24. Dante

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Fear consumes me as I push myself to sprint faster and I ignore the burning sense of aching in my leg muscles.

"Must escape." I softly pant to myself while I tear around corners, not daring to look back as I'm petrified of what will occur if I slow down for even a single moment.

I ignore the screams behind me, but I feel as though I'm at my body's limits due to the exhaustion from yesterday.

Then, luckily, I see my safe haven coming up in the distance.

Class 1, Anthony's room.

Without hesitation I yank open the door and throw myself into the classroom, slamming the door behind me and pressing my back against the door.

There's a defiant thud against the door and I nearly jump out of my skin.

"Dante! We love you!" The girls squeal with one final declaration before audibly abandoning the door and going off in their separate ways.

Fangirls, I inwardly groan as I take in a deep breath of relief. A deep cough interrupts my moment of peace and I look up to meet eyes with my mentor who is glaring at me with an expression full of pure perplexion. Additionally, I feel the eyes of the rest of my classmates on me and I quickly straighten myself up before hastily walking over to the desks on the left-side of the room.

"Sorry." I murmur as I grab the seat beside Amber who chuckles softly to herself,

"Quite the ladies man." She jokes and I feel my cheeks flush red from all the unwanted attention.

If I didn't already embarrass myself enough from yesterday's stunt.

Anthony has returned to his position in front of the desks by the chalkboard and I feel reprieve that everyone has redirected their focus back on him.

"Today I've decided to take a break from actual hand-to-hand combat since that hasn't been working out particularly well."

He pauses briefly, and I once again feel the eyes of everyone in the classroom directed at me.

Goddammit.

While Anthony continues to address the importance of taking breaks from actual training, I look to the right of me to acknowledge the two empty seats where I expected to see Alexander and Constance.

I remember this morning Alexander telling me Aidyn had approached him about a potential mission today so I suppose Constance is doing the same. Looking at their empty seats fills me with a newfound sense of loneliness I was not accustomed to. Like Constance, I never had a lot of friends but that was due to my inability to be very trusting of others. However, since meeting these two, I've slowly been abandoning those trust issues.

It's also boring as hell without them, I think as I ponder how differently this class would be right now if Constance were here to consistently interject and taunt Anthony.

I tune back into Anthony's lecture as he starts to address today's lesson,

"I've gotten a pretty solid assessment of your powers and skills, and to put it nicely, you're all incredibly inexperienced in how to properly utilize your powers. Most of you seem to have the general understanding of basic control over the element unique to you. However, most or maybe all of you do not have any concept of greater control such as spells."

I do, I think, however, I choose to remain silent as I don't wish to brag and I don't want to embarrass myself in case Anthony teaches me something new.

He's far more experienced than I am, and he has seriously good control based off his fight with Constance.

Abruptly, the ground below us starts to shake violently and everyone starts to anxiously look around in concern. Even I feel my shoulders start to tense up before the shaking stops and I hear the low curt laugh of Anthony.

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