Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Storm crawls up and back, squirming into a position that’s halfway comfortable.
“Is it all over? I mean, is that… did that cover everything?” She gives Jane a hopeful look.
“Unfortunately not,” Jane says. “You have much to atone for still, young lady.”
Storm’s face falls, though she cannot truly pretend to be surprised. “You mean yesterday,” she says. “All that Basel stuff.”
“All that Basel stuff,” Jane agrees. “And then there’s me.”
“You?” Storm’s eyes widen in surprise. “What about you?”
“Knowing my place,” Jane says smoothly.
“Oh my god,” Storm groans, covering her face with her hands as the significance of those words sinks in. She’d entirely forgotten the whole incident with Penners. “Why do I make my life so hard?”
“That is a question for the ages, young lady. Now you can go stand yourself in the corner and reflect on what you’ve gotten yourself into, both what you’ve already received, and what is yet to come.”
Storm moves to do as she is told, taking up residence in the very same corner poor Penners once occupied. Fate, it seems, fucking loves irony.
9 GROUNDED
Stuck being good for fear of the pain she will earn if she is not good, Storm is sitting on the back steps of the East Wing of the Birchbane. She’s not allowed outside, technically, but is the doorway outside? A little yes, but maybe a little no, too.
She has stolen one of the many nice cushions from inside the school, because even days after her birching there is absolutely no way she can bear sitting on the wood of the door frame with no padding. But this way her legs can stick out in the sun, and with her eyes half-closed she drinks in what’s left of the afternoon light until someone nudges her.
When she opens her eyes, she sees that it is Laura, the taciturn guard who caught her three days ago, and held her in place for the worst fucking beating of her life. She feels her face flame with embarrassment, being confronted by the woman who so easily brought her rampage to an end. Storm made Hannes look like an idiot, but Laura made her feel so damn small she feels herself shrinking under that gaze. Storm pulls her knees up to her chest and reflexively wraps her arms around them, curling up into a ball.
“Are you here to tell me I’m grounded from the outside?”
“No,” Laura says. “I am here to check on you.”
Storm has never heard Laura speak before. She is surprised to hear a deeper, raspier, but pleasingly resonant tone with a Swiss-German accent. It fits the woman perfectly, both her stature and her overall demeanor.
“I’m okay. Thanks.”
Laura nods.
“You are trouble,” she observes, bluntly.
Storm’s lips quirk a little, even as she dies a little inside. People have not stopped making comments to her about the whole birching debacle since it happened. The comments are almost worse than the punishment was. “Yeah. Seems that way, huh?”
“We have been instructed to watch you closely. Hannes is not present, so I will be watching you. It is a large use of resources for one student.”
“Feel free to not do that, then,” Storm says.
Laura looks down at her with an intense blue gaze, considering something. Storm has a flashback to the last time she was in this woman’s presence, remembering how strong she is, and how easily she handled her, like she weighed nothing. She feels guilty all over again, even though she’s done absolutely nothing new wrong.
“Come with me,” Laura orders.
Storm finds herself rising to her feet automatically. Something in the clipped, stern tones and her role in Storm’s previous punishment make for a combination Storm cannot ignore.
Laura starts striding away, leaving Storm to follow in her wake. Knowing she’s not supposed to be out of the chateau, but also having been given a direct order, she chooses to follow Laura rather than defy her. She has the idea that if Laura chased her, it would not be nearly as long an affair as it was with Hannes.
Laura walks at a fast place and has long legs, so Storm practically has to trot to keep up, which Laura insists she does.
“Where are we going?”
“We are walking,” Laura explains.
“Where?”
“Around.” Laura turns up a steep slope, the kind which makes the rear and thighs burn when ascended. She seems to have some sense of a destination, but that might merely be the illusion created by the way she strides out with a determined expression.
It is fortunate Storm had discarded heels for sneakers because she’d be breaking her ankle every other step if not. The terrain is not gentle, nor is it particularly predictable. It is also seemingly unending. The mountain goes on forever, and Laura seems determined to walk every single inch of it.
Technically they are still on the lower slopes, not actually on the mountain proper, but to an unfit Storm, they may as well be ascending the peak. Laura, in sharp contrast, appears to have the kind of hearty fitness of a tomcat roaming here, there, and everywhere.