House of Anubis: House of Mistakes

Part VII

Why do girls have so much make-up? Fabian wondered as he dug through Patricia's cosmetics bag. This must be so expensive!

The door swung open with a bang, and Fabian jumped a foot in the air, coming face to face with an equally surprised looking Patricia. They both stood there staring at each other until Patricia narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"What are you doing in the girl's bathroom?" she asked. "And what are you doing with my make-up bag?"

Fabian spluttered. "I can explain," he tried to explain, waving her brush around. "I—"

Patricia took a wary step back. "We're meant to be on the look out for suspicious behaviour," she interjected pointedly, gesturing at him. "And this? This is suspicious."

Fabian sighed, reaching into Patricia's bag and pulled out the powder he was looking for. "No, look. I'm trying to figure this out." He held up the container. "Fingerprints."

Patricia's eyes widened and after a moment her stance relaxed. "God, I knew you were still normal. You're as boring as you always are," she teased with a tiny laugh.

Fabian smiled softly, glad she understood. "You want to help?" he asked.

"Well, considering you're using my make-up, yeah," she replied, extending her open palm for Fabian to put her compact on.

"What do you two think you're doing?"

This time, both Patricia and Fabian jumped, Patricia whirling around with her fist ready to fly, but Eddie's hand caught it just in time. He raised an eyebrow, while Patricia winced sheepishly. "Sorry," she said. "Jumpy."

Eddie's mouth twitched. "I can see that." He looked between the two of them, brow creased. "So what are you doing?"

"Oh, erm, Fabian was just saying that he thinks he can find out who the traitor is by examining the phonograph for fingerprints," she explained, feeling a little as though she were being interrogated by Victor.

Fabian was feeling much the same. "And Patricia offered to help. We've done things similar to this before, and we thought—"

"You both realize you're suspects, right? Why would you think that this would be considered as good evidence? Don't be idiotic," Eddie interrupted sharply, but there was a note of something else in his voice.

Panic? Patricia wondered. But no...that didn't make any sense. Still, she didn't particularly like the way he was talking to Fabian—or to her, for that matter. And boyfriend or not, she was going to let him know. "Well sorry if we wanted to see some actual progress," she snapped before she could second guess herself. "I guess we'll just keep sitting here, twiddling our thumbs until it's too late, shall we?"

Fabian sucked in a nervous breath, and Eddie looked at her, taken-aback. Then, slowly, he nodded. "No. You're right. We do need to figure this out," he said, gently taking the compact from her hand. "Fabian, if you could show me how to work whatever you have to read fingerprints, I can do it. That way it's impartial."

Fabian hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing. "Alright. But it's tricky, so it might take me a day to teach you how to properly work it."

Eddie smiled with understanding, teeth gleaming. "Take all the time you need. I don't want to make a mistake, after all."

—

She was standing in a field of what seemed to be tall grass. Her thin white gown hung limply around her figure, but was soft and gentle on the skin. The sun was warm on her face and the breeze rustled the stalks, filling the quiet with a soft hissing sound.

The hissing was growing louder, though, and it suddenly occurred to her that it wasn't the grass making the noise at all. She looked down, and was horrified to find that the hissing was coming from a long snake that twisted and contorted its scaly body in what looked like agony. The word came unbidden to her: viper.

Trying not to scream, she made an attempt to back up, but found her bare feet were stuck firmly to the ground. The snake suddenly darted forward and began to slither up her leg, climbing higher till it wrapped itself firmly around her torso.

It lifted its head and met her gaze, its eyes a glowing red. And then it spoke: "Evil strikes at the heart, child. Always the heart."

That was all the warning she had before opened its jaws wide and plunged its fangs directly into her chest. Directly into her heart.

She awoke in the dark with a gasp, and a roommate blinked groggily awake. "Another nightmare?" she asked.

She was breathing hard, her chest on fire. "Yeah, sorry. I know it's been happening a lot lately. I'll try to keep it down."

Her roommate nodded sleepily. "It's okay," she said, and settled back down. The rest of the room was silent.

She tried to fall back asleep, but to no avail. Instead, she lay looking up at the ceiling. Ever since the nightmares started about a week or so ago, they'd been getting progressively more real, but never had it carried over so vividly into the waking world. She rubbed at the place the snake had bitten her, and while the pain had subsided and there was no wound, it still left her rattled. There was also that seemingly ever present headache...

Whatever. It was fine. She was fine. She'd pop a melatonin and try to get some rest before the morning. It was set to be a big day. Eddie had called a meeting that night before curfew for tomorrow— it seemed he'd found their traitor.