Rooming with the Wicked

8 | pay up

With my newly written, neatly folded suspect list—a list I'd gladly sacrificed valuable sleep for—tucked into the hidden pocket in my backpack, I marched down the third-floor hallway of the supernatural dorm, fresh and ready Monday morning. Okay, more like afternoon, but whatever. I was still recovering physically, and now mentally from that stupid dinner that had lasted a little too long.

My feet came to a stop in front of the red door. The same smudge still graced the middle number. This time I wiped it off. Straightening my shoulders, I took one last deep breath before stepping inside.

As expected, my return elicited four interesting reactions.

Kenas stood closest to the door, golden eyes as wide as saucers when they landed on me. Just behind him sat Jaydis. With one leg tucked beneath him and the other hanging off his desk chair, he looked tiny in comparison.

The tips of his tousled dark green hair shone orange in the bright afternoon glow streaming in through the window behind him. But even the shadows on his face couldn't hide his surprise.

Danox barely spared me a glance. White eyes downcast, he turned his head to the side and leaned farther into the pillows on Jaydis's bed.

On the contrary, Haze's gaze bore into me, crimson slowly turning darker. A slight frown was the only other indication that my presence unnerved him. Well, that plus the insane amount of hostility he oozed.

Nice to see you too.

He slowly crossed his arms in front of his chest much like the first time he'd seen me. Except this time, he was wearing more than a towel. And his dark red eyes now took their time scrutinizing me.

No one said a word.

"Are you"—Kenas cleared his throat—"are you here to get your things and leave...or—?"

"Are you staying?" Jaydis, who since I'd met him had barely been able to sit still for longer than a few seconds, didn't move a muscle as he finished the question.

Four sets of distinctly different eyes locked onto my face.

"Oh, I'm staying," I said, straightening my shoulders. "I was just—"

"For Ketea's sake," Danox hissed. He jumped up from his spot on the bed and leaped over Jaydis's desk with surprising agility. Or maybe it wasn't that surprising. He was a shifter after all.

Before I could count to three, he'd shouldered past me and slammed the door behind him. A very unfriendly shifter.

He sure was the least happy not only by my return but by my decision to stay. Maybe I was wrong about him... If he wanted me dead, surely he would be happy I was sticking around. Easier to kill that way.

Or that's what he wanted me to think.

At this point, it was too soon to go making assumptions anyway, but his reaction sure was interesting. I made a mental note to add it to my suspect list later.

"Now that that's settled," Haze said, "pay up."

Pay up?

"Fine," Kenas grumbled, walking over to his nightstand to retrieve what turned out to be a couple of bills. He separated one, swiftly folded it into a perfect paper plane, and sent it Haze's way with a single flick of his wrist. "How you could have possibly predicted this is a mystery to me, but I suppose fair is fair."

Haze caught the little plane right before it collided with his forehead. With a smile much too unsettling, he said, "Somebody had to have faith in her."

They'd bet on whether I would return or not?

"Hey," Jaydis chimed in, "I had faith..." He too retrieved a bill, but instead of folding it, he just crumpled it into a misshapen ball and tossed it on Haze's desk three-pointer style. "It just wasn't enough to convince me," he added and laughed.