Fear Her Wrath III: It Runs on Blood

Chapter 9

"Hey." Izzy nudged me with her elbow. "You didn't tell me the hot Asian guy with the scars was your boyfriend."

It was Monday, and Izzy, as usual, had bumped into me in the hallway on the way to lunch. I was feeling grumpy after a very unproductive weekend of not finding a single trace of Psychosis, or Icemane, but seeing Izzy somehow made me feel a little cheerier.

"Uh, you mean Benedict?" I said, feeling inexplicably bashful. "Yeah, we're... a thing."

I'd been getting pretty annoyed at the way Izzy had been fawning over him, but she was taking her defeat gracefully enough. Besides, it had mostly been Ben's fault. Making me jealous was practically one of his hobbies.

Turns out he was still a bit of a jerk, even as a boyfriend.

"Well, I'm jealous," said Izzy teasingly. "But I bat both teams, so I still got plenty of options. What about your cute little friend—with the purple hair? I forget her name."

"Ellie? I think she's straight."

"Damn, I have the worst luck," Izzy laughed. "Finally away from Catholic school and I can't have any fun. You know anyone cute who likes mixed girls?"

She pouted her lips and batted her eyelashes in a facetious attempt to look sexy.

"You already named all my friends."

"And there's no chance you'd share the sexy Hmong boy?"

She read the answer from my face before I could get a word out.

"I'm kidding," she laughed. "Can't blame you—I wouldn't share that either. Mmhmm. Wait, is he the one who got kidnapped by Deadstream last June? That would explain the—I mean, sorry. I was just..."

Izzy's words did tend to run ahead of her thoughts, but since she obviously wasn't trying to be insensitive, I let it slide.

"Yeah, that was him. We got together after that, though. We were just... friends back then."

"Wow, this place really is dangerous," Izzy mused.

"I also just have really, really bad luck," I said. I didn't want her thinking too hard about the numerous coincidences between my biography and Nightwrath's. Izzy Malek seemed like she was just smart enough to work it out if she put her mind to it.

We spent most of lunch talking about Ben, and Izzy's woes at not having found a boyfriend or girlfriend after four whole days at Sefton Polytechnic. The way she talked about it, you'd think it was some kind of existential crisis. I saw her again in weightlifting class, and we did our best to annoy Bella—who was also in that class, for some reason—by talking loudly to each other the entire time, which eventually earned us a stern look from Coach Sills. I ran into Izzy again after school, this time right after I'd kissed Ben goodbye outside the history classrooms.

Neither of us had history 7th period. It was just a convenient place to make out without being observed.

"Ugh, Algebra is so annoying," she said, almost running into me as she lumbered listlessly down the hall. "I've never had to take so many quizzes in my life."

I laughed.

"You must have Glasco."

"Glasco? More like... ugh, I can't think of anything. My brain is too dead from that quiz. So, where are you headed?"

"Detention," I groaned. "I slept in and missed first period."

My promise to myself that I wouldn't miss any more school because of my nighttime activities had been doomed from the moment Psychosis got loose. I'd only gotten 4 hours of sleep, and I would have gotten more if Dad hadn't caught me sleeping in.