Vanilla

Fifty Seven

[Leroy]

"Hey, what's going on?" Chen. "You look like shit."

I couldn't find the will to even turn so I just looked straight ahead at whatever it was they had up on the screen, projected for the briefing. "Feel like shit too."

He sighed, sliding into my peripherals and waving a hand several inches away from my face. "Hello, don't mean to break it to you or anything, but the entire thing nearly got cancelled and all our efforts would have gone to waste if not for the deal Tenner came through with. We can't afford having half-hearted chefs on the team..."

I gave no response. A tell-tale sign I was deliberately dishing out. Against the last-minute instructions they were dishing out over the sound system and people filtering in and out of the waiting room, he finally pulled me aside. Somewhere over his shoulder, I saw Tenner's heard turn.

"So are you going to spit out what happened to White or not?"

I gave him a look. "Those fucking brainless kids."

"What," he frowned, gaze hardening into something briefly unrecognizable. "The same few from his class? Weren't they taken care of?"

"I thought you read his articles," I snorted. "Isn't that what nearly got the interschool called off? Birchwood's die-hard simps getting defensive and gunning after people who have anything bad to say about her. They tried to play a prank and ended up almost freezing him to death in the cellar."

Don't think Chen took this very well but I wasn't going to be the judge of that when my own reaction the night before was nothing short of irrational fear and panic. I'd left the infirmary to let him get the rest he needed but back at the lodge, I was having problems drifting off. If it wasn't fretting over Annie and her bills, it was him and having to control the house on fire—rage and hatred directed at the couple of blind idiots—and then it was the possibility of losing everything with disappearing taste. Of being left behind. Alone.

And again.

"You're kidding." Chen was glancing over his shoulder. Tenner was waving him over. "I was wondering why he hadn't walked you down here or something. Even though he was technically disqualified."

The bonus round was a duo-style back-to-back relay of five dishes. Cuisine of choice. Chen had insisted on placing my name next to Tenner's, even though I specifically emphasized zero capability of desserts. Tenner was a red too. Worst case was necessarily producing a dessert course. Neither of us were good enough to cover the other, especially in the current condition I was under.

All I could think about was ending things fast and running off to see him in the infirmary. And then Annie at the hospital. And in the process, try not to crash and burn.

"I need all remaining students to make your way next door and, according to the numbers beside your names, take your places at the assigned stations. Do not touch anything on the countertop. Just stand beside your stations. Everyone else, head up to the gallery."

Chef Pierre was in the room. He had eyes on Marseille, who'd left most of the administrative duties she'd been in charge of to Allan, now leading the organizing committee instead of her. His students from L'assiette had headed out first to the practical exam hall and for most of the duration, he'd been either glaring at Tenner or sneering at anyone else who looked his way.

"Royroy," she liked to call. Since day one, I think. "If this is you being an ungrateful little brat that your magic tongue boy got me back into business then you're being very childish right now."