ForestLands Institution

Chapter | 22√

Nadia stared at Leia, open-mouthed. Was she serious? Abhay is her friend, he would never hurt her, or would he? After all, she hasn't known him for long.

“I...” Abhay trailed off.

Leia narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance. “Are you contemplating this?”

Abhay looked from Leia to Nadia then back to Leia. “No, I...”

“They are no longer your friends, we are. You should not be contemplating this, just do it.”

Nadia took a step back when he took one toward her. Was he going to hit her?

Abhay and Nadia were face to face now as she waited for him to do something, anything. The cafeteria was dead silent now, everyone waiting for Abhay to make a move.

Nadia saw when Abhay raised his hand and he swung it towards her face. She subconsciously closed her eyes and waited for the pain to come but it never did, instead, the silence in the cafeteria was broken by a piercing shriek.

Confused, her eyes snapped open. She was shocked to see Jace standing between her and Abhay. Jace had a firm hold on Abhay's wrist, which was bent   in an awkward manner

Jace released his wrist and Abhay stumbled back, cradling his broken wrist. Abhay whimpered and hissed in pain, his eyes were red like he was about to cry.

“Get out of here,” Jace calmly told Leia but there was no mistaking the anger in his voice.

Leia glared at him with angry but slightly fearful eyes, she wrapped her arm around Abhay and led him out of the cafeteria.

Jace's eyes softened when he turned to her. “Are you okay?” he asked concerned.

Nadia was about to answer but someone beat her to it.

“She's fine,” Mia gruffly answer.

Nadia's eye went to Mia who was by her side, she hadn't noticed when she got there. Her friends also walked over to them.

Mia grabbed Nadia's hand and made to pull her away from the science but Jace was quick to grab her other hand.

He glowered at Mia. “I am still talking to her.”

“She doesn't want to talk to you,” she replied.

Jace ignored her and shifted his eyes to Nadia. “You have been ignoring me.”

Nadia avoided looking into his eyes, “Well, I...I...I,” she stammered.

Mia just couldn't keep her mouth shut. “It's a good thing she's ignoring you. Keep your distance.”

Jace shot Mia a look of disdain. “Shut your mouth.”

“you are aggressive, you just broke our friend's wrist!”

Jace let out a humorless chuckle. “Your group of friends has this fetish of hurting each other, first, it was the vampire, and now he. You might be the next.”

“We could have handled the situation just fine!”

“By seating back and watching someone with a bad shoulder fight someone who has been training for years.”

Mia was about to say something but Nadia quickly interrupted them, “I...I'm going to go rest.”

Jace frowned. “I want to discuss something with you.”

“Later.”

She didn't wait for him to reply before walking out of the cafeteria. She quickly went to her dorm room and was relieved to see that Freya wasn't around. She lay on her bed and after some minutes, she dozed off.

Later on, in the evening. Nadia was browsing through the book shells in the library, she was looking for a book that has any information on Ability shifters.

She walked into a section of the library that she has never entered before, it had no windows and the only light in the room was coming from the only bulb in the room.

She saw a short brunette browsing through the books on the bookshelf. The girl didn't acknowledge her, so Nadia went on with what she was doing.

She walked over to a bookshelf and ran her fingers over the spines of the books, they were quite dusty. It seems like they neglected this part of the library.

She flipped through the books, getting both her hands and uniform dirty. She was about to walk out of the library since she couldn't find any useful information, when a certain bookshelf at the farthest corner, caught her attention.

She went to it. It was the only odd bookshelf in the section for it was filled with old newspapers while the other shelves were filled with textbooks and notebooks.

It had no back and looking through the newspapers, she noticed there was a handle connected to a door behind it. She could just have walked away, for it looked like someone was trying to block the door on purpose.

Curiosity got the best of her and with much effort, she pushed the shelf to the side. The brunette in the room looked at her and then turned back around to continue with what she was doing.

Nadia tried to open the door but it was locked. No surprise there. She took out her hairpin and used it to unlock the door.

It was dark when she walked in and she fumbled around for the light switch. She flicked the switch up when she found it. Immediately light filled the room, revealing its contents.

Nadia stumbled back in shock at what she saw. She placed a hand over her chest trying to calm the rapidly beating heart that tried to burst out of her chest.

What in the name of God?