Irene veered off course. She had a couple of minutes of spare time before she needed to worry about making it to class on time. A short trip to the library could get her a decent head start on next year’s lessons.
Her sudden and unannounced course correction resulted in several problems, each worse than the last.
The first and most obvious was the student she bumped into.
Max.
They had been avoiding each other ever since Eva’s revelation of her hands and eyes. Frightened off like a coward. All despite–as Shelby was ever so fond of reminding Irene–the fact that Eva never did anything to them aside from being their friend.
Irene hadn’t thought she bumped into him very hard, but he still stumbled backwards, flailing his arms in an attempt to keep his balance.
Which led to the second problem.
Kristina.
One half of Irene’s one-time table-mates in most of their classes. Max had hung off Jordan almost as much as Shelby used to and Irene just hadn’t fit at the tables with her sister and Jordan. Until Max had started avoiding them, that is.
Since then, Irene had been extraordinarily pleased to move alongside her sister and Jordan. While Kristina never actively hurt her, she always turned a blind eye to Drew’s doings.
Max’s flailing elbow caught Kristina square in the nose. She let out a shriek, clasping at her nose even as blood spilled between her fingers.
And that led to the final problem.
Drew Wilcox.
Kristina’s ever-present shadow stepped around Max’s larger and somewhat muscular body. Before Irene could even react to what was going on, Drew’s clenched fist found its way straight into Irene’s chest.
She tumbled down to the ground, gasping for breath as books from her bag scattered over the tiles.
“I knew you were the psycho type, Coggins,” Drew said. He swung back his foot, preparing for a kick.
Irene had the presence of mind to bury her head in her arms for protection. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself.
The wind from the kick brushed by her legs with a scraping noise.
Irene opened her eyes, surprised to find herself unscathed. Unfortunately, one of her books wasn’t. It slid across the ground until it hit a wall. Another student had to jump out of the way.
“Touch my girlfriend again and I’ll–”
Drew’s chin snapped to his chest as a baseball sized clump of dirt bounced off the back of his skull.
To Drew’s credit–or a good example of just how utterly thickheaded he was–he didn’t collapse to the ground as Irene was certain she would have. Instead, he spun on his heel.
The dirt covering his head did nothing to detract from his rage-filled grimace.
“Who threw that?!” he bellowed at the gaggle of onlookers.
No one chose to respond. Everyone was either watching the show to find out what would happen next or looking between one another in confusion.
Between Drew and Kristina’s shoulders, Irene managed to catch a glimpse of a head of white hair disappearing farther into the crowd.
With no answers forthcoming, he spun back around, raising his fist again.
Irene gripped her own wand, not quite certain what to do but not willing to sit back and take a beating.
The choice was taken out of her hands when Kristina gripped his shoulder. “I need the nurse,” she said with her nose firmly pinched shut.
For just a moment, he looked torn between Kristina and continuing his beating on Irene.
With one last death glare, he wrapped his raised arm around Kristina’s shoulders.
“Keep away from us you freak.”
He led her away without a second glance back, maneuvering unimpeded through the slowly dispersing crowd.
Max trailed after him, not quite managing to sway the crowd out of his way as flawlessly as Drew had managed. The last look he gave Irene was something of a cross between an apology and ire.
For a moment, Irene just sat there, going over what had just happened in her mind. The pain in her chest was quickly fading to nothing. Probably because his punch had been less of a punch and more of a shove. Pure shock at the sudden contact was what sent her to the ground.
Or was it?
Irene looked down at the wand clenched in her fist. An earth mage could increase their personal strength and toughness, but Irene had never managed to actually perform the spell before.
Then again, she hadn’t ever managed to manipulate polished tiles before either, and she had managed that at least partially after summoning that creature.
Shaking her head and sighing at the relief of not having to deal with them for the handful of minutes before class started, Irene started to shovel her books back into her bag under the watchful eyes of the remaining crowd.
None of them bothered to help. Irene was well aware that the bystander effect was in full… well, effect. And sure, her situation
They didn’t even have to mean it.
Picking herself off the ground, Irene walked over to the one book that had been kicked against the wall.
