Compounding Traumas (Artemis University Book 6) Read online

  Plus, people just poked at me when I breathed.

  “Our systems weren’t set up to lead to such blatant corruption as the Edelman family did,” someone else called out, clearly taking a shot at the headmaster.

  “Well, that’s good to hear and less work for you then,” I threw right back. “Maybe start by remembering that the sins of the father aren’t actually the sins of the whole family, especially their children.” I kept talking before he could reply. “I did this here because I could, and we had the right backing and support to make it work. The next step will need support outside of the Artemis community.”

  “What comes after fixing the scholarship programs?” that nice guy asked before anyone else could start shit.

  “Getting the councils and elite parents out of every area of your schools all day, every day.”

  He blinked at me several times, the entire room silent. “Ms. Vale, you have my undivided attention.”

  I smiled brightly when there were many murmurings saying the same. “Glad to hear it. I did some pushing after I won the Power Playoffs here and discovered that the supe community was behind the humans on their education system, crass in how they handled certain things. Teachers here didn’t know TAs got paid or free tuition.”

  “We’ve done a lot of auditing of how human Ivy Leagues do things and it’s astoundingly different,” Edelman interjected. “While none of us want to hear we’re lacking, or our schools are, we can’t blame it all on the councils and elite parents. We didn’t push back when we should, or could have, and allowed too much of this to grow into the system it is. We’ve all done it, giving in when it was easier.”

  I nodded. “And you’re going to have to acknowledge that if you want real change. Everyone has caved on something they shouldn’t have because it was easier, we were tired, or didn’t have the energy for the fight. It’s part of life. Accept that, and your part in it, so we can move on and make things better.”

  “How?” a woman asked after a few tense minutes.

  “First, we changed the scholarships,” I answered, holding up a finger and then another. “That outed the cheating as ‘help’ and other bullshit. Next is taking swift action on that, and Artemis will next semester. Before we can move into our dorms, there is a new addendum to the student forms that clearly and specifically lists what is considered cheating.

  “More importantly, the punishments. This ‘getting kicked out of a school only to go to their council for a second chance like nothing happened besides blowing a stop sign’ is bullshit. You want another chance? Great, get one, but you lose what you blew, so there won’t be any readmittance to Artemis. Their spot will be given to someone else and they are ineligible to re-enroll. They can somewhere else, but not here.”

  The large auditorium went completely quiet. A fly farting could have been heard, it was so quiet.

  “You can’t think to enforce that, Edelman,” a woman argued.

  “We can if we stand together,” he replied. “Say a senior gets kicked out of here. Our programs are on the same track and line up well. What if a senior from the next-ranked school takes that place?”

  “You’re serious,” someone whispered.

  “As a heart attack,” I purred. “If your top student got a shot here, it wouldn’t be the parents against the school, but the parents against parents. You think they won’t fight for their kid to get that spot and push back on the current system?”

  “That takes power away from elites—somewhat—but you said councils too. How would you do that?” a voice from the back asked.

  “What is the one threat all the supe students worry about the most?” I gave them a few moments to think about that, seeing from the glances there could be a few options. “Not graduating and getting their conduit so they can use magic as needed, not simply what their species can.”

  “The councils are crystal clear that those without a completed education cannot have them. You will never get them to budge on that,” the person agued.

  “Who said I was going to?” I smirked out at them. “Does it say they have to get the education at designated ages? I didn’t read that. Who’s to say it can’t be done later in life like the humans have programs for adults out in the real world?”

  “You know that’s not the intent of the councils laws,” that first guy snapped.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and stared him down. “So what? Does that make it right? The councils don’t protect you, they control you. You’re either with them, or you can’t have your conduit, and you’re an outcast. Or you’re with the Underground or a sympathizer. It’s insane there aren’t normal options.

  “You—and maybe those who came before you—gave them too much power by not pushing back. I get it; it wasn’t over night. But that’s where we’re at, and it’s time to stop letting them control you, and your lives, because they are getting worse. Everyone here has seen how councils have lost their minds because I’m staying undeclared.

  “Or they’re outlandish in how they’re treating me because they don’t think they have to fight a council or get backlash for what they do to me. It’s brought their corruption right to the surface and shown who they are in unflattering lights. And most of them are completely unapologetic in it, ignoring evidence we’ve submitted of corruption and horrible crimes.

  “They aren’t a council of elders, but tyrants and puppeteers, and they plan to continue it or worse.” I smiled when there was a loud—but muffled noise—most of the people flinching. “And if I needed to prove my point, we have uninvited guests.”

  “What are you talking about?” Edelman demanded.

  “You set spy traps, didn’t you?” White asked, looking like she might throttle me when I smiled. “Any member of any council may step onto any campus at anytime they want and—”

  “That’s true, but their aides and employees have to check in with security and schedule an appointment to meet with the headmaster,” I cut in with a bright smile. “I don’t think any of the headmasters have other meetings for right now, and those sorts of guests would have security alerting the headmaster they were here.” I glanced at Edelman. “Has your phone rang?”

  He pulled it out of his pocket and shook his head. “No, and the portals at the student union and faculty lounge are both locked, given we’re all here.” He gave me a long stare. “How did you specify traps for that?”

  “Trade secret.” I shrugged at the shocked looks and upset murmurs. “I went through a lot of old books, grimoires, and journals to put those together. And put a lot of power into them. I’m not handing the answers over to anyone as I keep needing to use them.”

  Edelman immediately understood what I was saying and backed off. “Who did you catch?”

  “I have no idea, but they’re council stooges, since I specified persons who were here against the rules. The council members can always come on campus, so it’s not them.”

  “Smart, very smart,” the nice guy praised. “How would you set up this continuing education program?”

  “The point of this meeting is to discuss that, as I’m not the right person to tell all the exceedingly qualified and experienced people in this room how to do that. I can tell you how human programs work, but you could learn what I know, and more, fast. What we wanted for this meeting is to bring you the ideas and make it clear we need at least half the schools to join in for this to work.”

  The jerk interjected before I could continue. “We’d be willing to discuss helping your plan, but in exchange, you attend our university next year.”

  I snorted and then chuckled, letting it build into a full laugh. “I’m sorry you thought I would whore myself out like that to so you would help my plan, but no. No, I won’t sell myself to make your job easier by giving you the key to getting the parents and councils off of you, and out of running your school.”

  “You need us to make this work, and you’re a student, Ms. Vale, so I’d remember that.”

  “Yes, but I’m not your
student, so you’re just anyone on the street to me.” I held up my hand to silence whatever he would have said next. “We only need half the schools to make this work well. And it’s a good plan. Half won’t hold out for your selfish desires. So be an asshole, and we won’t let you in. Your school would be left out of the progress, and you’ll lose new students each year.”

  The voice in the back spoke up again. “It’s clear half of us would jump at any chance to get the parents off our backs and less bullshit in our schools, but how would we divide the responsibility? The backlash?”

  That sparked a lot of heated debate. Everyone was mostly calm and reasonable, but passionate on what would work… Or the jerks wanting a bigger share of the pie and credit.

  I wasn’t shocked in the slightest. Listening to them gave me all the parts to the answer that would work, and when Craftsman jumped in with his thoughts, I changed my mind slightly. It was mean, but not wrong, and he more than deserved some crap from me after everything he’d done.

  Or not done really.

  “Time out!” I bellowed, holding my hands up in the sign for it. People quieted down, and I looked around the auditorium. “Most of you are right in the parts you are suggesting. You need to blend them up better.”

  “Who are you to tell us what to do?” the jerk sneered. “You said yourself you’re not qualified for any of this.”

  “That’s not what I said, and as an educated man, I would have thought you were more adept at understanding words. And I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes in a removed position as I’m not fighting for my school and paycheck and sanity, but for supe education and progress overall. You need pieces of all of your schools.”

  “How?” Edelman sighed.

  “Name a new school something like Chimera College and have the list of established universities it’s a branch for. That’s common in human education, like a charter school. It gives equal parts for flack and credit. You also want this to be as non-scary as possible, so someone established like Professor White, a dean, won’t be one of the teachers.

  “No, you have the newbs. You’ve all said your potions curriculum lines up with each other. Fine. Which is the youngest teacher of all of the schools wanting to do this, that teaches potions, and is the least threatening? That’s more time working to be better for the pompous elite kids. It’s also showing—”

  “This isn’t a power play to take from the elites or councils, but a move as educators to do better all around,” the voice from the back said.

  “Yes, exactly. Several of you were bringing points that worked, but not the picture together as your focus is—and understandably—your school. The councils didn’t have all this power and corruption in one big step. It was a lot of baby steps, and that’s what we need to make this work and return balance to the education system. There’s a lot of ways to frame this so it’s not aggressive.”

  “You’re right and that is a good point too,” White agreed. “I was devastated to know former students of mine were forced into matings to get their education, and some weren’t given the chance at education because they wouldn’t do it. That’s a much different reason we, as a society, say people don’t have conduits.”

  “So take more the ‘bleeding heart’ approach with the councils,” the nice guy surmised, waiting until we nodded. “Yes, they will brush it off as silly and a waste of their time to pay attention to then.”

  “Except the group of those not having conduits is a prime group to recruit for the Underground,” the jerk countered, actually contributing. “The parents will never agree to allow it at their schools.”

  “We agree with that,” I assured them, gesturing to White, Edelman, and I. “I will allow the startup of this, the first semester or year, to be done at the main address of HAVEN. We have security there, and I’ve already discussed it with them. They’re willing to do background checks—just as we did when hiring them and setting them up.”

  “You’ll get all the credit then,” the jerk snapped.

  “I’ll get a lot of the fucking backlash,” I drawled. “But we’re not going to get enough funding and startup to buy a place. That’s what we need. Eventually.”

  “It also keeps this less threatening,” White added. “The councils could see this as nothing more than after-school tutoring of a few good supes who could contribute to our society if given a second chance… Like they give the elites all the time. And that’s how we need to frame it. We missed some to give another chance to, and that’s the goal, nothing more.

  “If we came in with a completely funded, huge place for this school, that would irk many and start tons of problems. As Ms. Vale said, the way to make this work is with small, controlled steps. We’ve worked through each step and shown it’s for the better. We do that for each one, and soon we’ll be looking back shocked how far we’ve come.”

  She shot me a quick glance, and I mentally smiled. She didn’t simply mean school, but what I was fighting for in Faerie. Yeah, her way sounded nice.

  The meeting went better after that. It was actually really boring once everyone behaved, and I kept trying to catch Edelman’s gaze to ask if I could go.

  Which I’m pretty sure he knew, as he kept pointedly not looking my way.

  I did have fun after the meeting. We went outside and found aides from four councils—witch and warlock, vampire, and two shifter groups. I called that one for sure.

  I let the adults spank them and send them home, careful to collect all my traps so no one could abscond with one. It was a productive day and worth the headaches it would cause me if it worked out.

  If it worked out.

  4

  A month later in the beginning of July, I was waiting for another meeting to start… One I wanted to attend and deal with even less than the last. And they were late, just to piss me off. In an attempt to calm me down, I was currently trying on the “clothes” for the photo shoot I had in a few days.

  The door flew open and Alec, the Alpha of all the Australian dragons, stepped in with his security.

  And mine wasn’t there because I was fucking changing. Ass. Holes.

  “The one time I don’t fucking lock the door with magic,” I grumbled, turning to face in him in the lingerie I was wearing, as if it didn’t bother me.

  His gaze raked over my body in a predatory way. “I would look much more forward to meeting with you if I knew I’d get a show as well.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “The meeting is down the hall. You’re over an hour fucking late, and I’m too busy to sit with my thumb up my ass, so I’m getting shit done. Now get the fuck out and learn some godsdamn manners. Who just barges into rooms not in their own house, not even knocking first?”

  He blinked at me as if it had never crossed his mind. “I’m Alpha of all the dragons in Australia.”

  “Yeah? So?” I sneered. “We’re at a wolf compound, not in your territory, and I said get the fuck out.” I blew my lid when he didn’t move, he and his security still leering at me. I threw up a barrier and shoved them back into the hall before walking over to the door and slamming it in his face. “I hate that fucking man.”

  “He can hear you,” Liluth reminded me.

  I rolled my neck and smirked at her. “Like I wouldn’t say that to his face.” I frowned and went to redress. “I’m pretty sure I have, and a lot.”

  “We definitely add this one,” Liluth told her new assistant. “That should give a rounded shoot, and we can get it all in one day then.”

  I nodded I heard her too. Good. Not just because I wanted in one day, but they had really heard me that I wasn’t going to do it again if they put me in see-through tiny bras and thongs. It was lingerie, but mostly full coverage, and nothing over the top. Same with the swimsuits and workout clothes I’d already tried on.

  Once I was redressed, I went down the hall to the conference room. I rolled my eyes when Alec was huffing and bitching he had to wait for me. “You made me wait over an hour. Shut up about a few minut
es. Seriously. You’re here because you need me.”

  “I’m here because it’s time for you to give payment, or you’re in a world of trouble, kid,” he said with a suppressed growl, huffing like when his dragon was riding him.

  Claudia had the folder ready and tossed it on the table. She’d been adamant she’d wanted to be in the meeting with him this time, not only as my attorney, but as a dragon who’d lost family in his takeover.

  “You will get paid once we have all the hobgoblins in your area, as promised,” she told him, her tone ice cold. “Those are the ones we already knew were in your area before Ms. Vale met with you and have not been released. The agreement also stated that all the hobgoblins were to be interviewed by a third party, and Alpha Geoff is still working on that.”

  “Well he needs to move faster,” Alec snarled.

  It was hard not to smile when it hit me what was going on. He was out of time on the wards that hid his or other castles in his area.

  I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest, wondering how to use this new information to our advantage. “Your people should have moved faster. We had our meeting months ago. Why have they only finally started allowing the hobgoblins to leave now?”

  “That doesn’t matter. The priority is now.”

  “No, it is the point as we still don’t have them all, so you’re pulling shit with me, or your people aren’t following your orders, Alpha,” I snapped. “Get us everyone on that list safely, and I’ll be generous and give you one box of fifty before we do all the interrogations.” He seemed relaxed then, relieved even. I wasn’t done though. “But I want something else.”

  “What?” he huffed.

  “Some of the hobgoblins have said you have fae dogs in your area. There is a fae dog Tanesha Jameston has been getting familiar with and that sometimes listens to her. We want to give that dog a chance to find other fae dogs and get them to the sanctuary as well.”

  His eyes went wide. “The dust collectors make huge money in our area.”