Paroxysm ⇢ [Delirium, Book One]

VI

 The sound of his voice rouses me from the depths of a rather uncomfortable but death-like sleep. "C'mon Murph, we gotta get up, school's in an hour."

I groan, every muscle in my body feeling ten times heavier than normal.

"I don't wanna," I complain, pulling the blanket up around my face. It's rudely snatched away and I open my eyes to glare at the thief who has a smirk on his face that I'm all too ready to wipe off.

"That's too bad," he says, tossing the blanket aside. "I'll ask one of my werewolf friends to carry you out if I have to."

"That's only because you're too weak to do it," I say, and instantly regret it. Spencer raises an eyebrow briefly before he's practically launching himself at me, scooping an arm under my legs and the other around my back and under an arm. He pauses for a moment as though I'm too heavy and then stands effortlessly.

"Have you been working out pipsqueak?" I ask, and feel my face flush red a moment when I realise what I've just said and what it sounds like.

"Wouldn't you like to know," he says, wiggling his eyebrows at me as he carries me towards the door of Ethan's loft.

"Ahem." Someone clears their throat behind us. Spencer turns to reveal James looking rather bemused, still carrying me.

"Madam here refused to leave the couch," Spencer starts to explain, setting me down. James doesn't say anything in response, just nods his head slowly, looking at each of us in turn before he makes some kind of silent decision and heads towards the door.

"C'mon, we all need a pit-stop at home unless you wanna turn up to school in the same clothes as yesterday," he says, beckoning for us to follow him.

We call goodbye to Ethan who grunts something that resembles a good-bye from his room.

"What's wrong with these clothes?" I ask, pretending to be hurt. James turns back and sniffs loudly in our direction before turning away with a pointed look on his face. "That's just rude James," I huff as we head out of Ethan's apartment and down the hall to the elevator.

The journey to my house only takes us about ten or fifteen minutes from Ethan's place, and passes in a not-quite-awake blur as the boys chat away in the front and let me snooze in the backseat until Spencer gives my knee a nudge to let me know we're back. James jumps out to let me out of the backseat and Spencer offers to come back and get me, but I wave him off with the reassurance that I'll get Alycia and Laurel to pick me up on their way past so that Spencer and James can head straight to school from James' house, who lives closest to school out of all of us. I give them both a wave as I hurry up the path to my front door and the boys head two houses down to Spencer's.

I lift up the blue plant pot at the side of my front door and locate the spare key, using it to let myself in.

"Hazel is that you?" My mom calls from the kitchen, as Findlay thunders down the stairs.

"The family enigma returns," he says with a smirk and I pull a face at him before I laugh, heading to the kitchen with Findlay close behind.

"Morning mom," I say, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

"How are Laurel and Lettie? Did you guys have a nice night?" I'd planned to spend the night at my cousins', and there wasn't much use in telling her that I actually didn't. I figured I had to lie to my mom about worse things than the fact that I was at a different friend's house.

"You know Laurel, she's always on some kind of a mission. At the moment, it's finding me a boyfriend." At least that much is true. My mom laughs, shaking her head.