Page 5

Oswald

A knock rapped on the other side of my door as I was zipping up my third suitcase. I finished my task before opening it to find Enid and Hawthorne ready to barge in as soon as the door was open.

‘What the hell, Oz?’ Enid demanded, and I frowned at her in confusion.

‘What?’

‘What is going on?’

I huffed, annoyed with her. We may have been friends, but it was Thorne that was the glue. Without him, I doubted I’d have the patience or willpower to suffer through her constant whining. Sure, we got along for the most part, but times like these I just wanted to throttle her.

‘I know as much as you do, Enid. Why do you automatically assume I know more?’

‘Because Kendra was right about one thing, Oz. Where were you last night?’

My nostrils flared as anger drilled through me, but I pushed it down with some deep breaths. ‘I was in my room just like every other Friday night, Enid. Why are you coming at me like this?’

‘Was she here, too? Are you fucking Juniper?’

The accusation landed like an arrow to the chest. My breath stalled for a beat before I composed myself, shutting down all emotion to avoid detection.

‘No. I’m not fucking Juniper,’ I snapped, eyeing Thorne warily. That was an accusation that could damage our friendship and was the only reason I had for not wanting to break this curse separating me and Junie. If we ever did manage to successfully release ourselves from the curse, I wasn’t sure how he would react to me hiding the fact that it was Juniper , of all people.

‘There’s no way Oz would fuck Juniper, Enid. Don’t go trying to start shit where there isn’t any,’ Throne retorted, his tone harsh. Junie really was a sore spot for him, and it killed me to see him hurting like this and not be able to do anything about it.

Junie would kill me too if she ever found out, but at least she would’ve understood my silence.

‘This is ridiculous. Why are you even here?’ I snapped at the both of them. I knew Thorne didn’t deserve it, but Enid was getting on my nerves and he’d brought her here. I punctuated my annoyance with the thud of my suitcase as I dropped it onto the floor by the door.

‘We were worried about you,’ Thorne cut in before any sound could come from Enid’s mouth. It was times like this when I reconsidered the value of our friendship. It was becoming clearer to me that the only reason I even tolerated her was because Thorne wanted her around. He was my best friend so I kept my mouth shut, but I hated the way she thought she owned the two of us.

I was tired of her treating my friend like a prize she’d won (she hadn’t) while I was the spare she was forced to interact with by extension. Fuck that. She was the damn spare. The fact that she was even in here accusing me of sleeping with Juniper behind his back told me she knew exactly where she stood in his heart. I just couldn’t understand why that didn’t stop her from trying to push him for a committed relationship when she knew it was never going to happen.

Mind. Boggling.

‘Why were you worried about me?’ I asked him, pointedly ignored Enid’s glare.

He gave me a look that encompassed everything. Yes, it was a stupid question. ‘Right, well I’m okay. Nothing to speak of unless you want to talk about the giant black mountain that’s suddenly appeared out of nowhere.’

‘Where are you going?’ he asked, gesturing towards my suitcases.

‘Dean Winchester asked those of us who teach to move into the other dorms while they conduct an investigation into what’s going on. I’m moving into the middle school dorm to keep an eye on the kids.’

He frowned. ‘Just the student teachers?’

‘Yeah. They don’t want us on the front lines since we’re still technically students ourselves, but since we’ve already got one degree under our belts and we’re officially employed as staff, I guess the dean figured it was best to station us away from any potential danger while still being able to protect the young ones.’

‘Do you have any idea what’s going on?’ he asked, concern etching deep grooves into his face.

I shook my head. ‘No. Not a clue.’

‘I have a weird feeling about this,’ he admitted. ‘Whatever this is, it’s big, and it’s not over.’

‘I agree,’ I said grimly, my gaze drifting to the window where the giant dark mass loomed over the academy. ‘It’s far from over.’

‘Let me at least help you carry your bags to your new room. Help you get settled,’ he offered.

I shrugged and hauled the heaviest one to him. ‘Be my guest.’

Enid’s head snapped up from where she’d been not-so-sneakily snooping, eagerly running over to take my suitcase from Thorne. ‘I can help, too.’

We shared a look that spoke volumes of how annoying she was if she was getting on his nerves now, too. He had the patience of a damn saint, so it took a lot to push him over the edge. I smirked when she shrugged and let her take the luggage, and he rose a single brow when she began to heave it out of the room.

‘I’ve got it if it’s too heavy for you, Enid,’ he offered, and I wanted to face-palm. He needed to stop coddling the woman and let her go already.

‘No,’ she huffed. ‘It’s fine,’ she grunted. ‘I’ve got it!’

We waited until she’d dragged the suitcase further down the hallway, stopping and starting as she caught her breath before we spoke again.

‘Why her, man?’ I complained.

He lifted a shoulder, unbothered by the question or the answer. ‘I know she’s changed a lot since we were kids, but she’s not as bad as you think.’

‘She wants to take things beyond friends-with-benefits,’ I told him. ‘She’s not looking to be a fuck buddy forever. She wants commitment. Your commitment.’

‘She knows the score. We’re friends first, Oz. Everything else is just a bonus. I’m not stopping her from finding a boyfriend and I’m certainly not leading her on. She knows it’s just sex for me.’

‘Does she, though? She might have accepted that before, but it’s clear she wants more.’

‘She hasn’t pushed me for anything. If she does, I’ll put a stop to it, but until then I don’t see how it’s any of your business,’ he gave me a pointed look that told me to shut up and keep my nose out of it.

I winced. ‘I just care, man. You can do so much better than her.’

‘I don’t care about that. Sex is just sex, and we all know my heart is already taken.’

I sighed, not wanting to continue this argument. I knew he was hearing me but I didn’t think he fully understood the lengths Enid would go to secure him as her mate.

Not on my watch.

Conversation over, I grabbed one suitcase while he grabbed the other and we followed Enid into the hallway, locking my door behind me. I didn’t know when I’d be back, but I wasn’t going to miss it. It wasn’t home.

Enid had just called the elevator when we caught up, her face red and bloated from the strain of my heaviest bag. I sighed as I watched her almost hyperventilate from the effort of dragging it and switched hers with mine. It wasn’t that I was being nice. If I wanted to get settled into my new room sometime today I didn’t want to have to wait for her since she was insisting on helping. This way, she could carry my underwear while I carried my books. The latter were more important to me anyway.

‘What the fuck do you even have in there?’ she panted.

‘Books.’

‘Just books? That’s it?’

‘Yup.’

‘Why do you have so many?’ she complained.

‘Because I like to read and I enjoy knowledge. You might want to try it sometime.’

Her face went from bright red to a deep purple in her self-righteous anger, and I worried she might actually pass out if I wasn’t careful. Thorne noticed, too, and hurried to help her with breathing exercises to get her heartrate back down.

‘You two are as bad as each other,’ he chuckled, somehow finding amusement in our feud. ‘Now stop bickering. I haven’t even had my coffee yet and I’m starving. I don’t want to play referee all morning. Now let’s be friends again and get these suitcases where they need to be.’

It didn’t escape my notice when she winced at the label, obviously not the one she wanted. I wanted to laugh, but I held it in. Thorne was right. This wasn’t the time to rile her up.

We all piled into the elevator and it was a tight squeeze with my oversized luggage. Unfortunately, I ended up squished between the suitcases and Enid, her body pressed against mine in what many would have considered a provocative manner, except it just made me want to crawl out of my own skin. Her nipples even pebbled through her shirt and brushed against my side, but there was no space for me to move away.

She blushed, a pretty pink colour I might have found adorable on another woman, but I was never the kind of guy to go after a friend’s sloppy seconds so I pretended not to notice, least of all her. I wasn’t a gentleman by any means, but I found myself constantly acting like one around her in my efforts to keep my distance. She misinterpreted it frequently, to the point where I thought she actually believed I sniped at her out of jealousy since she was fucking Thorne and not me, but that was as far from the truth as she could get.

I could see Thorne holding in his amusement as he watched us like we were his own person sit-com. I levelled him with my best glare, but he only wiggled his eyebrows in response.

Bastard.

The walk to the middle school dorms from the university campus was a vaguely pleasant one. There was a comfortable silence between the three of us as we trudged along, the only sound that of the whispers we could hear from open windows and the wheels on the suitcases on the path with the occasional scratch when one got caught on a loose stone.

Each of us ignored the looming height of the strange new structure, though it was difficult to when it was blocking out the sunlight from what would have typically been a sunny, warm morning walk. The shade wasn’t bad, though, with the weather still hot enough from the last dregs of summer, just unusual for this time of day.

The world brightened for me again when I saw a familiar head of dark green hair, chosen because it was literally the colour she was named after. Well, she was named after the plant, but the colour was on the box. Juniper was dragging two large suitcases behind her, both of them almost dwarfing her short frame with their sheer size. It was an amusing sight, though my concern over her lugging such large bags that she was obviously struggling with overshadowed any humour I found in the situation. I could tease her about it later, after she was situated in her new room.

I picked up the pace and caught up to her quickly, Hawthorne and Enid hurrying along behind me. I grabbed one of her suitcases from her grip before she could protest, but she simply wiped perspiration off her forehead, tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and smiled up at me with gratitude.

‘ Thanks,’ she whispered into my mind. I was still trying to wrap my head around that. I wasn’t going to complain about being able to communicate with her in a way that didn’t put pressure on our curse, but I certainly wasn’t going to just accept it for a blessing even if that was exactly what she was doing, because those were usually a disguise for something more nefarious. Still, I didn’t see any harm in taking advantage for the time being, as long as we were cautious. I meant what I said before. We didn’t know if anyone else was experiencing the same phenomenon. I didn’t want us to accidentally give away our secrets to someone we didn’t know was eavesdropping. We were going to need to test the people around us to ensure our mental connection was closed and private, just between us.

I was sure we’d have some fun with it, though.

Professor Sweeney greeted us as we entered the dorm building, a crowd of middle schoolers accumulating behind her to gawk curiously at the new arrivals. A few of them waved when they recognised us, eyeing our luggage with keen-eyed interest. Most of them were unaware that we were still pursuing our own educations, their pre-teen minds focused solely on their own paths so they assumed we were merely teachers. I knew for a fact that they thought I lived in the Faculty Village, and I hadn’t done a thing to dissuade them. There were a few girls in my class that liked to flirt, and while I didn’t acknowledge it I also wasn’t oblivious. High-pitched giggles and not-so-quiet whispers as they gossiped about me, during class I might add, did not leave any doubt that they thought I was a catch.

Junie teased me about it constantly as she heard them gossiping in her classes as well, but she thought it was sweet and told me to take it as a compliment, so I tried to. I wasn’t exactly eager for the attention of teeny boppers, but alas, here we were.

‘Follow me to your new rooms,’ she waved for us to follow and took off down the hallway. It had been a long time since I’d walked these halls, but I remembered where everything was. They’d upgraded the furniture in the rec rooms and there was a fresh coat of paint on the walls, but beyond that everything was the same.

‘We’ve moved some students around so that you can have adjacent rooms. Juniper, yours is on the left closest to the girls’ dorms, and Oswald, yours is on the right by the boys’ dorms.’ She handed us each a key. ‘Get yourselves settled. You’re the only grad students that have taken on positions in the middle school so you’re all they’ve got for now. I’ve already provided a list of responsibilities that you’ll find inside on your desks. Read through them, abide by them, and good luck.’

She rushed away, likely needed elsewhere to help the rest of the staff with the investigation. Either way, we were left to our own devices and that suited me just fine. I hated when people lingered unnecessarily.

‘Right, let’s get these bags in your rooms, hmm?’ Thorne muttered, taking the key from my hand and unlocking my door. He was inside before anyone could speak, and I did my best to keep from chuckling at what – or rather whom – he was running away from. I helped Junie get her suitcase in the door, then mussed up her hair as I left for my own room, the sound of her cursing me out echoing around in my skull.

She slammed the door as soon as I was out, the wood smacking my ass as it was the only part of me that wasn’t yet completely clear of the doorway. I yelped and jumped away from her door and rubbed my cheeks but stopped and moved my hands back to my own suitcase when I caught Enid looking suspiciously between me and Junie’s door. I wasn’t used to hiding our relationship so blatantly in front of my friends, but I was going to have to get used to it if we were living right next door. At least the circumstances provided a cover for us.

I rolled my eyes, waving off her unspoken accusations and dragged both bags into my new room, only to stop in my tracks at what I saw.

My suitcase was knocked on its side as Hawthorne tipped over, landing awkwardly on the floor with limbs askew as his eyes rolled back into his head. He started convulsing, his arms and legs banging against the suitcase and the desk as he flopped around.

‘Shit,’ I swore, dropping down beside him to keep him from hurting himself. Enid followed suit, holding his legs down to stop them from kicking out. This was where we stopped sniping and were in complete agreement. When it came to Hawthorne and his fits there was no room for hostility, only keeping him safe.

‘Help me get him on the bed,’ I ordered, already sliding my arms beneath his and picking up his torso. It was tricky to manoeuvre him while he was still thrashing around, but we’d done this enough times to have it down pat. She picked up his legs and helped me situate him on my bed, the softness a safe place for him to have one of his visions.

He settled down after a bit, though he remained unconscious and would stay asleep until he’d recuperated, but once he was awake we were going to need to go to the dean with whatever he saw. I had no doubt it was about what had happened today and they could use all the help they could get right now to crack this mystery.

I settled in beside him, kicking up my feet and shooing Enid out of the room. She didn’t need to be here to watch him sleep like a creep, though she’d tried in the past. I knew she cared about him, but he only needed one of us nearby when he woke.

She left, albeit reluctantly and with demands that I call her as soon as he woke up. I agreed. I wasn’t that heartless to keep her out of the loop. I may not have agreed with the sexual evolution of their friendship, nor her desire for more when he so clearly would never reciprocate those feelings, but we had been friends for a long time. The friendship between the two of them had started off strong, and I had been reluctant at first to let her into our small, two-person friendship circle. Eventually, she’d proved that she meant well when it came to Thorne, but I’d never been able to get passed her games. When she’d started flaunting herself in front of him, pushing up her breasts to grab his attention and wearing short skirts to tease him when she bent over, I gave up on a real friendship between us as well.

Now, she was just a nuisance I was quickly losing patience with.

The room descended into a peaceful quiet after she left, and I spent the time listening to the sound of my breaths in tandem with Thorne’s. After a while, I could pick out a few rustling sounds from the other side of the wall of Junie putting her belongings away and settling in. It was nice to hear it, to audibly sense the closeness we now had physically as well as emotionally. Our sibling bond could only grow with the new proximity and the telepathic connection.

I was thinking up ways to trick people into giving away their newfound telepathic abilities when Hawthorne finally stirred, but when his brilliant blue eyes opened and clashed with mine I knew. Whatever he’d seen, it wasn’t good.