Flawless//Broken

  I stand on my tiptoes to look through the door’s small window, but all I can see is a auditorium of sleepy faces as people sit in their desks, waiting for the orientation to begin. I open the door and slink into a seat behind everyone else. The teacher isn’t here yet. Was I hallucinating the hair? Darius definitely isn’t sitting with the students. A girl next to me is looking at the same brochure I have, but it’s turned to a specific page; Chemistry of the Ancients - Medieval Applications of the Chemical Process - Room 115. The professor’s name and picture are on the lower bottom. White blonde hair. Amber eyes so piercing and deep they’re like an owl’s. A face regal and handsome and deadly all at once, like a disinterested lion.

  “Good morning, class,” A deep voice rumbles, and people perk up as a man in a soft, tailored brown suit walks up to the front desk.

  Professor Darius Monteclaire.

  “As you may know, today is orientation,” He continues. “The purpose of this is to give you a taste of each class you may or may not find interesting.”

  Darius sweeps the class with his golden eyes. People sit up straighter, or cower, disturbed and intrigued by his gaze in equal measure. His eyes stop abruptly on me. My skin crawls with warmth, and all I can think about suddenly is that time I saw him change, and the way his torso tapered off into his pants with a lithe, mouthwatering V-shape. I can’t read his expression, but his lips turns down and his eyes narrow ever-so-slightly. He’s more gorgeous than I remember. What is he doing here as a professor?

  Darius lingers on my face, then turns to the whiteboard and write a single word with black marker.

  ALCHEMY

  He puts the marker down and points to the word.

  “In ancient times, alchemy was the study of converting matter into other forms of matter. Can someone give me an example?”

  The girl next to me raises her hand. Darius points at her.

  “L-Lead into gold.”

  “Correct.” Darius nods. The girl flushes down to the roots of her hair, and it’s then I notice she’s not the only one. Most of the girls are staring at him dreamily, and a few boys even looked flustered. He’s definitely popular. Darius writes a chemical formula on the board; Pb -> Au.

  “Lead,” Darius points to Pb, then moves to Au. “Into gold. It was the ultimate goal for all alchemists - though the formula itself was largely metaphorical. Chinese alchemists, for instance, were less interested in gold, and much more interested in creating an elixir of eternal life. Ancient Abyssinian alchemists focused on trying to bring the dead back to life. Every alchemist had a differing goal depending on their culture and outlook, but the theme remained the same - create something incredible out of the ordinary. Something that would elevate humanity above the gods.”

  Darius adjusts his thin glasses that highlight his cheekbones. He focuses on me again, eyes burning like low-lying embers of a wildfire. His voice is suddenly hoarse, and I feel it echo in my chest.

  “This was humanity’s folly.”

  I suppress the shiver that moves through me. The girl next to me shoots me a disgruntled look, but I barely register it. Darius’ gaze sucks me in like I’m a ship and he’s a massive whirlpool, undeniable and magnetic. He tears his eyes from me and puts his hands on the desk, staring at the rest of the class with focused intensity.

  “If you decide to take this class, please be prepared. I will not tolerate those who have no basic knowledge of chemistry - if you haven’t passed a 201 chemistry class, consider this class beyond your ability. In previous years we’ve had issues with students remaining in this class despite their inadequacy, for whatever reasons. Do not do this - you are wasting my time and your money. I will show you no mercy.”

  Several of the girls titter shyly at his last comment. A boy raises his hand, and Darius nods at him. The boy clears his throat.

  “So…so are we going to learn alchemy or something?”

  Darius’ sensual mouth twitches ever-so-slightly. And then he does something I didn’t think him capable of - he laughs. It’s a small, amused chuckle, but it’s still a laugh. It’s melodic and deep, and I instantly want to hear more of it. I need to hear more of it.

  “No. Alchemy in the sense you know it - turning lead to gold - is not real. It has never been real. What was once alchemy is now chemistry - it was our ancestors beginning to understand the chemical fabric of reality. We will learn as they did, and explore their primitive world as best we can with the tools and perspective we have now.”

  His words are so convincing, I almost fall for them myself. But I know he’s lying, and the irony only makes me scowl. Darius is a being of Alchemy himself. How can he lie about his origins - about his entire world - with such an earnest expression? The bell rings just then, and the class slowly filters out. The girl next to me gets up and walks down to the desk, striking up a conversation with Darius. She smiles and flips her hair, but Darius’ words are short and his face completely chilly and serious. With his last few words, the girl’s expression grows shocked. She looks genuinely upset as she clasps her laptop to her chest and dashes out the door.

  I don’t move - I feel like if I move, he’ll strike. So I plan on waiting until he leaves to leave. But Darius has other ideas. He walks up the steps and lingers at my desk. His smell of ash and cloves fills my senses and I feel his the heat from his body on my skin. It’s impossible to ignore him.

  “What are you doing here?” He asks softly.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” I say. I notice his hand clutching his whiteboard pointer - his knuckles pale. Even his jaw is strained. Before I can move he puts the pointer beneath my chin and lifts it, forcing my eyes to meet his shadowed ones.

  “Did you come here to tempt us monsters?” He murmurs.

  The shivers in my spine turn hot.

  “Did you think I didn’t know you were here?” he presses. “I could smell you the moment you set foot on campus. As could a dozen other homunculus hiding among the faculty and students. Where is Lake?”

  “Outside,” I manage. “But I’m sure he’s followed me in by now.”

  Darius’s eyes slide to the door, looking as far over his shoulder as he can without turning his head. In a flash, he pulls me out of the desk by my hand and embraces me - his arms tight, but not uncomfortably so. My heart thrashes against my chest wildly - so fast I think I’ll have a heart attack.

  “Don’t move,” He murmurs. “There’s a homunculus in the doorway.”

  “W-Why are you -” I squirm against the hug, knowing if I stay in it too long I’ll give in to him, but he holds fast.

  “I will cover your scent with my own. Pray that it works.”

  Curious, I lean my chin into his neck. I feel his body tense, but he doesn’t say anything. I’m acutely aware of how hard my chest is pressing into his, and a dark part of me enjoys it - enjoys the way he’s tensing harder and harder the more my breasts caress his stomach. With my head at this angle, I can see over his shoulder. A student lingers in the doorway, his black hair shaved short. He wears a Metallica shirt and dirty jeans, and if Darius hadn’t of told me, I would’ve assumed he was a normal human. But if I focus, I can see the hungry glint in his eyes. He looks around the room, shifting from foot to foot like he smells something, but is unsure of where it’s coming from. Fear grips me.

  “I will eliminate him if he takes a step towards us,” Darius murmurs in my ear.

  “No!” I hiss. “If you fight him, one of the students might get hurt. I don’t want anymore innocent people dying because of me.”

  “Lake told me,” Darius’s breath grazes my ear. “About the homeless man. There are no Mutus here - no one will perform an alchemy. There’s much less chance an innocent could get hurt.”

  “But there’s still a chance,” I press. “Please, please don’t start anything.”

  I hear Darius snort softly, his displeasure at being told what to do clear. The homunculus sniffs again, looks around the room, and spots us.

  “Say something,”
Darius murmurs.

  “Like what?”

  “You’ve been a very bad girl,” Darius says, louder this time, loud enough for the homunculus to hear. A buzzing static jolts down my spine, tingling my core. I can only tremble and fight against the intoxicating lust in his words. “And I don’t tolerate bad girls in my classroom.”

  “What a-are you saying?” I manage breathlessly. He can’t be serious, can he? But he sounds so sincere. He leans in, gently kissing the space behind my ear, and without any warning I make a half-gasp, half-squealing noise. Darius’s lips work down my neck and it feels so right - so damn right - that I loll my head back and let him. I’m losing myself, my sense of what the hell I’m even doing with my own body. I moan when he reaches the very softest part of my throat, and I feel his homunculus incisors barely pressing against my flesh, hesitating. He’s panting, his breath hot and labored, like he’s fighting it. But I don’t want him to hesitate. I want him to bite, to take what he needs from me. I want to serve him however I can - even if it’s only with my body. Even if he only wants my Azoth and nothing else about me - I’d be alright with it. As long as he keeps kissing me, I can pretend he wants me for who I am, not what I am.

  Through my haze, I see the homunculus in the doorway roll his eyes and move further down the hallway, still searching. The sharp points of Darius’s incisor retract from my skin. He pulls away from me abruptly, hands flashing back to his sides and careful space kept between our bodies. I get control of myself back, but I’m so hot and bothered I can barely see straight. Half of me is pissed he did it in the first place, and half of me is pissed he stopped.

  “What the hell was that for?” I snap. Darius straightens his tie and looks at me with cold, intent eyes.

  “He’s gone. Leave the building while you still can, and catch up with Lake before more of them smell you.”

  “Why did you -”

  “To convince the homunculus we were simply a teacher and student engaging in forbidden love.”

  “You didn’t have to kiss me!”

  “As far as I’m aware, human kissing means a meeting of lips. I did nothing of the sort. The closer I was to you, the more my scent would hide yours. I was protecting you.”

  I sputter a laugh. “You didn’t have to…you didn’t have to touch me like that. That’s not something…even if you were protecting me, that’s not something you should do to a random girl you don’t even like.”

  He fixes me with a golden stare, fierce and true. “You are no ‘random girl’. You are my -”

  Firebird. I finish in my head. I know it’s what he was going to say. Say it, I beg mentally. Please, say it, just one more time, so I know I wasn’t just imagining things.

  But he doesn’t. He reaches out for my face, his hand cupping it tenderly, and I shudder as he strokes his thumb along my cheek. I can’t take my eyes off his as he moves his fingers down, along my jaw, and rests them gently, oh so gently, on my scar. This is not lust - it’s nothing like what happened a few moments ago. He takes my scar in, his hazel eyes seeming to memorize every line and curve of it without judgment, without disgust, without flinching away like everyone else -

  “Princess!”

  Lake’s shout cleaves the soft moment. Darius rips his hand away from my face, his eyes becoming cold and hard again. Lake runs up to us, panting.

  “Jesus, Princess.Why’d you run off like that? I looked away for one sec and looked back and you were gone!”

  “Because she has no sense of how important she is,” Darius interjects frostily. I find my voice but it comes out all wrong - angry. Angry that he stopped, that we were interrupted.

  “It’s not like I came here looking for trouble. I was here with my friend, you know, trying to be normal?”

  “You can never be normal again,” Darius says. “You should stop entertaining those fantasies. You’ll only make yourself feel worse.”

  “For the last damn time - why do you care how I feel?” I snap. “It’s only my body you need, not my emotions or my mind.”

  “C’mon, Mom and Dad,” Lake snarks. “Stop fighting.”

  Darius turns on Lake. “You need to keep a better watch over her.”

  “I’ve been trying, Darius,” Lake insists. “Seriously. She attracts trouble like nobody’s business.”

  “That’s no excuse!” Darius snarls. “If anything happens to her I’ll -”

  He freezes. I narrow my eyes at him.

  “You’ll what?”

  “I won’t have her Azoth to work with,” He finishes. “And I’ll never be able to put an end to the Mutus.”

  I suck in a breath, every oxygen atom like a dagger stabbing my lungs. Darius snarls at Lake.

  “So keep her in line, Lake, with force if you have to.”

  Lake looks uneasy. “But, Darius -”

  “Consider it an order from your employer. You have clearance to protect the Azoth by any means necessary, even if that means forcing her against her will. Do not fail me.”

  Darius whirls around and descends the stairs, leaving the classroom without a single glance back at us.

  ***

  “I hate him.”

  “You don’t hate him,” Lake sighs, walking with me back to my meeting place with Ellie. “Oi, slow down! We’re not training for the damn Olympics, alright?”

  “What does he think I am? A toy?” I fume. “He can’t treat me like I’m precious and then throw me to the dogs all in the same half-hour. I hate him. I hate Darius Monteclaire.”

  “He - he wasn’t throwing you anywhere,” Lake clarifies. “He’s just like that, okay? He was obviously scared out of his mind, worried about you -”

  I whirl around and glare at him. “How worried can he be when he tells you all he needs me for is my Azoth?”

  “Look, trust me! I know when Darius is worried. I’ve never seen him that scared before! And he probably hasn’t been this scared in a long time, so he freaked out and got all Darius-y and harsh, okay? That’s honestly just how he is. He pushes people away, and -”

  “Where were you?” I ask. “When the homunculus came by? If you had been around, Darius wouldn’t have needed to kiss me at all.”

  Lake freezes, green eyes going wide as saucers. “He kissed you?”

  “To throw the homunculus off my scent, apparently,” I say dryly. “Darius is a dick, but he was right about one thing - you need to stick closer to me. That way, he won’t ever need to touch me in the name of ‘protecting my Azoth’, or whatever, ever again.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lake catches up with me. “I’m still grappling with the fact that Darius kissed a human girl. Shit - kissed anyone! The women who hit on him, well, he doesn’t let them last a second, let alone kiss them. Why the hell would he -” He stares at my face, and I get instantly irritable.

  “Is there something on my face?”

  Lake squints. “I’m just trying to find it.”

  “Find what?”

  “Find how you look like Amelie. There’s no other way he’d kiss somebody.”

  My heart sinks even further from the rock-bottom place Darius punted it to earlier.

  “Just meet us back home,” I say, grateful when I see Ellie. I run up to her and she smiles.

  “Hey! Where’d you go?”

  “Oh, just sat in on a stupid Chem class. Definitely not my thing.”

  She laughs, and I laugh with her, but it’s bitter and brittle.

  ***

  For two weeks, I can convince myself I’m normal. I make breakfast, I clean the house, I look for more jobs. I try not to lose my mind - sitting around the house has never been my style. It only makes me over-analyze all the shitty things that have happened to me, dwell on them, make them bigger and more horrible monsters in my mind. The homeless man’s face. Darius’ cold admission I’m nothing more than Azoth to him. Lake’s conviction I must be like Amelie for Darius to even pay me the time of day. The fact I’ll never live a normal life again. I can’t go to the store without seeing Lak
e out of the corner of my eye - as a cat or otherwise. I can’t go outside without thinking every person who looks at me for too long is a Mutus or a homunculus.

  Just as I’m starting to lose hope, I get a call back from a bistro cafe on University Hill. They want to interview me. Ellie and I celebrate with two pints of Ben and Jerry’s and reruns of her favorite vampire show. Before she leaves for school the next morning, she does my makeup for me so I’ll look my best, and the small gesture is touching. She really wants me to do well, to feel well. I can tell she’s been worried about me, moping around the house. I hadn’t told her about the homeless man or what really happened with Darius, and she never asked. I love her for it. She knows I deal with bad shit on my own, and knows when to step in - or step out.

  I put on my dark jeans and an ironed plaid shirt - casual, but not sloppy. Ellie used enough makeup to choke a cow to try and cover my scar, and even though it’s a lot less noticeable, it’s still visible. I use my hair to shadow the rest of it, and grab my purse. I’m ready.

  Fifteen minutes and one bus ride later, and as I’m standing outside the bistro doors I realize I’m really, really not ready in the slightest. The bistro is all brick and stainless steel counters, the tables clear with layers of newspaper set beneath them for a vintage effect. It’s not the lunch rush, but there are a lot of people here. The smell of warm, fresh bread, rich coffee, and spiced soup reaches my nose. The baristas look busy serving coffee and tea, while some run back and forth from the kitchen with sandwiches for certain tables. I can’t find anyone relaxed enough to point me in the manager’s direction.

  “Are you here for the interview?”

  I look up at the words, a girl with braids and an apron smiling at me. She’s no older than I am.

  “Yes,” I manage. “I’m Mia Redfield.”

  “Cool. Let me show you to the break room. Alyssa’s waiting for you there. She’ll be interviewing you.”