Dark Application: ONE (The Dark Application Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

that the answer was right. Then questions
three and four. The next exam section was Introduction to Gas
Laws. Again, the phone flashed the correct answers, but this time did not
buzz.
    Did it
not need to buzz now because it had Luke’s attention? The ridiculousness
of it almost made him laugh. Instead, he sighed deeply. The
students in the desks around him began to shift as they finished up their
exams. A few started getting up and packing their books, turning in their
tests to the professor.
    Professor
Jones stood, took a piece of chalk to the board and wrote, “15 mins .” Luke hadn’t realized how much time had sped by.
Quickly he began to fill in the spaces, the phone giving him the answers
almost as soon as he had read the problem to himself. He finished the
exam, packed up his things, and buried his phone deep in his sweater pocket. He
walked toward the front of the room, passing by Amy and the boyfriend’s desks.
Looking over her shoulder, he could see that she was almost done. He was not, though. He was peeking over at Amy’s paper. She was
apparently letting him cheat.
    It’s
none of my damn business , he thought bitterly. Amy was too smart to
fall for these jocks who couldn’t even spell their own names. Sometimes
he felt angry at her, angry that she was wasting herself on stupid guys that
only dragged her down. She had been one of the top students in high
school, like Luke. But she didn’t act like it. She didn’t value it.
She was only in college because her parents gave her the choice of going
to college or finding a job. Why should she care if her jock boyfriend
couldn’t multiply?
    As
Luke stared over their shoulders, the strange impulse came back again. A
swelling heat crept up Luke’s back, and the intense rage he had felt on his
bike that day rose up again. His blood was boiling; his mind was filled
with hatred. He looked down at the boyfriend’s back, gripping his
sharpened pencil in his fist. He imagined himself raising the pencil over
his head and stabbing deep into that spoiled prick’s back. Straight down
the back of his neck. For a split second, he could visualize the blood
spurting hotly up his wrist, the pencil snapping over the vertebrae, ripping
the broken stump out the back of his--
    “Luke,
are you done?” Professor Jones’s voice interrupted his fantasy. Quickly,
Luke thrust the test onto Professor Jones’ desk and ducked out the door into
the dim corridor. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
His heart was still pounding from the vivid daydream. The lights
were never on in this wing. It was little more than a cold, concrete wind
tunnel with doors. His feet echoed in the darkness, and he cracked his
knuckles, hearing the cracks echo as well. Then his phone vibrated again.
    He
pulled it out and turned it on, looking hard at it. The screen lit up and
came on as usual, showing his normal icons and apps. “Thanks, phone,” he
murmured, and slid it back into his pocket.
    *****
    “Honeys,
I’m hooome !” Chris hooted as he clamored into the
kitchen carrying two large pizza boxes and a huge case of beer.
    Amit
quickly shut the door and began to toss the beers into the refrigerator.
Luke was bent over the fireplace, blowing the freshly lit kindling.
Wisps of smoke escaped the chimney and swirled into the room, smelling
like oak and filling the house with a rustic aroma.
    “Dudes! I passed that exam with flying colors,” Luke
said.
    “What
the hell kind of teacher gives an exam like that before mid-term?” Chris asked,
cracking a beer and taking a long swig.
    “No
kidding, that’s what I said,” said Luke. “But I realized that it was
mostly just review since everyone in the class was supposed to take the
prerequisites. The dean said they are going to start cracking down on pre-rec’s this year. Had too many people slip through
without the required major units and shit like that.”
    “Yeah,
mostly organic chem majors,” said Amit.
    “Yeah, like