Over my dead body or, preferably, Jessica’s dead body.
“That sounds ... .”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Aric said quickly, pinning my wrists together with one hand to make sure I wasn’t going to make a grab for Jessica again. “I would just suggest doing it someplace else besides your dorm room.”
“Why?” Laura looked confused.
“Oh, just call it a hunch.”
Jessica was eyeing Aric coolly now, but she directed her next question to Laura.
“Your dorm room? Do you live with Zoe?”
“I do,” Laura replied, confusion etched on her face as she glanced between all of us worriedly.
“Well,” Jessica said, fixing me with a fake – and evil – smile. “This sounds like it could be a lot of fun.”
I was actually thinking exactly the opposite.
Three
“So you didn’t want to spend the night at Aric’s new place last night?”
Laura, Matilda, Kelsey and I were walking to the university center to buy books – and basically socialize – before classes started on Monday. Matilda and Kelsey were a few paces in front of us, murmuring softly between themselves. I had no idea what they were saying, but I had a feeling it was something mean. The distance between us gave Laura a chance to grill me about last night, though.
“I thought I should spend the first night back at school in my own room,” I lied. The truth was, after meeting Jessica, I was irritated just enough to need a night away from Aric. He had apologized profusely outside the apartment complex before we left, making myriad excuses for why he had dated Jessica – my favorite was temporary insanity – but I was turned off just enough to separate from him for the night. I figured a little space could only help at this point.
“It seemed like something happened out on the balcony,” Laura pressed.
“It wasn’t anything big,” I replied. And, in the light of day, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had overreacted a bit. It’s not as though I thought he’d been celibate for years, just waiting until he met me so that everything in his world would fall into place.
Still, the fact that he had ever dated her was giving me serious concern over his choice in women. Wait, that might have come out wrong. Okay, I had serious concerns about the women he had dated except for me. I’m a prize. What? I am.
“It seemed like something big,” Laura said, her big brown eyes searching my blue ones for a hint of what was going on.
“It seems your new friend Jessica dated Aric last fall for a couple weeks and she’s still got a thing for him,” I replied with a sigh. “She was a little … territorial.”
“Like supernatural territorial?” Laura raised her eyebrows.
Huh, I hadn’t even thought of that. I shook my head after considering it for a second.
“I don’t think so. More like skank territorial.”
“Skank?”
“Skank.”
“Well, I can see how Aric would be hard to get over,” Laura hedged. “I feel a little sorry for her. She probably thought she still had a chance with him until she saw the two of you together.”
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought Laura was playing me. “She was aggressive,” I said. “Very aggressive.”
“She probably just lashed out,” Laura replied pragmatically. “It happens. It happens to you,” she pointed out.
“She was very aggressive,” I repeated.
“I think you two just got off on the wrong foot,” Laura bit her lower lip.
I blew out a frustrated sigh and turned to Laura. “Listen, if you like her I promise I, well, not that I’ll like her but I won’t pull her hair or anything.”
Laura giggled. “I guess I can live with that.”
Inside of the university center, we separated to shop. I couldn’t help but breathe a little easier once I was away from Laura’s sad eyes and desperate need for everyone to get along. There was only one textbook I couldn’t get electronically, so after purchasing it I settled down at one of the little bistro tables in the café and flipped through a magazine. It wasn’t long before another familiar face found me.
“Zoe!”
I glanced up from the magazine – I needed a break from reading about the latest Kanye and Kim marriage crisis (what’s the over/under on how long until we’re reading about the divorce, by the way?) – and welcomed the smiling face of Mark Doyle.
“Hey, Mark,” I greeted him with a genuine smile. I couldn’t help but like him. He was a slacker – complete with long hair and a skateboard – with a good heart. Sure, he was working with the local monster-hunting group on campus, but I was trying to ignore that. That group gave me the creeps more than the witches, werewolves and vampires combined that I had met over the past year.
“What are you doing here?”
“Just hanging,” I replied. “Waiting for my roommates to finish their shopping.”
“It’s weird to me that you’re not living with Paris this year,” Mark lamented. “And Brittany.”
Mark had attended high school with Brittany, so he was well aware of her personality defects. I figured he was joking. “Are you and Paris officially a couple?” I teased.
Now Mark looked confused. “Didn’t you go out with her last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you ask her?”
I didn’t think telling him I was self-absorbed and Paris hadn’t volunteered the gossipy tidbit would be the right answers to his query. “It didn’t come up,” I shrugged. “Once we got to the party we all kind of separated.”
“Or you were too interested in your beefcake boy toy to pay attention to anything else,” Mark supplied knowingly.
“You’re funny.”
“I try.” Mark slipped into the open chair across from me and slouched back lazily. “So, how was your summer?”
“It was good,” I replied noncommittally. “Just normal stuff. Work. Beach. Food. Bonfires.”
“Boys, or specifically one, to be precise,” Mark teased again.
“You’re so interested in Aric that it’s starting to make me wonder if you want to date him,” I shot back. “I don’t think he’s into that, though. I’ll ask if you want.”
Mark looked properly chagrined. “Point taken.”
“Good.”
“So, anything else going on?” Mark asked the question but lowered his gaze so he wouldn’t have to make direct eye contact. I knew what he was getting at.
“Nope. Nothing else.”
“Oh, well that’s good.” He said the words, but looked a little disappointed.
“How about with you? How is your little monster group?”
Mark shifted uncomfortably. “They’re fine.”
“Good.”
“You know, they’re not as bad as you think.”
“How do you know what I think?” I challenged.
“You’ve made your feelings pretty obvious,” Mark smirked. “You think the academy is evil.”
“Evil is a strong word,” I said. “I think the group is … misguided.” I refused to call it the academy – that just seemed pretentious.
“Misguided?”
“Yeah. Monsters aren’t born. They’re made.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Mark hedged.
“I don’t believe that just because you’re born different – or might be changed into something different – that means you’re automatically bad.”
“We’re talking about vampires and werewolves here,” Mark lowered his voice and glanced around nervously. No one was paying attention to us, though.
“So?”
“So, by their very nature, they’re evil.”
“They’re not evil,” I countered. “One could argue that trying to kill something because you don’t understand it makes you the evil one.”
Mark frowned, his brown eyes flashing anger for a second before fading to dull disinterest. “What about Zach? He was definitely evil.”
>
Zach, Mark’s former roommate, had been a sphinx. To survive, he had been draining the life force of girls – and burying their corpses in the woods -- for decades. After attacking Paris and me the previous semester, he had been removed to parts unknown. I had serious doubts he was still alive.
“Zach made a choice to become what he was,” I pointed out. “That’s different. Evil is evil. There is evil in every group but not every group is made up of entirely evil people.”
“But supernaturals seem to have more evil than everyone else,” Mark argued.
“Really? I bet humans could give them a run for their money.”
“How do you figure?”
“Adolf Hitler. David Koresh. Timothy McVeigh. Joseph Stalin. Charles Manson. John Wayne Gacy. They were all evil – and they were human.”
“That’s different, though,” Mark countered. “They were exceptions.”
“And you don’t think the supernatural population can have exceptions?”
Mark considered the question. “It’s possible.”
“I’m not telling you how to think, Mark,” I sighed. “I’m asking you not to let them tell you how to think.”
“I know,” Mark said. “It’s just so … it’s just such a mess. I feel like I’m being pulled in opposite directions.”
“Yeah, well, life is a mess sometimes.”
“Well, onto happier topics; how do you like your new roommates?”
“They seem fine,” I replied evasively.
“Oh, well, that’s convincing,” Mark laughed. “What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing,” I replied hurriedly.
Mark waited for me to continue, watching me knowingly. Well, I might as well not disappoint him.
“It’s just that Matilda is boy crazy. I mean boy crazy. She’s after every guy on campus, I swear.”
“Too bad I’m taken,” Mark mused.
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously in his direction.
“Hey, she’s hot.” Mark’s face colored with embarrassment.
I shook my head wearily. “She’s fine. She just gets on my nerves with all the stalking and nonstop chatter.”
“Tell her.”
“That’s a great way to make everyone in the room comfortable.”
“What about the other girl? What’s her name? Kelsey?”
“Yeah, she’s … she’s a little different.”
“Different isn’t bad,” Mark reminded me of the words I had uttered minutes before.
“I know,” I said. “She’s just a little crabby all the time.”
“It’s not like you’re all sunshine and kittens.”
“No,” I agreed. “She’s just really … mean.”
“Mean?”
“Mean,” I confirmed.
“Like evil mean?”
I pursed my lips tiredly. “I don’t think so,” I said finally. “I think she’s really driven, which is a good thing. Matilda says she has a 4.0 grade-point average, which is pretty impressive. That’s not evil, right?”
“That is impressive,” Mark agreed.
“She just a little cold, I guess.”
“Maybe she’s just nervous around new people?” Mark suggested.
“Maybe.”
“Or maybe she’s just a raging bitch?”
That was exactly what I was worried about. I didn’t voice those concerns, though, because Matilda and Kelsey were heading our way. I took the opportunity to introduce them to Mark, waiting to see what he thought of Kelsey. Since she didn’t say a word, it wasn’t hard to deduce his reaction. Once they were gone and on their way back to the dorms, I turned to Mark expectantly. “Well?”
“She’s a little icy.”
“Icy?”
“Okay, there’s a very good chance she might be evil.” Mark laughed when he said it, but the emotion didn’t make it all the way to his eyes.
I watched Matilda and Kelsey exit the building and grimaced as a feeling of dread washed over me. What if she was really evil?
I tried to shake the feeling. Zoe Lake is a happy person, I reminded myself. There isn’t going to be any drama this year. I didn’t really believe it, though. That’s just not how my life tended to work out.
Four
Even now, I don’t know how I ended up here. I can’t explain it. Aric called and said his fraternity was having a party. He stressed that I didn’t have to come. So, of course, the minute he told me not to come I couldn’t think of anything else but going.
Yeah, I’m sick that way.
So, here we were, my three new roommates, my two old roommates, my boyfriend and a fraternity of werewolves at an end-of-summer party on the Saturday before classes began.
Even I question my own intelligence at times.
“You didn’t have to come,” Aric reminded me. We were sitting in lawn chairs in the back yard of the frat house – I had refused to go inside, even for beer – and watching the drunken debauchery around us.
“Did I say anything?” I arched an eyebrow antagonistically.
“No, but you’re just sitting here pouting and it’s not exactly fun,” Aric countered, crossing his arms over his chest obstinately.
“No one said you had to sit here with me,” I pointed out.
Aric sighed. “I knew bringing you here was a bad idea.”
“I said I’m fine!”
“Let me go inside and say goodbye to everyone and then we’ll go,” Aric said resignedly.
“You don’t have to go,” I said, but I was suddenly feeling guilty. He was right; I had been exuding nothing but attitude – all of it bad – since we’d arrived. It wasn’t Aric’s fault that I didn’t trust his fraternity brothers. And, since this was the werewolf fraternity his father had started, it wasn’t as though he could quit. “I’ll be better. I promise.”
Aric eyed me speculatively. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you want to come?”
“Honestly? Because the minute you told me not to come it was like I had to come.”
Aric barked out a laugh. “You’re nothing if not entertaining.”
“At least that’s something,” I agreed.
Aric got to his feet, dropped a kiss on the top of my head and moved back toward the house. “I’ll get us something to drink.”
“Good. I’m going to need it.”
Once he was gone, I tried to busy myself with watching the night sky. There’s nothing prettier than a mid-Michigan horizon as the seasons are about to change.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to enjoy my solitude for very long.
“Zoe?”
I glanced up and internally cringed when my eyes fell on Will, my ex-boyfriend. We had grown up together and dated for four years – and yet now, looking at him for the first time in months, I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d never really known him. “Hey, Will,” I greeted him stiffly.
“What are you doing here?” Will looked around nervously. I wasn’t exactly the favorite party guest at Alpha Chi. I’d been known to cause a scene or two (or three or four) in the past.
“I’m here with Aric,” I replied simply.
Will’s eyes darkened. Even though we were broken up for almost a year now, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about my dating Aric. They hadn’t gotten along before I came into the picture. Now that things had shaken out the way they had, things had only gotten progressively worse. “You’re still with him?”
“I am.”
“So you couldn’t date me because I was a werewolf but you can date him and he’s an even bigger werewolf?” Will looked like he was spoiling for a fight.
“There’s a little bit of a difference,” I reminded him. “First, I haven’t known Aric for years and he never lied to me about what he was.”
Will’s face colored with shame.
“And second,” I continued. “Aric was never willing to sacrifice me to save himself.”
“That’s not what happened,” Will protested.
Thinking back to the night when I found out what Will was – and the secret the fraternity was protecting – I couldn’t help but see things differently. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
“He’s not what he pretends to be,” Will warned.
“And you are?”
“All my secrets are out,” Will countered. “Can you honestly say that about Aric?”
“That’s not really your concern now, is it?” Something about the edge to Will’s words was bothering me, though. It was like he knew something specific.
“Just because we’re not together anymore … that doesn’t mean I still don’t care,” Will said earnestly. Maybe it was nostalgia. Maybe it was the memories of kayaking and camping. Something in me wanted to believe him.
“Well, thanks for that,” I said. “It’s too late, though. Too much has happened. You’re too different. I don’t even know you anymore.”
“You know me better than you know Aric.”
“I don’t think I do.”
“You don’t think you do what?”
Will and I both jumped when Brittany suddenly appeared. I couldn’t help but want to smack her. I swear she has the worst sense of timing ever.
“Hey, Brittany,” Will smiled at her warmly.
“Hey, Will,” Brittany smiled back prettily. “It’s so good to see you. How was your summer?”
Will glanced at me before answering. “Uneventful.”
“Oh, well, that’s good,” Brittany said, clearly not picking up on the tense vibe roiling around the bonfire. “I worked at the Detroit Institute of Arts all summer. It was great.”
“That sounds cool,” Will said enthusiastically while I rolled my eyes. Brittany had made her interest in Will fairly obvious to everyone. It didn’t bother her that he was my ex-boyfriend, or that he had been part of the werewolf cabal that had been willing to kill her as part of a sacrifice. He was good-looking and in a fraternity.
That’s all she cared about.
“Oh, it really was,” Brittany bubbled on.
“Yeah, I’m sure it was fascinating,” I replied sarcastically.
“What’s your problem?” Brittany queried in a voice that I could only associate with my mother when she asked a question to which she already knew the answer.
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