenly says inside of my head, her voice taking on an urgent tone.