Page 6 of What Happened on Roslyn Street? (Strode University #1)

Chapter Four

A melia isn’t in my next two classes, thank God. The other students don’t bother me as I go about my day. That makes it easier to listen in on conversations, though the only thing I get from doing so is a few petty rumors about summer breakups.

It’s messy, but not useful.

I’m eager to go to my dorm and start fitting pieces together—if I can get anything done before I fall asleep. It’s been a long first day, and my social battery is drained.

I haven’t had time to worry about meeting my roommate, but it’s in the back of my mind as I navigate to my dormitory. A funny thought strikes me as I stand outside the door.

What if Amelia is my roommate? What are the chances? It would have to be slim. She said she’s a sophomore, and I don’t remember her name being on my paperwork.

I’m chuckling at the thought as I open the door. The sound fades as soon as I step in.

Not Amelia. Worse .

Margaux sits on a bed with one leg crossed over the other. The bed is already perfectly made and draped in her signature crimson sheets.

The room is larger than my last dormitory and covered with the same expensive furniture I’ve come to recognize around the school.

Through the stained-glass windows, a ray of rainbow light shines in. It would be a pretty room, but Margaux’s presence makes it jarring.

She’s set out her collection of creepy dolls and stuffed crows—items I know well.

Margaux is the picture of grace, draped in a little black slip dress, with her hair perfectly in place.

A mischievous smile spreads onto her face as she watches me, clearly pleased with herself.

She thinks she won, and I’m happy to knock her down a peg or two.

“Do you need to make every room look like a deranged grandmother lives there?” I ask, peering over my shoulder. “I must be in the wrong room.”

“You’re not,” she says.

I whip my head back to face her. “Then what are you and your creepy dolls doing in my room? Get rid of them. You know they scare me!”

“Your room?” Her eyes widen. “This is our room. Didn’t you know?”

I slam the door shut. “I would have recognized your name. My roommate is…” I dig through my bag. A few loose papers fall onto the floor as I search. “Emily Knott!”

Margaux inspects her nails. “Plans change. Emily and I swapped.”

“Why would you do that?” I drop onto my bed, hanging my head in my hands.

“Because I’m the only one in this school who will want to keep you alive.” Her words cut into me like shards of broken glass .

“Since when do you care about me?”

“Don’t pretend as if severing our friendship was my idea. I kept secrets from you because I care. I know you know that.”

In a way… I do. Anyone with half a brain knows. The supernatural is known and accepted in our world, but befriending them doesn’t come without danger. There’s a reason little pockets like this school pop up—they’re rare places for the strange to fit in.

“You should have found a better way to care for me,” I say, lifting my head. “Usually, the people who lie to me don’t care all that much.”

Margaux knows why there’s weight behind my words. She knows about my parents and their inability to communicate, of the secrets they kept, and how it imploded my relationship with them rather than keeping me safe.

My father moved out of our home to a small apartment in Waterville, our family car got repossessed, and he gambled away my college fund. Eventually, it led to their divorce.

The result is now a small mountain of student loans that will chase me wherever I go, especially now that I’m attending private school. She knows this, and she chose to lie to me. It’s the one thing I can’t stand.

“You don’t know as much about this world as you think you do,” she says. “Do you know the founder of this school? The school you somehow snuck your way into?”

I hesitate.

“It’s a demon,” she says. “Strode is the name of a demon!”

“Well, that isn’t as shocking as you think. Aren’t the children of hell technically demons?”

“Yes, well?—”

“The point is, I knew what I was getting into. The children of hell, children of the night, children of the moon—I know it all, and I don’t need your protection.”

“That’s fine.” She flashes a dangerous smile. “You’re getting my help anyway. I don’t think they’ll let me switch rooms again, so… consider me your assistant. Don’t worry, I’ll work pro bono.” With that, she sighs, lounging on her bed. She lies on her side, fingers lazily tracing the red bedspread.

“Why didn’t you tell me your father was a professor?” I say.

“You never asked.”

“I definitely wanted to know about your father’s career!” I squat down, picking up the papers I dropped. Marguax likes a neat space. “I met him today, you know.”

“Hm? What did you think of him?”

“I liked him better than I like you right now.”

I stand with the papers in hand and find her nose wrinkled in disgust. “No one likes him more than me.”

“You would be surprised. The other students have some spicy thoughts about him?—”

She holds up a hand. “Enough! They know better than to bother me with that conversation, and you should learn, too. God, this is why I never introduced him.”

“Really? This is why? Not the vampire-shaped secret?”

“Fine. There were multiple reasons.”

I should drop it, but no matter how much I want to stop caring, it still hurts. Margaux may think she was protecting me, but it feels like I never knew my best friend.

“Why haven’t I met your parents before?” I ask in a soft voice. “You’ve met mine a hundred times.”

“More than a hundred times,” she says. “But if you think I was bringing my friends home to a house full of vampires, you’re sorely mistaken. My family isn’t normal. They’re not like yours. ”

“You couldn’t pretend to be a normal family for a day or two?”

“No,” she says. “We’re not a family at all—we’re a coven. I have siblings who aren’t my siblings —they’re people my father turned. And if you think I’m a piece of work, wait until you meet my mother.”

“Does that mean I get to meet her too?” I perk up, grinning.

“No!” She tosses an arm over her eyes. “You cannot, and you do not wish to. Besides, she’s traveling.”

“What are your parents?” I’m probing, but if I can press anyone, it’s Margaux. Not only does she like listening to herself talk, but I think she still trusts me. “Are they dhampirs like you, or are they… turned?”

“My father is a dhampir,” she says. “He’s from a long, powerful line. Dhampirs aren’t usually given immortality, but he was. Do you want to guess how old he is?”

“And ruin my fantasy?”

She groans. “Tobey! Stop! That’s my father!”

“Sorry.” My lips twitch. “How old is he?”

“He is over three hundred years old. Too old for you.”

“A little, but considering my track record with partners my age, I may want to try something new.”

Margaux silences me with a glare.

“As for my mother,” she says, “she is a full, turned vampire.”

I pause, processing the information. “Are you telling me your father…?”

I can’t put it into words. Turning someone may be romantic among vampires, but I’m new to this world! It’s so, so creepy.

I’ve known a few people who were obsessed with the idea. They would loiter around the gates to Strode, waiting for someone to swoop them up. To me, it always seemed like a good way to end up dead in a ditch.

Poppy was found on Roslyn Street, just outside of Strode. She wasn’t one of those desperate people waiting around for a vampire to take them and give them a new life… was she?

There’s no way of knowing. We were drifting by the time she died. I was living in Portland, and Margaux was hiding half her life from us. I didn’t realize how far we’d drifted until it was too late.

I’m going to make up for that now.

“He turned her,” Margaux says, confirming my thoughts. “I know what you’re thinking, and…”

“ Do you know?” I lean forward, inspecting her. “Will you ever turn someone?”

“I can’t,” she says. “I’m not an immortal dhampir. It’s not an option for me.”

“But it can be someday?”

She nods, avoiding my gaze.

“What will you do then?” I ask.

“I don’t know! I haven’t thought that far ahead, but—what am I supposed to do if I find someone to love and they’re going to die? Do I just let them?”

“Yes. You let them die.”

“God, why did you waltz back into my life to present me with a stupid trolley problem? That’s so like you.”

“This is nothing like the trolley problem, and lashing out at me is so like you .” But my plan is working. Her buttons are officially pressed.

I ask, “Are you moving out now?”

“No!”

Margaux can be stubborn when she needs to be. She won’t give me the satisfaction of doing what I want.

Do I really want her to move out? I don’t know. She’s right about one thing—she can protect me. I don’t linger on the thought for long.

“What is the process of turning a vampire?” I ask.

“Why? Are you thinking of joining me in my horrid, undead life?”

I roll my eyes. “No.”

I’m still thinking of Poppy.

She hesitates. “It involves an exchange of blood, and then we bury the body. The new vampire wakes up underground. If their sire doesn’t return before the moon changes signs in the sky, they’re dead.”

The answer is worse than I was expecting—it’s revolting.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” I mutter, rubbing my temples.

I can’t imagine something more horrid than being buried alive.

“This is what we used to dream about.”

“What?” My hand falls to my lap, and I fix Margaux with a disgruntled stare. “Immortality? Blood exchange? Burying each other?”

It’s nothing I’ve ever dreamt about—unless my nightmares count.

“No!” She frowns. “Going off to college together and sharing a dorm. It didn’t pan out—I had to come to Strode, you went to Portland, and Poppy… well, she was always Poppy.”

Poppy didn’t continue her education. She didn’t need to; she was working before either of us, doing freelance art commissions since she was a teen. It sustained her later on, and she didn’t need to go to college.

We lied to ourselves and said it had nothing to do with the fact that, between the three of us, her family struggled the most. She didn’t have the funds for an education or even someone to co-sign her student loans.

“Poppy had bigger fish to fry,” I say, refusing to dishonor her memory with anything less.

“Don’t talk about frying fish. I’m still dating the mermaid.”

“Ew.” I wrinkle my nose. “Okay—forget that—I don’t have the same dreams I had as a child. Can you say the same?”

“Yes, I can,” she says. “But having you as a friend is still one of those dreams. Is that so fucked up and pathetic?”

No. Of course, it’s not. Wanting friendship is a normal part of living . I want friends too—one friend, Poppy, the only person I can’t have.

I could comfort Margaux with the words. We could find common ground. Instead, I lie down, turning my back to her.

Friendship may be a normal part of living, but Margaux is not alive—and neither is Poppy. I don’t have a friend in this world.

“Yes,” I say. “It is.”