~~Young~~

Chapter Six

   “C’mon Sera, you better get out now or the party is going to start without you.” Chelsea called from the other side of the shower curtain.

   “I’ll only be another minute,” Sera called back from under the spray, only to receive a chuckle.

   “Sure, that’s what you said twenty minutes ago.”

   One benefit to being the head of the sorority was you didn’t need to share your bathroom with anyone. Unlike the group showers on the second floor Sera had her very own. That being said, need, is the key word. Like the bathroom Sera invited Chelsea to stay with her in the suite reserved for the head sister when she was promoted. It was more than big enough for the two of them and Sera liked having someone she could confide in so close by.

   And though Chelsea was more than encouraging for Sera to get out, it wasn’t because she needed it. She knew Sera well enough to be able to tell when she was stalling.

   It was the annual open house party tonight. The one that gave those interested in the sorority- and fraternity- a chance to check out their digs should they make it through the strict requirements to make it in. But it wasn’t going to be just the freshmen in attendance tonight. Along with the rest of the non-incarcerated chapter members the heads of the other western Canada chapters were going to be in house too…to give Sera their verdict on her actions.

   Hence Sera’s reluctance to leave her steamy world.

   She didn’t know what to expect, a slap on the wrist, suspension, expulsion? When it came to the collective minds of the chapter leaders one could never guess.

   Eight, there were eight of them coming tonight.

   And if Sera was to vote on the behalf of another, she would vote them out.

   With a thud she dropped her head back against the tile and closed her eyes, how had she managed to get herself into this position?

   At first it was hard to convince the angels of her intentions when they found out who her family was. They were afraid she was a spy for her Uncle’s people, a nemesis of theirs long before Sera came along. But after explaining her alienated childhood and her desperate need for a better world for her younger sister they gave her the chance to prove herself. And prove herself she did, by her sophomore year she already had the head sister’s eye. Most of the junior members were her own recruits, like Chelsea, and up until just recently she had the best track record of successful missions this side of the Rockies.

   Four years she had led the sisters, two of them the angels as a whole, but with her graduate program coming to a close her time was up.

   Would they take that into consideration when they voted? That she only had a short time left? Would that hurt Sera’s cause or help it?

   She just didn’t know.

   The curtain beside Sera rustled and the next thing she knew she was standing under an ice cold shower, effectively cutting off all thoughts of demotions.

   “Now Sera!” Chelsea laughed as Sera scrambled to turn off the other knob, “or you’ll never have that mop of yours dried.”

   And even though she was right, as usual, it didn’t stop Sera from shooting Chelsea an angry glare as she snapped her towel around herself.  Chelsea, who was already dressed and ready to go…also as usual.

   For a girl who was raised as a barefoot baby on some back woods farm she was surprisingly punctual. Of course that all changed when her parent’s started their organic cosmetics company, the same one that could be found in every high-end boutique and department store the world over. Later Chelsea’s mom would go on to open several successful restaurants, but their money came from the makeup. But money didn’t change her, or her parents, like it did so many others. They were still the free spirited hippies they had always been. Only now instead of the old clapboard house they live in a- very large- “green” home just outside of New York City. And instead of their converted bio-diesel cars they rode in the best electric and flex fuel vehicles money could buy.