Steelhands - Jaida Jones [70]
When all their fun was brought to an end by the inevitable broken neck, I could only hope that the ’Versity authorities would see an opportunity to take the matter in hand. Until then, I would have to suffer bravely through the noise of a leather ball smacking against the walls and sometimes even my door at all hours of the day and night.
The temptation to find the bastion-blasted thing and puncture it with a knife was beginning to overwhelm me. I made it down the stairs and to the disposal unit around back without becoming ill, though I tossed the bucket into the garbage whole, choosing to forgo the more thrifty approach of dumping the contents out and keeping the apparatus itself for further use. There was another bucket in my room, which I used to store my cleaning supplies, and if Laure found herself in dire need, I would simply have to sacrifice it to the greater good.
One could always buy another bucket.
On my way to her room, I found myself walking by Gaeth’s door—he was two rooms away from mine, the one just above Laure’s. I moved past it, then stopped and retraced my steps, staring at the number by the knob.
In addition to his curious elusiveness within the dormitory halls, I hadn’t seen him attending lectures alongside the rest of the crowd in at least two days. It was possible that, in certain lectures, my ill-advised infatuation with Hal had given me a kind of tunnel vision, blocking out all distractions for the purpose of my private study, but Gaeth wasn’t the easiest person to miss. In fact, he rather stuck out from the crowd though not always for reasons that were particularly flattering. As much as I’d tried to stop myself from noticing him, I’d found it to be a nearly insurmountable task. Since I’d never had such trouble with my focus before, I was forced to assume that it had something to do with him. Some stubborn flaw in his nature that was affecting me poorly, like a winter’s wind stripping the paint from a house.
He’d had this fever—though mercifully, he’d never vomited in my presence—and as such, he might have some helpful information, perhaps as to what balms would soothe Laure’s symptoms and whether there was any medicine I needed to purchase for her at the apothecary to bring the fever down. I’d even have settled for a rough estimation of how much vomiting I could expect, if only because I was going to run out of buckets very shortly and would have to purchase more before the shops all closed for the night.
If only another trash pail had been what was jammed into my chimney flue, I thought. It would have made life seem considerably less cruel and random, if only for a moment.
Despite the rising sense of futility I was beginning to associate with dormitory life, I tugged Laure’s scarf down from my face and knocked sharply on Gaeth’s door. For added effect, I imagined I was rapping on his head. For all his good manners, he didn’t seem to understand how rude it was to make someone worry after you this way.
Nothing but silence greeted me.
I even leaned in, as close as I could manage without actually allowing the old door with its gray, flaking paint to touch my cheek. Something creaked, but it was only the stairwell behind me moaning from all its regular abuse. After I’d counted to ten—forward and backward—I decided I’d been quite generous enough with my time.
“Ho, Laure’s friend,” someone called from behind me.
It was a girl, coming up the stairs, and a boy behind her, both of them dark-haired and dressed for walking in the cold. They were carrying shopping bags and had—for reasons that I couldn’t possibly fathom—chosen to engage me instead of passing me by to reach their respective lodgings.
“Are you looking for Gaeth?” the girl asked. It was