Shit! Just as I was getting up the balls to ask Rose on a real date, Kimi goes missing. I mean, partying 101: Don’t leave sight of your friends. Sure we live in a small town where everyone knows everyone, but that’s also the drawback. We know that there are going to be people here who would take advantage of a situation just for shits and giggles. It’s why the three of us always go to parties together, stay together, and don’t drink the booze.
Rose had my hand in a death grip as she led me into the dining room. There were solo cups, bottles, and cans on the dining table as well. Some girl was gyrating on top of it to the cheers of the teens around her. I barely glanced at her to make sure it wasn’t Kimi. I sniffed the air again, and caught a faint whiff of my sister. She smelled of her citrus body spray, deodorant, and Kimi musk. I can’t describe it a
I’m not sure how long Kimia and I were in the bathroom before Sarina showed up with a backpack. Kimia had emptied her stomach, and I had been making her take sips of water while using a damp cloth on her face. She looked terrible, and even I could smell the foul stench of vomit and alcohol.“Ugh. This is bad, but I’ve seen worse,” Sarina said as Kamron let her into the bathroom. “We need to get her cleaned up. Kam, you’re the guard. Rose, we need to get her into the shower. Help me get these clothes off of her.”Kamron closed the bathroom door, and Sarina and I got Kimia’s clothing off of her. Together we put her into the bathtub and ran the water. Sarina then plugged the sink and started filling it with warm water and broke a tide pod into it. She tossed me Kimia’s clothes.
Rose and I began the walk home with Kimi between us. I thought back to our time in the laundry room. It was nothing but pure comfort, but it was exactly what we both needed. I might have even kissed her if she hadn’t hopped off the dryer.“You know,” Rose began, “You guys are a little bit like a pack from one of my books.”“Really? I don’t see it,” I said, trying to be cheerful. Kimi glared at Rose.“Yeah. When trying to avoid trouble with your alpha and luna, you called you pack beta.” I glanced at Rose and saw a teasing smile.“Idiot,” Kimi mumbled.“I called my big brother, not
I didn’t sleep well the night of the party. I kept having to help Kimia to the bathroom. I trust Sarina’s judgement about having Kimia drink a lot of water to flush what was left out of her system, but it was damned inconvenient.“Rose,” Kimia woke me up with a hoarse voice.“Humm?” I said not moving from my trundle bed.“How did we get home last night?”“We walked. Sarina drove the car back.”“Oh.” She paused for a few moments to think it over. I was starting to drift back to sleep when she said, “Why did Rina drive the car back?”
With half the school grounded for the foreseeable future, life got pretty boring for a while. Jeremy was miserable. He hates being cooped up at home with nothing to do but homework. Maybe he’ll get higher than a B+ average for once. Nate was sent to live with his dad. His mom thought that his friends were bad influences. I had some suspicions as to who had brought the booze, but I couldn’t confirm anything.The peppermint schnapps wasn’t that odd of a feature at parties. Someone had spread a rumor around that the smell of peppermint from the schnapps would cover the smell of booze. Totally not true, well in my house anyway. I was more concerned about the ketamine.With nothing serious going on, I took advantage of the internet to figure out who would have access to it. Unless whoever spiked the schnapps got it
Kamron is a certified coward. If he’s really a wolf, why would he be scared to tell the truth to Simon? I don’t know. Maybe super strength isn’t a thing with real werewolves. Stupid reality. Why does it always have to come crashing in and destroying my marvelous fantasies about feeling tingles when I touch someone’s hand thereby finding my mate and becoming a stronger version of myself.I’m a pretty weak human. I’m shorter than average, I have a small pouch where I wish I had abs, and I can barely do a push up, let alone a pull up. Even the humans in my stories are stronger than I am. Well, most stories. Sometimes the girl is weak.Monday was fairly uneventful, at first. There was the usual friendly banter in History, the becoming increasingly annoying flirting in Science, and the tortu
“Kamron!” The shout came from behind me as I was walking toward my bus stop. I turned to find a petite girl with dirty blonde hair, a bright smile, and freckles across her nose. Cute, but not Rose.“What’s up, Amanda?” I asked. I suppose she’s going to ask me to the spring dance, and I still haven’t figured out what to tell her. I wanted Rose to ask me, but she didn’t, and I’m too much of a pansy to ask her. I had wanted to ask Rose to the winter formal in January, but chickened out. Jeremy tried to hide it by asking Kimi to the dance and suggesting we double. Damn, I have a good friend. In the end, I asked Hannah Goldstein. It was fun, but not as much fun as I would have had with Rose, and then I had to figure out a nice way of letting Hannah know that I wasn’t interested in more than friendship.
Damn Kamron. He just had to tell Amanda he’d go to the spring dance with her, and then he just had to accuse me of jealousy! Ugh! I hate that I’m thinking of one of my best friends in that way! Maybe I should have asked him, but I still don’t want to ruin our friendship. I had done some thinking after I realized how I feel about him, and I decided that having him as a friend is way better than not having him at all. Stupid logic.Nate and I walked into science the day after Amanda asked Kamron to the dance to find Kimia staring into space. She looked stunned, and a bit pale. Something was wrong, and I was going to find out what it was.“Kimia, are you there?” I waved a hand in front of her face.“Huh?” she said.
“I fucked up.” I closed my locker and found my sister with her head against the locker next to mine.“Hello to you too,” I said.“Rose is mad at me.”“Why is Rose mad at you?” It was rare for the two of them to fight, although Kimi usually got mad at Rose for something stupid, not the other way around.“I asked Simon to the spring dance,” Kimi sighed.“And Rose wanted to ask him first?” I asked, confused.Kimi glared at me with one eye. “No, but she asked Nate so I wouldn’t have to go alone and be nervou
“Fuck,” I swore as Ray kicked my ass at Mario Kart. Ray chuckled with both hands in the air. “Suck it, pup! I finally won for the first time since you were ten!”I tossed the controller and ran my hands over my face. Game nights at the frat house and losing to my brother were the least of my worries. Rose had been officially charged with manslaughter, and bailed out until her trial in a few weeks. At the advice of her lawyer, Rose and her mom signed a temporary lease at another apartment complex. Something about not sleeping with the victim’s family.“You are off your game, bro,” one of my frat brother’s slurred. “Nobody beats Kamron the Machine.”Ray bumped my shoulder. “He’s right. You’re stressing more than usual.”“Maybe because Rose has been avoiding me,” I sighed. Garrett, a sophomore, shook his head. “You must be reading too much into it. That girl is head over heels for you. She’s probably just overwhelmed with her trial and shit.”I shook my head. “I’ve known her my whole l
“Come on back, and we’ll have you give us a urine sample, then Rina will draw some blood samples to make sure your baby is okay,” Deb’s voice filtered through the office to my station. It’d been a little busier this month, but that was to be expected a few weeks after Spring Break. Lots of little surprises.“R-rina?” a familiar voice stammered. “Rina works here?” Elli and Deb rounded the corner to my space, and I had the sample cup ready with the alcohol wipes.“I sure do, Ellie,” I replied. “Congratulations. The bathroom is right through that door, and I’ll be here ready to draw your samples when you’re done.” I pointed to the door of the restroom where our expecting mothers give their samples every time they come in.Deb looked between us. “You two know each other?” I shrugged. “Small school, and we spent Spring Break together in Mexico.”Elli was pale and shaking a little as she grabbed the cup she was supposed to pee into, then made a b-line for the bathroom. Deb leaned over to m
“Now, Kimi,” Dr. Mayfeld started on our bi-monthly telesessino, “have you and Nate talked about finding a couples therapist to help the two of you transition into parenthood?”I shook my head. “Not yet. We will, but between school and my cousin’s demise, we haven’t exactly made it a priority.”“I understand,” she nodded. “I hate to say it, but you and your friends have gone through one hell of a year. Are you sure you aren’t cursed?”I laughed. “If I believed in curses, I might think that too. I mean, it is possible that Kirsten cursed us when she went to prison.”“Seriously,” she calmed down, but still smiled, &ldq
My parents knocked on our apartment door a few hours after we’d come home from the station. I really appreciated Kimi telling off Kam for me. It was the weirdest feeling. I was almost out of my body for most of the afternoon. It was a little surreal. I also both wanted to be hugged and cuddled, but I also wanted to be left alone.I kept thinking that it was my fault a person was dead. Yes, Matty was a horrible person who attacked me, but I didn’t want him dead! Call me optimistic, but I hoped for him to pay for his crimes, then come out a better person who had learned to respect others.I’d spent most of my time in my room, and barely registered when my mom walked in and sat on my bed. “Oh, my sweet Rose,” she sighed and pushed my curls out of my face. “I am so sorry you have to go thro
“Shit hit the fan, and I’m at my sister’s for a few days,” I explained to Elli over the phone.“I can’t believe all that has happened,” Elli replied. “Is Rose okay?”I sunk into my sister’s couch and sighed. “I honestly don’t know. They hadn’t returned by the time I cleared out. I hope her parents don’t find my room disgusting.”“Why wouldn’t they just get a hotel?” Elli asked.The question confused me. “I’m sure they could, but their daughter just killed a guy in self defense. She kinda needs all her family around her now.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Were you thinking about
“I want to see my fiance. I need to know she’s okay,” I shouted at the officer at the front desk of the police station.Kimi put a hand on my shoulder. “Kam, calm down. They have to go through the hoops. Besides, Officer West sounded like someone who is fair.”I spun to face my sister. “My fiance and your best friend is back there by herself, probably scared to death, and the only people available to her are people in our uncle’s pocket. I’m not going to calm down until I know she’s safe!”“Kam, you making a scene isn’t going to get her out here faster,” Nate tried to reason. He turned to the officer. “Is there someone who can come out and tell us what happened?”
Blake finally managed to push the door to the men’s room open. He broke the lock in the process, but the screaming he heard terrified him. He regretted not being faster when he observed the scene.A man was lying under a broken urinal with eye wide open, and unfocused. His jaw was slack, and a shocking amount of blood was pooled under his head. He looked back out into the hall, and grabbed a random student. “Call 911, and get someone here, now!”The student glanced into the bathroom. “Holy shit!”Blake carefully walked around the body to the woman shuddering in a ball against the wall of the open stall. “Hey,” he said gently. “Are you okay?” He reached a hand to her shoulder, and she flinched.
“Welcome back, everyone,” Professor Anderson greeted the class when she walked into the room. “I hope everyone had a fun, safe spring break? I see we’re still missing a few people. Hopefully they return before the next class. In the meantime, please go to the class webpage.”I already had it up, so I just scanned the page looking for what I expected her to click. I found it under the assessments tab. “I would hope you all are intelligent enough to find what I’d like you to do today, but in case you’re hung over, or not up to your best mental state, find the assessments tab, and click on the test titled, ‘Post Spring Break Quiz.’“The password is capital ‘I’ underscore, paid, underscore, too, with two ‘o’s, underscore, much, underscor
The apartment in Gayl was becoming more and more like home to me. Walking through the apartment door Sunday before school started felt like a weight was lifting off my shoulders. Granted, Kimi and I still needed to finish the nursery for our little girl, and we still had school, but we were happiest here. At least I was, anyway.I guess Kimi wasn’t as happy. She waddled into our room, and fell onto the bed on her back. “Ugh,” she grunted, “would you be offended if I said I miss the bed in Boston?”I chuckled. “Not at all. It was a damn comfortable bed..”“Much bigger than this full size one,” she said and rolled over so she could sit up. “I swear if this little girl gets much bigger, we’ll need a bigger bed.&r