The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 403

Chapter 403: 403 | Articulate or Leave [CASTLE BONUS]

The amphitheater emptied in the specific pattern that classes always empty, which is to say with the urgency of people who have been sitting still for ninety minutes and suddenly remember they possess legs.

Caden launched himself over the seat back in front of him and landed in the aisle with the casual disregard for physics that characterized most of his decisions.

Marco followed through the normal route, chip bag already open.

Felicity gathered her tablet and bag with the practiced efficiency of someone who had already calculated the optimal exit timing to intercept whoever she wanted to intercept in the hallway, which was probably me, which meant I needed to not be in the hallway.

Percy filed past with his notebook and a nod that communicated approximately fourteen separate observations he intended to share later.

Rina followed three steps behind Percy with her sheep mug held in both hands, and their synchronized departure had become so routine over the past two weeks that nobody commented on it anymore, which was itself a form of commentary.

I stayed in my seat.

Not because I had nowhere to be. I had seventeen places to be. Felicity wanted debriefing on whatever the buttoned collar meant.

Sloane’s bond hummed with warm curiosity and the territorial edge that appeared whenever she sensed my proximity to other women, which at this point meant whenever I existed in a building that contained women.

Percy’s insurance framework needed review before Friday’s meeting. Camille was processing something I could feel at the periphery of my awareness despite not sharing a supernatural bond with her, a fact that troubled me for reasons I was not prepared to examine.

And Petra Lang had volunteered to sit in a room with Odette Reyes and Diane Fitzgerald in approximately twenty hours, which was either the most strategic thing anyone had ever done on my behalf or the most elaborate revenge plot in Halloran Academy history.

I stayed in my seat because Cole Dravid had not left the platform.

The room cleared around us in declining stages of human density. The last student to exit was Nyx, who paused at the door long enough to register that I remained seated and Dravid remained standing, then left without expression, closing the door behind her with the soft click of someone who understood that some rooms contained conversations she did not want documented in her personal files.

Dravid stood at the whiteboard where WHAT YOU KNOW and WHAT THEY KNOW and THE GAP still occupied space in his sharp handwriting. His cane rested against the podium, and his hands were clasped behind his back in the specific posture of someone who had concluded his professional obligations and was now deciding whether the next few minutes of his life belonged to the student sitting in the third row or to the armchair in the faculty lounge that bore the permanent impression of his left elbow.

I knew about the armchair. Percy had documented its location, dimensions, and the hours during which Dravid occupied it with the obsessive thoroughness that Percy applied to everything. Tuesdays and Thursdays between two and three forty-five, east window, always the same chair, always denied when asked.

It was currently one fifty-three.

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