The Grey God (War of Gods 4) (32 page)
Read The Grey God (War of Gods 4) Online
Authors: Lizzy Ford
Sometimes, she really wondered how she could handle so much rain and not go crazy.
Anna’s shoulders slumped as she pushed the door open to English 101. It was still hard to get used to the enormous class rooms—they seemed so impersonal. The English auditorium was beige all the way around—beige floors, beige seats, beige walls—and had high, thin windows that no one could reach to open. It felt like a prison or a hospital ward.
She noticed an empty seat way in the back and sped up to get there before someone else grabbed it. She took the stairs, studiously ignoring the stares of students already seated, and sank into the cold, plastic seat where nobody could see her.
She let her bag fall to the floor between her feet and pulled out her notebook and a pen. It was amazing that the kids surrounding her would someday hold real jobs and have real responsibilities. Most of them were wearing headphones or had their fingers flying across the touch screens of their cell phones.
The future, Anna thought wryly.
The professor shuffled into the room in his tasseled loafers, his back hunched over so that he appeared even shorter than he was, and several of the students groaned loudly. Anna’s image of hot college professors had been thrown out the window on her first day of school, and Professor Huffington was a perfect example.
He wheezed into his handkerchief and glared at them with his beady eyes as he crossed the floor. He reminded Anna of a mole. Just looking at him made her skin crawl. The fluorescent lights caused his bald head to shine and gave him a green undertone.
His head—what Anna had coined his “chrome dome”—barely cleared the podium. Anna’s eyes kept drifting to the little tuffs of hair that stood out on the sides, just above his ears. She had to force herself to look away before she laughed out loud.
Professor Huffington proceeded to lecture them for an hour in his monotone voice, and Anna had to will her eyes to stay open. She needed to learn a spell for wakefulness, or at least keep a couple of tooth picks handy to prop open her eyes. Many heads had already dropped, and for those who hadn’t, anything the professor said went in one ear and out the other. Thankfully, the subject matter was easy, or she would be in trouble. English had always come naturally to her—it was math that was a nightmare.
As Anna was on her way out of class, a perky blonde girl in a short black skirt and white tank top handed her a flyer with a bored “You should check this out” and then moved on to the next student. And you should put some clothes on. Campus was like that—if they weren’t passing out flyers, they were passing out credit card applications.
Anna inspected the paper—it was a promotion for a local band. They were playing that night at a nearby club. She tucked the sheet into her messenger bag. Maybe she would go. She had been in loner mode since arriving in Seattle, with mornings like that one where she sat alone on her porch in the cold and dark. It couldn’t be healthy.
Perhaps it was time for her to branch out.
Anna
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