9 analyzing

JAMIE

I lifted my head and said.

''It's me. And you are?'' I looked closely at him. 

I needed to know who he was. Why did it seem so kind like that. I was suspicious of everyone at the gym, you couldn't rule anyone out, no matter how harmless it seemed.

He smiled, took his hand to his head, lightly scratching his blond hair, and replied:

''I'm Ronald. A handyman from the gym. I clean the courts, the rooms, and do a lot of work around here.'' He paused, his smile widening a little. ''And everyone's already talking about you. The new student.'' he winked at me. 

He said it in a way that was too casual. Almost intimate, as if we'd known each other longer than the few seconds we'd just swapped.

Strange. Very strange! 

But I didn't feel that instant anger I felt around Dylan. None of that kind of irritation that made me want to roll my eyes at every word. Still, this Ronald was weird. Of course it was, everyone at the academy was. They are all suspects. 

I need to be attentive.

I shook my head.

''Well, nice to meet you. I didn't want to bump into you, seriously, I didn't see you.'' I looked around, feeling a discomforting sensation in the body. ''But now I need to go to my dorm.'' I just wanted to get out of there, as quickly as possible. 

But... what the fuck, I don't even know where the dorms are. 

He must have noticed for sure, because his smile softened a little more, almost too gently, and he pointed in one direction, saying he could take me there if I wanted to.

''Thank you, but you don't have to,'' I replied quickly. ''I can go alone.''

I followed in the direction he had pointed, rushing my step, without looking back.

I walked towards the dormitory location. I left the gym lawn behind and walked along a stretch of rocks, and around me there were tall trees covering some of the clouds, I saw the shadows of the trees on the ground, huge. The noise of the gym grew farther away, the voices, the laughter, the echo of someone training on the court, until all that was left was the sound of my own footsteps.

Finally, some real silence.

This was my moment to finally have peace, to organize my thoughts. I tried to organize everything in my mind,  everything that had happened that single day. Dylan: the annoying, popular wolf boy at school that I couldn't stand anymore. That wolf calling me 'the crimson wolf' is a referendum on Adrian. Professor Andrew, with that look too cold to be comfortable. Damon, tall enough to make the whole room shrink. And now Ronald, too kind to be taken seriously without suspicion.

Lots of people. Many names. I need to remember everyone. Not to forget. 

I approached an iron gate and on it had the same symbol that I had seen in that place, the wolf's head between two moons. 

Interesting, I thought. 

I pushed the gate quickly and then started walking, I only heard the sound of the gate closing behind me. In front of me there was a smaller courtyard, and then I saw two building blocks facing each other.

One side for the girls. The other, separated by a stone path and a small garden in the middle, for the boys.

Good thing, I thought, letting out the air I hadn't even realized I was holding.

I passed through the courtyard and followed a second gate, smaller than the first, which led straight to a corridor, lit by lamps attached to the wall. The smell there was different: cleaning supplies, perfume, wood smell, a better scent than the gym, that's what I thought.

I paused for a second, taking the crumpled paper with my room number out of my pocket.

Twenty-two. Second floor.

I saw that there was an elevator at the back of the hallway, but I preferred the stairs, I work better walking, feeling my body act. I climbed up slowly, with the heavy backpack on my back, and passed a hallway on the first floor where some girls were talking sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, laughing at something, but I just ignored it. 

At the top of the stairs, the second floor opened onto a longer corridor with numbered doors. I counted as I walked, and when I looked ahead, I finally found the right door, almost at the end of the hallway, near a small window, at least it wasn't so dark there. 

Twenty-two. Here.

I took the key out of my pocket. And when I took my hand to the lock, I heard loud laughter coming from the next room, voices of girls, very excited, discussing something, but I didn't want to know what they were talking about. Had no interest in these girls whatsoever. Nor in what they were doing. 

I rolled my eyes and turned the key.

The door opened with a slight push. Inside, the room was small but tidy, a single bed leaning against one of the walls, a half-open door leading to a cramped bathroom, and a tiny small room with a sofa leaning under the window.

It wasn't as bad as I had imagined the whole walk there.

I locked the door behind me, let my backpack fall to the floor carelessly, and threw myself onto the couch, my entire body relaxing for the first time since getting out of the carriage hours ago.

I stood there staring at the ceiling, thinking of every face, every name, every look too strange to be innocent that I had crossed that single day.

I need to act. As soon as possible.

I was going to analyze every person I had met there. Investigate, one by one, without apparent rush, without arousing suspicion.

The truth would come out. Sooner or later.