“M-Maybe we should eat outside,” I said quickly, taking my tray from Rikki.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s windy outside and empty in here.”

I looked back at the men. Mr A gestured for me to come over, but I felt rooted in place. If the people sitting at the table were vacuras and the men I’d met a few days ago were sitting with them, did that mean they were vacuras too? The stupid part of me was curious, but those strange men were really none of my business. In response to his gesture, I shook my head.

I followed Rikki to the other side of the cafeteria and sat down with my back to the rest of the room. I reached for the drink she got me and took two huge gulps.

“Something the matter?” Rikki asked through a forkful of rice.

“Not at all. I told you that you can stop worrying about me. I’ll be fine.” Her eyes shifted to something behind me, and her eyebrows drew together. “What’s wrong?”

“I think one of them is headed this way,” she whispered, eyes growing wide.

“One of what?” I asked. She started making weird faces and I didn’t realize she was trying to tell me to turn around until I felt the presence behind me. I slowly turned around and looked up at Mr A who looked a touch annoyed compared to when I saw him at the table with Mr S. “Hello, Sir. How may I help you?”

“When you are finished with your meal, I would like to speak with you.” Mr A looked down at me expectantly. However, I felt like the underlying tone was an order and not a request.

“Don’t worry, Zed. I’ll wait for you in the library,” Rikki said.

She must have not noticed how reluctant I was to join this strange man, but I knew she was only trying to be helpful.

I wasn’t all that pumped to find out what would happen if I refused. “Sure. I’ll come over to your table when I’m done,” I responded. Being next to him made me feel pint-sized and it had little to do with his height.

Mr A bowed his head to Rikki before he left.

“I thought you said you’ve never seen a vacura,” she whispered harshly.

“I didn’t know he was one,” I muttered.

“Is he, like, a friend of yours?” she asked.

I could see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to make sense of why someone like me would be involved with someone like Mr A. “Absolutely not.” That was where the conversation ended.

When we finished eating, I returned my tray and said my prayers as she left. God, I knew karma was going to catch up to me eventually, but I’m sorry for being a whiny little bitch these past few days.

Just as I was approaching the table, all eyes suddenly turned to me, making me stop. One of the guys with blond hair waved and said something in a language I could not understand. “I’m sorry, I… only speak English,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if it mattered. If he didn’t speak English, then he wouldn’t have understood what I said.

Mr S smiled and shook his head, saying something to the members of the table that caused all of them to look at Mr A who was leaving the table. When he passed Mr S, he slapped his shoulder. It sounded like it hurt, but Mr S just laughed, along with the rest of the table.

“Come,” Mr A ordered.

I followed him out into the courtyard which was nearly empty seeing as most people had either gone to classes or left campus. Almost everyone we passed stared at us with unease in their eyes as they looked between us. Like, yeah, I know. I wasn’t fond of attention, so I needed to get this conversation with him over as soon as possible so I could rejoin Ricky.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him, noticing he wasn’t wearing his mask. Because of that, I was staring at his lips, and when he spoke, I saw his fangs, something I had dismissed in our first meeting. He really was a vacura then.

“I am working.” He sat down on a bench and pat the space next to him. “Sit.”

I had expected more detail than just ‘I am working’. “You like to order people around, don’t you?” I asked though I wasn’t expecting an answer. I sat two feet away from him at the other end of the bench. “Why did you want to speak to me?”

“I wanted to ask you how your weekend was,” Mr A said, looking at me intently.

“It was great,” I replied when in actuality, my weekend had been a blur. I knew what I had been doing, but the details weren’t very clear in my memory. “Is that all?”

“Is lying to me necessary?”

“Excuse me?”

“If I gave you a drug test, would you be able to pass it?”

I didn’t like how he was looking at me. I understood that I looked a holy mess, but that could just be because I didn’t sleep well. My eyes were red and I knew I looked like I’d been dragged through hell and back, but it was as if he already knew the answer and he just wanted me to admit it. I hated when people did things like that.

“Yes,” I answered.

He stood. “Good. Let us get you one right now. Follow me, please.”

I stiffened. “Are you serious? I don’t have time for a drug test.”

“It is quick and easy. All you have to do is give a urine sample with my supervision to make sure you do not tamper with it, and then I will take it to be tested. In your case, since you said that you would be able to pass it, nothing will show up.” He lifted a hand to his hip. “Right? Let us head to the sickbay and get this over with quickly.”

“I can’t!” I admitted, realizing this man was indeed serious. I probably would have bluffed and followed him if I wasn’t aware of what he was and what his rank could be compared to little old me, but the last thing I needed was to be found out and suspended or expelled when I was so close to graduating. “I can’t pass it.”

“Your eyes are unfocused and bloodshot, you have dark circles under your eyes, you look rundown and pale, and your lips are chapped. There is no way you would have passed a drug test.”

“Then why ask if you already know?” I asked, annoyance level rising. He was a stranger meddling in my business. He had no right to. “I need it sometimes, alright? Not everyone can live the good life in fancy hotels like the rest of you vacuras.”

Mr A sat down again on the bench and crossed his legs at the knees. “I am not a vacura. I am a purka, Zedikai.”

Whatever the fuck a purka was, I wasn’t interested. “How did you know my name?”

“You have an alarming number of absences recorded, yet you still manage to hold average marks. That is impressive. However, you were still flagged as an at-risk student. I did not know you were a student here or even that one of the flagged students was you until your student ID was shown to me.”

I cringed. I had that ID stuffed in my locker somewhere. It was a horrible picture, and it didn’t help that I was hungover that day. “Well, what do you want with me? What makes me so interesting?”

“I am interested in you because I want to help you. It does not take a therapist to see that something is going on with you. You are frequently indefinitely homeless, abuse drugs, have a poor attendance record, and sell your body for money. Something tells me this is not what you wanted to be doing at twenty-one.” He rested his elbow on his knee.

His words made me uncomfortable. I knew I was doing all these things but having them pointed out to me made it seem worse than it really was. “And what?” I asked. “Are you pitying me again?”

“Yes, actually. I feel sorry that you are in such a rough patch in your life that you are making unhealthy and illegal choices. Do not take my pity as me looking down on you. I am simply sympathetic to your plight. I want to help you.”

I stood from the bench with my hands clenched into fists at my side. He couldn’t be trusted. This man was unreal. The only way out of my shitty situation was to stick to the plan and leave this planet and everyone on it behind. I could do it on my own as long as I had no distractions.

“And if I decline? Will you have me arrested for drugs and prostitution?” I asked.

“I will not be the one to arrest you since it is out of my jurisdiction, but I cannot guarantee you will not be caught or that another agent will turn a blind eye to what you are doing. I will say that I think it is unwise to turn down my offer. I do not want your body, as I have said before. It might be difficult to trust a man you have only recently met, but we can talk about your situation and how I can help before you agree to anything. It will not be legally binding either, so if you do not like the kind of help I can offer, then you are free to walk away.”

I couldn’t afford to rely on someone else claiming to want to help me. For a place to sleep every now and again, sure. To help me move to another planet, no. He would only turn into another Jeff the bigger the favours. “I’m declining your assistance. I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t approach me again.”

Mr A stood. “Very well. Enjoy the rest of your day, Zedikai.”

I thought he would have insisted. I almost wanted him to. As I watched him walk back to the cafeteria, I felt like something was trying to claw its way out of my chest, reaching out towards his uniform-clad back to grab on to him.

It would only be more empty promises, I told myself as I started making my way to the library to meet with Rikki. The last thing I needed was more distractions. As sexy as he was, I couldn’t afford to let him become a distraction. I knew what my plan was. All I had to do was follow it.

My plan started with graduating from school as soon as possible and to do that, I needed to pass my final exams. So, that was what I focused on. I snuck in and out of Peter’s house, went to Jeff’s when I could, and when I wasn’t doing either, I was studying. I liked studying with Rikki the most. She wrote better notes than I could ever hope to take for the classes we shared, and although she didn’t act like it sometimes, she got nearly straight A’s. Being around her made me want to try harder.

Studying alone in my school’s library or with Rikki were the only ways I could focus. I couldn’t study at Jeff’s. It wasn’t just because we were constantly fucking. It was more that he made it hard for me to study. Every time I tried picking up a book, he’d be touching me and talking to me and doing so many distracting things. I wasn’t good at studying or focusing on my own unless there was complete silence, so I got distracted easily.