2 Whispering (2 page)

“It’s all we can expect,” Aric said.

When he pulled into my driveway, I saw that my dad’s truck was parked in the garage and my mom’s car was in the slot next to it. Wherever they had been, they were now back.

I opened the door to exit Aric’s vehicle, pausing to take the time to look back at him before I hit the pavement. “Well, thanks.”

Aric smiled wolfishly at me. “I’ll see you back at school.”

“I can’t wait.” The sarcasm wasn’t entirely heartfelt.

“Me either.”

I made my way up to the door slowly – even I wasn’t sure why – but I paused when I heard him whisper something behind me. That was weird, I hadn’t even heard him get out of his truck.

“What did you say?” I swung around expecting to find Aric right behind me. His truck was still in my driveway, though, and I could see his silhouette behind the wheel – exactly where I had left him.

Aric poked his head outside of the truck and fixed me with a quizzical look. “What’s wrong?”

I glanced around the yard once more for good measure and then shook my head. “Nothing,” I said. “I thought I heard something.”

“What?” Aric made a move to get out of the car.

“Nothing,” I waved my hand at him dismissively.  I wasn’t about to tell him I thought I had heard him whisper in my ear. His head was already big enough. He didn’t need to know I thought I heard his voice in my head. “It’s nothing.”

I only hoped I was right.

As happy as I was to be home for the holidays, I was equally happy to return to school after the first of the year.

After finding out that most of my home town was made up of werewolves – yeah, I know, it’s still really weird for me, too – I just couldn’t stop checking out everyone in the small hamlet like they were about to try and eat me. Sometimes, when I met the hostile gazes of some of the townspeople – many of whom I had known my entire life – I thought that was exactly what they wanted to do.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that I should have realized that something was wrong with the town long before now. A lot of towns have buck poles during dear season, but not many towns have gnaw marks on the deer hooves while the dead carcasses are still strung up in the middle of town.

When I got back to my dorm room I found that my roommates Paris and Brittany had already returned and were sitting in the living room watching television.

“Hey, how was your break?” Paris greeted me from her spot on the wicker couch.

“Illuminating,” I answered evasively. While both Paris and Brittany were aware of the supernatural problem on campus – almost being killed by a rogue werewolf pack last semester themselves – I didn’t know how much I wanted to tell them. Especially Brittany. She had a tendency to freak out about little things – so big things sent her right over the edge.

“How so?” Paris asked, brushing her shoulder length brown hair behind her ear. Paris is one of those girls that can be called exotic looking. Her skin is porcelain white, her cheekbones defy gravity and her eyes are a piercing shade of green that everyone notices. It’s a good thing she has a good personality – because otherwise I would have to smack the crap out of her pretty face.

I shrugged. “It was just weird.”

“At least no one tried to burn you at the stake,” Brittany pointed out.

I glanced down at her. She was sitting with her legs crossed on the floor and gluing pieces of paper to a big wedge of poster board. Brittany was Paris’ polar opposite. As exotic as Paris was, Brittany was just as normal looking. She had shoulder length blonde hair, bland blue eyes and she was carrying around a little bit of extra weight. The endless sets of matching cardigans weren’t giving her any street cred either.

“No, no one tried to burn me at the stake,” I said blithely. She really needed to get over that. Quite frankly, she had put herself in that situation in the first place. She had no one to blame but herself.

“Well, then that’s a definite improvement from a few weeks ago,” Brittany said dryly.

I met Paris’ steady gaze for a second. She shrugged at my unasked question: Exactly what had crawled up Brittany’s ass and died? It had to be something pretty unpleasant.

I wanted to ask Brittany what was wrong but I didn’t want her to get lost in some long diatribe so I decided to let it go. Instead, I went into the bedroom off of the main living area and started unpacking. When I was done, I went back into the living room and sat next to Paris on the couch. “What are we watching?”

“There’s a
Duck Dynasty
marathon on,” Paris said.

“Oh, cool, I love those guys.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I love them, too,” Brittany offered. “They’re really religious and they have good morals.”

“And they’re zany rednecks that do stupid things constantly,” Paris supplied as I rolled my eyes at Brittany’s back. She was already on my nerves.

After watching television for a few minutes, I turned back to Paris during a commercial break. “So, what’s the deal with the empty bed?”

“What?” Paris looked confused.

“We have an extra bed,” I reminded her. “You know, that whole roommate turning into a homicidal maniac, faking her own death and then trying to kill us thing last semester?”

“Oh, that extra bed,” Paris laughed. “I don’t think we’re getting a new roommate. The new resident assistant stopped by earlier and she didn’t mention anything about a new roommate.”

“We have a new resident assistant? What happened to the old one?”

“She got knocked up,” Paris said simply.

“Well, that’s pretty funny,” I said after a beat. “She was supposed to keep us from doing something stupid and she goes and gets knocked up?”

“I know,” Paris laughed. “Irony.”

“What’s the new resident assistant like?”

“She seems nice,” Paris hedged.

“But?”

“Nothing,” Paris said hastily, shooting a warning glance in Brittany’s direction.

“She’s a nice woman,” Brittany challenged from her spot on the floor.

“She’s very nice,” Paris repeated.

I searched Paris’ face for a hint of the secret she was holding back. “But?”

“It’s not a big thing,” Brittany said from her spot on the floor. She wasn’t looking at us, though; she seemed really involved in her weird little collage.

“What isn’t a big thing? Does she have a lazy eye or something? A really hideous mole on her lip with a hair?” What? I’m really not that mean of a person. I just wanted to know if I was going to have to avoid making eye contact or something.

“No, it’s not that bad,” Paris said quickly.

“You really shouldn’t make fun of someone’s physical imperfections,” Brittany chided me.

“Chill out,” I snapped. “It’s not like I’m making fun of your bubble butt.” I regretted the words the minute I uttered them. Okay, I half regretted them. She was really being a pain, though.

“I do not have a bubble butt,” Brittany said haughtily. “You really need to learn to stop lashing out at people when they don’t agree with you. That’s going to get you in trouble some day.”

“Thanks, mom,” I shot back sarcastically.

“Let’s just go back to watching television,” Paris said hopefully.

I did what she wanted, but I didn’t stop myself from shooting a glare in Brittany’s direction during every commercial break. I was dying to know what was wrong with the new resident assistant – but I figured I would ask Paris when we were alone later. Paris tried to lighten the mood by talking about classes.

“So, we have that astronomy lab together this semester,” she reminded me.

“Yeah, that sounded like more fun last semester when we signed up for it,” I said. “You know, when it was still warm?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure how much fun it’s going to be mapping stars on top of the science building one day a week in the middle of a snowstorm either. It’s got to be better than a biology lab, though.”

She had a point. “Yeah, I’d rather freeze my ass off than cut open a dead frog,” I conceded.

“Who wouldn’t?” Paris laughed.

“I’m taking biology this semester,” Brittany offered from the floor.

Of course she was.

“What are you doing?” I finally asked. Brittany was driving me crazy with her diligent cutting and pasting. I couldn’t figure out what mansions, thin blondes in fur coats and three different china patterns had to do with each other – other than haunting my dreams, that is.

“I’m working on a focus board,” Brittany said evenly.

“What’s a focus board?”

“It’s where I see my life in ten years,” she said quietly.

“Is that like a motivational thing or something?”

“No, it’s a rush event.”

A rush event? “Like for a sorority?” Not this again.

“Yes. I’m rushing Zeta Omicron.”

I had never heard of Zeta Omicron. “What kind of sorority is that?”

“It’s a merit sorority.”

“What the hell is a merit sorority?”

“It’s a . . . a merit sorority.”

Well that cleared it up. “Yes, but I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s an academic sorority,” Paris offered.

Ah, of course. A nerd sorority. “An academic sorority? Is that even really a sorority?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Brittany bit out angrily.

“It’s just that academic sororities are kind of . . .” I was trying to avoid using the word lame, but nothing else popped into my head. I just left the sentence hanging.

“I have big plans for my future,” Brittany said primly. “Zeta Omicron is a great stepping stone. They’re my kind of people.”

“And they want you to make a focus board?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than freezing your bra or putting your hand in warm water while you’re sleeping, like other sororities,” I offered weakly.

“We still have other rush activities,” Brittany said. “This is a real sorority.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” I said hurriedly. I was just thinking it.

“You better be nice when my sisters come to visit, too,” Brittany warned.

“I’ll be as nice to them as they are to me,” I said stiffly.

“You better be,” Brittany repeated her earlier missive.

I shifted a wary gaze at Paris while Brittany returned to her seventh-grade art project. “It’s going to be a long semester,” I muttered.

Paris patted my hand soothingly. “It can’t be any worse than last semester.”

I think she jinxed us with those words.

The next hour was fairly uncomfortable. Brittany was making a big deal of holding up every picture she snipped from a magazine before she pasted it to her little sorority project – a move that was steadily infuriating me.

Paris, for her part, found Brittany’s actions funny – which was further infuriating – and things in the small dorm room were already uncomfortable and I had only been back for two hours.

“So, did you break up with Mike?” I pointed the question towards Paris. It was a weird way to ease the silence, but I was beyond caring.

Mike was Paris’ longtime boyfriend. She had been hedging about ending their union for the last few weeks – mainly because she’d started a flirtation with a guy who lives a few floors below us. Of course, the fact that Mike had nicknamed himself “Boots” hadn’t helped.

“We’re still together,” Paris said shortly.

“Really?” I was actually surprised by this. I didn’t get his appeal at all – and the new nickname just made matters worse.

“I don’t want to throw the relationship away without giving it a chance,” Paris said honestly.

“What about Mark?” Mark was the slacker skateboarder that had piqued Paris’ interest the minute he had sat down with us at lunch one day.

“Mark?” Brittany looked up from the floor in surprise. “Mark Doyle?”

“Yeah,” I brushed off Brittany’s question impatiently.

“My Mark Doyle?”

“Your Mark Doyle?” I turned on Brittany in surprise. “Since when is he your Mark Doyle?”

“Well, we did go to high school together,” she reminded me.

Something told me Mark and his ever-present bag of pot didn’t run in the same clique as Brittany and her matching sweater sets. “I didn’t realize you guys were such good friends,” I said pointedly.

“Well, we are,” Brittany lied.

“You’re so full of it,” I practically exploded. “You just don’t want Paris and him to date and this is your way of combating it.”

“I’m staying with Mike,” Paris interjected, trying to defuse the situation. I don’t think she wanted to live in the middle of a war zone over the next few months. I didn’t blame her – but I couldn’t take much more of Brittany’s attitude. Of course, the truth is, my attitude wasn’t exactly stellar either.

“See, she’s staying with Mike,” Brittany said prissily.

“That still doesn’t negate the fact that you don’t even like Mark,” I pointed out. “You just don’t want Paris to have him.”

“That’s simply not true,” Brittany said, pressing a photo of the ugliest purse I’d ever seen onto her focus board.

I felt like shoving truth right up her . . . thankfully for Paris, I never got to finish the thought because there was a knock at the door.

We all looked up to see the guys from across the hall standing in the doorway. “Oh, good, you guys are back,” said Rick No. 1 – there were two Ricks living in the same room. One was annoying – that would be Rick No. 2 – and the other looked like a hot little frat boy in training.

“Hi, Rick,” Brittany said breathlessly.

I bet you can’t guess which one Brittany was crushing on.

“So how was everyone’s break?” Rick No. 1’s gaze met mine. He was well aware of Brittany’s crush on him – and it made him uncomfortable.

“Fine,” I said dismissively.

“Mine was tremendous,” Brittany interjected excitedly. “I went to the art museum in Detroit. It was a great learning experience.”

“That sounds . . . great,” Rick No. 1 choked out.

“I want to go there, too,” Rick No. 2 said.

He really was more Brittany’s speed; I don’t know why she couldn’t fixate on him. He even wore sweater vests in a complementary color palette to her own closet offerings.

“There was a special exhibit on shoes through the ages,” Brittany said helpfully. “It was fascinating.”

Unless it was an entire room full of Converse, that sounded like a nightmare.

“So, what’s going on tonight?” I desperately needed to change the subject before it turned to Renaissance art or something equally snore inducing and I really lost my mind.

“We’re going to a house party off campus,” Rick No. 1 said. “We wanted to know if you guys wanted to go?”

“Where is it?” Brittany asked.

“Some house on Franklin,” Rick No. 1 shrugged. “We have an address.”

“You don’t know who lives there?” Brittany looked concerned. “What if they’re perverts?”

“Then I hope they’re hot women,” Rick No. 1 joked.

Brittany pursed her lips. “That doesn’t sound safe.”

I could see the memory of the last party she went to – the one where she was tied to a pyre and almost roasted alive – flitting through her mind. Her teeny, tiny little mind.

“I think it will be fine,” I said. “We’re all going in a group.”

“We went to the last party in a group, too,” she reminded me.

“Actually, we didn’t,” I challenged. “Paris and I went together and you went with the girls down the hall who completely abandoned you to be gang raped and tied to a stake by a bunch of frat boys.”

“When did that happen?” Rick No. 1 raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“It’s nothing,” I waved him off.

“Oh, great, now everyone is going to know,” Brittany wailed.

Everyone in the room looked up when there was another knock on the open door. There was a strange woman standing in the entryway– and I couldn’t be sure, but there seemed to be something wrong with her eyebrows.

“Hi, I’m Mariska, I’m the new resident assistant and I just wanted to introduce myself.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding knowingly at Paris. “I see what you were talking about.” Up close, Mariska clearly shaved her eyebrows off and then drew them back on – like that was normal or something.

“Don’t change the subject,” Brittany yelled.

“What was the subject?” I swung around on her.

“The fact that you’re spreading my private business up and down the hall.”

“Oh, I did not.”

“You did, too.”

“I did not.”

“You did, too. Didn’t she Paris?”

Paris pretended she didn’t hear the question.

“Is something wrong here?” Mariska raised her eyebrows – or the drawn-on skin above her eyes, to be more apt.

“There’s always something wrong in here,” Paris sighed irritably.

“Brittany is just a little high strung,” I explained.

“Zoe is just a little obnoxious,” Brittany countered.

“Maybe we should have a rap session,” Mariska offered.

“A rap session?” Did I time travel to the 1980s or something?

“We can all sit down and talk about the issues that are clearly plaguing this room in a non-threatening environment,” Mariska offered. “We will pass around a talking stick – and only the person holding the stick can talk. We can get all of your issues out in the open and solved.”

“So it’s a magic talking stick,” I offered.

Paris choked back a laugh.

“It’s a valid conflict resolution tactic,” Mariska argued.

“Yeah, I’d rather go out with the guys and get drunk,” I said honestly.

“That sounds like a good idea,” Paris agreed.

Brittany swung her head between Mariska and me for a second and then swallowed resolutely. Even she didn’t want to hang out with the weirdo that drew her eyebrows on. “We’re going to a party.”

Rick No. 1 started shaking with silent laughter.

“What?” I challenged him.

“It’s going to be a great night,” he laughed. “I can tell already.”