The Scream Sisters: A Troubled Spirits Novel, page 4
Blair considered her major: business administration. She didn’t even know what it meant exactly, but the two words conjured visions of quiet cubicles and glaring white walls.
“Business administration,” Blair said, attempting a zeal she didn’t feel.
“And what do you hope to achieve with that area of study?”
“Umm…” She heard her mother’s voice, ‘no umms!’ and blushed. “I’d love to run a finance company.”
It was a lie. Her father owned a finance company and the few times she’d visited his office had been akin to a dentist appointment without the drilling. The office always felt tense, the people inside it verging on nervous breakdowns as the stock market followed its usual roller coaster of chaos.
“Finance.” Sloan made a note. “Very good. Now, I want to clear up a few quick things. Let’s see.” Sloan slid her index finger down the page. “Ahh, yes, right here. I don’t see any titles for homecoming queen or prom queen?”
Blair tucked a strand of hand behind her ear, trying to imagine what her mother’s response would be to such a question. “I was, umm… sorry, I was runner-up for homecoming queen, but it went to my best friend.”
This was also a lie. She’d not been a runner-up or friends with anyone on the court. In high school, Blair had been considered part of the in-crowd, but only on the fringes. But when her mother had coached her for the interviews, she’d more than once told Blair to exaggerate, lie if she had to, to gain the favor of the girls.
Sloan made a face. “That’s the worst, isn’t it? I was homecoming queen at my high school, but I had a friend on the court and if she’d have won, I’d have crawled into bed and died.” She returned her gaze to her clipboard. “Tell me why you want to be in Rho Upsilon Nu. What does joining our sorority mean to you?”
Blair’s pulse quickened. It was a standard question, one her and her mother had gone over, and yet the answers eluded her. She flicked her eyes from Sloan’s face, gaze skipping over the pristine white furniture, the photos of former members glowing in the afternoon light through the window, her own mother gazing down at her.
She sucked in a breath and squeezed the chair beneath her, searched for the answer as Sloan watched her intently.
“Friendship is probably the primary reason I want to join,” Blair breathed.
Sloan’s lips thinned, but she smiled and clasped her hands on her knees. “Friendship is very important, yes, but we’re more than that here. We’re about sisterhood, an unbreakable bond, relationships that endure. If you pledge Rho Upsilon Nu, we’re together forever. That’s the commitment we make to each other.”
“Together forever?” Blair echoed, sweat beading between her shoulder blades.
Sloan laughed, her eyes sparkling. “Not in a gross way.” She leaned forward and patted Blair’s knee. “In the way that families are. We can call on each other. In fact, I know Heather’s mom called on your mom last year when Heather’s dad got into a pickle over some investments. And your mom called on my mom this year to make sure I, the president of Rho Upsilon Nu, knew you were coming in. Which is why…”
She picked up Blair’s resume and ripped it in half. “This is unnecessary. Our connections here at Rho Upsilon Nu are bound by something much stronger than flimsy pieces of paper. You still have to rush and pledge because the experiences in the weeks ahead are your opportunity to prove your commitment. And as you’re the daughter of Margo Davenport, I have no doubt you will.”
6
“How was Curly’s last night?” Teagan asked as she and Harley got dressed for breakfast.
“It was good. It’s a typical fast-food job, but it’s kind of fun serving other Husher students. I chatted with a bunch of people who are rushing and a few kids from my classes and the time just flew. How was the library?”
“Perfect. I checked in books and only two people talked to me all afternoon.”
Harley laughed. “It’s your dream job then.”
“Pretty much,” Teagan agreed.
“What’s your schedule today?” Teagan asked Harley after they’d finished eating breakfast in the cafeteria.
“I’m meeting with the rush counselor first thing to see who invited me back for round three. Fingers crossed they haven’t all cut me.”
“What’s round three again?”
“Philanthropy round. So they’ll want to know about my volunteer work in high school and I’ll find out about theirs, assuming anyone even invited me back.”
“They did,” Teagan assured her.
Harley put on a brave face and nodded. “You’re right. This is all going to work out exactly as it’s meant to. I have faith that everything is falling into place.”
“There you go,” Teagan said. “There’s the nauseatingly optimistic Harley I know and love.”
They parted ways outside Willow Hall with a plan to meet in the cafeteria at lunch.
When lunch rolled around, Teagan watched the door for Harley, her stomach squirming at the thought of what Harley might have learned during her rush counselor meeting that morning.
When her friend walked in, she was beaming and Teagan knew instantly she’d been invited back to her top sorority choices.
Harley grabbed a sandwich and bottle of water and joined Teagan at the table.
“So?” Teagan asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I got invited back!” she squealed. “To Rho Upsilon Nu, Chi Omega and Delta Gamma. All of my top three! Can you even believe that? It’s like unheard of.”
Teagan grinned. “How did the talks go?”
“Really good. They all seemed impressed by my work with the special needs school, and it just totally flowed today. No mention at all of my dad. It was like it never even happened.”
“That’s so good, Harley. I’m really happy for you.” Teagan hugged her friend and ignored the niggling unease at the thought of how their lives might change when she joined a sorority.
“Promise?” Harley asked.
“Of course I promise. I’ve been sick to my stomach worrying about how the morning went. You could have texted to let me know.”
Harley smiled. “I almost did, but then I got this weird idea in my head I’d jinx it. Enough about me. How did your classes go today?”
Teagan finished chewing her bite of ham sandwich and nodded. “Decent. My biology teacher has the most monotone voice I’ve ever heard, but there’s shelves with jars full of preserved animal brains, fetal pigs, birds. I even saw a bat, so that should keep my mind occupied when I start to doze off.”
“Gross, but I’m glad you were entertained.”
They finished their lunches, emptied their trays and walked up to their room.
“I’m off to math,” Harley said, making a face, “then work at Curly’s until nine, so I’ll see you tonight.”
“Sounds good. I might walk over to the student theatre and catch Kill Bill.”
“I don’t know why you like going to the movies alone.”
“No one talks to me that way. Plus, I want to check out the campus theatre and see if the popcorn is any good.”
“If it’s good, bring me some.”
“Will do. Are you coming back to the dorm after work?”
“I’m planning on it, though a couple of girls during the philanthropy round were talking about some Greek stuff going on tonight, so if I get a message from one of the sororities, I might walk over and check that out.”
“All right. Don’t accept beers from any of the dudes.”
“No beer for me. Gotta be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Public Speaking 101 tomorrow.”
Teagan rolled over and shrieked as her center of gravity shifted and she nearly toppled from the loft bed. She clung to the wood frame, teetering, then managed to edge herself back from the drop.
“Jesus, Harley. Why did I let you talk me into these death traps?” Teagan sat up and swung her legs over the bed, expected to see Harley still tucked into her own bed or up and getting ready, but her friend wasn’t there.
Harley’s bed was made, the purple comforter tucked snugly beneath the mattress in the style fashioned by mothers who seemed intent on forcing their kids to sleep in straitjackets. Where Harley had picked up the inclination was beyond Teagan, who’d never seen Harley’s mom make a bed in her life.
Teagan dug through her tangled bedding and found her cell phone, which she’d forgotten to plug in the night before. She half expected the phone to be dead. Why else hadn’t she heard Harley’s call about not coming home? She found the phone wedged near the foot of the bed and gazed at the screen. The battery was at fifty percent. No missed calls or texts. It was just after eight a.m. and, though Harley had a nine o’clock class, there was no way she’d have left without waking Teagan to say goodbye.
Frowning, Teagan clicked Harley’s name and sent her a text.
Teagan: Where are you?
7
While Teagan waited for a response, she opened her email and scrolled past several messages from her new classes with upcoming assignments.
No text from Harley came in. After another minute, Teagan returned to her home screen, opened her recent calls and clicked Harley’s name. The phone went straight to voicemail.
“What the heck,” Teagan murmured. Unlike Teagan, Harley religiously charged her phone.
She always plugged it in at night so she’d have a full battery the following day, but she hadn’t come home the night before, so maybe she hadn’t been able to charge her phone. Still, if she’d stayed in any other dorm on campus the other girls would surely have had a phone charger.
Teagan left her a voice mail. “Harley, it’s me. Where are you? You seriously didn’t come back last night or even call me? Not cool. Call me ASAP.”
Teagan ended the call and stared at her phone for another minute, hoping it would ring or a text would come through, an innocent explanation, a few words to quell the anxiety creeping into her chest. Her phone remained silent.
Teagan hopped off the loft bed, landing with a thud. She pulled off her ratty shorts and t-shirt and slipped into a black tank top, jean shorts, and her Converse sneakers. She yanked her hair into a ponytail, grabbed her bag, and left.
After a quick stop in the bathroom that reeked of hair spray and a zillion different floral- or tropical-scented lotions, she stopped into the cafeteria. Two girls she and Harley had met during orientation sat at a table eating cereal.
“Hey,” Teagan said, pausing beside them. “You guys haven’t seen Harley this morning, have you? Or last night maybe?”
Both girls said they hadn’t. Teagan asked a few more vaguely familiar students, but no one had seen Harley in the dorms or cafeteria that morning.
At nine, Teagan still hadn’t heard from Harley and a nervous buzz vibrated beneath her ribs as she walked to her psych class.
She found a seat in the stadium-style rows near the back and watched students file in. There were more than one hundred kids in the class. They wore yoga pants and terry cloth shorts, carried paper cups of coffee and talked amongst themselves. Harley wasn’t in Teagan’s class, but Teagan found herself scanning faces anyway, searching for her friend.
The hour-long session felt more like three, and when the professor finally dismissed them, Teagan sprang from her seat and speed-walked back to the dorm. She still hadn’t received a message from Harley, who must have lost her phone or dropped it in a toilet. She took the steps two at a time to the second floor, bounded down the hall and unlocked the dorm door, pushing it open.
Harley did not sit in one of the bean bags or at her desk. Her bed remained smooth and untouched. Everything in the dorm room was exactly as it had been an hour and a half earlier.
Teagan called Harley again—voicemail. Sent her another text.
Teagan: WHERE ARE YOU! CALL ME THE SECOND YOU SEE THIS!!!
Harley had printed her schedule in her planner. She had Public Speaking from nine to ten and a writing class from ten-thirty to eleven-thirty.
Teagan arrived at Harley’s writing course just as class ended. The double doors swung open and students poured into the hall. She searched the faces for her best friend, for the telltale bun or messy ponytail she’d likely be wearing after not having come home the night before. Dozens of faces flitted by, none of them Harley’s.
The pit in her stomach grew larger as Teagan pushed into the room, hindered by the students rushing out, all focused on their next class or some other destination, barely aware of her as she shoved against them.
The professor stood at his desk gathering papers into a cracked leather briefcase. He glanced up when she stopped in front of him. “Yes?”
“Was Harley Rand in class today?”
“Excuse me?”
“Harley Rand. She’s in this class. Was she here today?”
He frowned, appeared annoyed at the question. “I’m not at liberty to discuss student attendance, Miss—?”
She waved off the request for her name. “Just tell me if she was here or not. She’s my roommate and she didn’t come home last night. I’m not stalking her. I’m trying to make sure she’s okay.”
He narrowed his eyes at Teagan. “Your intentions are not my concern. As I said, I’m not at liberty—”
But Teagan had already spotted the attendance sheet stuck to a clipboard on top of the desk. She snatched it and turned.
“Hey. Stop. You can’t take that. I’ll report you to student services!”
Teagan ignored him, marching away, eyes following the alphabetical list to Harley’s last name. Two squares sat beside each name. ‘Attended. Absent.’ The box next to ‘Absent’ was marked.
The professor was still talking to her, but she barely heard him. She ran a couple steps back and he recoiled as she tossed the clipboard onto his desk. It hit the surface and slid, stopping before it plunged off the edge.
Teagan turned and ran from the classroom.
Her next stop was the student center known around campus as the Den. Teagan pushed through the heavy door and strode up the stairs to the food court, stopping in front of Curly’s Sandwich Shop.
“Hey.” She slapped a hand on the counter to get the attention of the two guys chatting next to the fryer.
The taller one with spiky dark hair turned to look at her. He loped over. “What can I get ya?”
“Nothing. I need to know if Harley Rand worked last night.”
“Who?”
“Harley Rand. She just started this week. She had a shift yesterday evening.”
“Never heard of her.”
The second guy, wearing his Curly’s hat slightly askew, walked over. “She worked. I came in to get food at seven and she was here.”
“You didn’t work with her though?”
“Nope. I work the ten-to-two. She worked with Paul.”
“Who’s Paul?”
“Umm… he’s a sophomore, I think. Lives in Kramer Hall.”
“When’s his next shift?”
The guy walked to a wall where a clipboard hung, leaned close. “Not until the day after tomorrow at noon.”
“And when is Harley’s next shift?”
The spiky-haired guy glanced at his co-worker as if suddenly unsure about the information they were sharing. “She’s on tomorrow at four.”
“Okay.” Teagan bounded from the Den and sprinted across campus back to their dorm. When she burst through the door, the bubble of hope that Harley would have returned, that it all had been a big misunderstanding, disintegrated. The room remained empty.
8
Blair woke hot, her sheets sticky with sweat. She pushed them off, sat up and dropped from bed, barely reaching the trashcan in time for vomit to spew from her mouth. She clutched the little plastic can, sucking in sour breath, her hair sticking to her wet cheeks.
“Can I get you anything?” Colette asked. Blair’s roommate sat at her desk, hair tucked beneath a bandana, a tinge of repulsion in her worried face.
Blair shook her head, cheeks growing hot, and wiped her mouth on her t-shirt.
“Are you okay?” Colette asked.
Blair took hold of a bed post and stood shakily. “Yeah. I think so.”
“You were having a nightmare, I think,” Colette said. “You kept thrashing and talking. I said your name a few times, but you were out.”
“Hmmm…” Blair blinked at her bed, the covers crumpled and damp. She didn’t remember the nightmare, though the remnant of something dark and disturbing hovered in the periphery of her mind.
“Did you drink last night?” Colette asked.
Blair bent and picked up the trashcan. “No, I didn’t drink. It must have been the stroganoff in the cafeteria. I’m going to go clean this out and take a shower.”
Colette gave her a thumbs-up, put in her headphones and turned back to face her laptop.
Blair grabbed her shower bag, stuck a towel under one arm and walked, legs weak, to the shared bathroom at the end of the hall. Several girls stood in front of mirrors applying makeup, straightening their hair. Blair dumped her trashcan in the toilet, grimacing at the spill of yellow-brown vomit that trickled into the toilet bowl.
In the shower stalls, she hurried into the first open shower, pulling the curtain closed behind her. She turned the water hot, stripped off her clothes and stepped beneath the spray. Head tilted back, Blair let the water pour hot over her face.
When she looked up, a shadow moved in front of her curtain. Blair stared at the silhouette of a woman, her heart thumping against her breastbone. The previous night’s dreams pulsed in her head, barely there—a dark path, the pounding of shoes on a sidewalk, headlights fading into the dark night.
The shape didn’t move and a chill ran down Blair’s spine as she studied it, suspected it was the shadow from her dream. It was not alive. It had followed her from whatever dark realm the psyche slipped into during sleep.
Gritting her teeth, Blair ripped the curtain back, expected to see the shadow dissolve or to find nothing there at all.
“Business administration,” Blair said, attempting a zeal she didn’t feel.
“And what do you hope to achieve with that area of study?”
“Umm…” She heard her mother’s voice, ‘no umms!’ and blushed. “I’d love to run a finance company.”
It was a lie. Her father owned a finance company and the few times she’d visited his office had been akin to a dentist appointment without the drilling. The office always felt tense, the people inside it verging on nervous breakdowns as the stock market followed its usual roller coaster of chaos.
“Finance.” Sloan made a note. “Very good. Now, I want to clear up a few quick things. Let’s see.” Sloan slid her index finger down the page. “Ahh, yes, right here. I don’t see any titles for homecoming queen or prom queen?”
Blair tucked a strand of hand behind her ear, trying to imagine what her mother’s response would be to such a question. “I was, umm… sorry, I was runner-up for homecoming queen, but it went to my best friend.”
This was also a lie. She’d not been a runner-up or friends with anyone on the court. In high school, Blair had been considered part of the in-crowd, but only on the fringes. But when her mother had coached her for the interviews, she’d more than once told Blair to exaggerate, lie if she had to, to gain the favor of the girls.
Sloan made a face. “That’s the worst, isn’t it? I was homecoming queen at my high school, but I had a friend on the court and if she’d have won, I’d have crawled into bed and died.” She returned her gaze to her clipboard. “Tell me why you want to be in Rho Upsilon Nu. What does joining our sorority mean to you?”
Blair’s pulse quickened. It was a standard question, one her and her mother had gone over, and yet the answers eluded her. She flicked her eyes from Sloan’s face, gaze skipping over the pristine white furniture, the photos of former members glowing in the afternoon light through the window, her own mother gazing down at her.
She sucked in a breath and squeezed the chair beneath her, searched for the answer as Sloan watched her intently.
“Friendship is probably the primary reason I want to join,” Blair breathed.
Sloan’s lips thinned, but she smiled and clasped her hands on her knees. “Friendship is very important, yes, but we’re more than that here. We’re about sisterhood, an unbreakable bond, relationships that endure. If you pledge Rho Upsilon Nu, we’re together forever. That’s the commitment we make to each other.”
“Together forever?” Blair echoed, sweat beading between her shoulder blades.
Sloan laughed, her eyes sparkling. “Not in a gross way.” She leaned forward and patted Blair’s knee. “In the way that families are. We can call on each other. In fact, I know Heather’s mom called on your mom last year when Heather’s dad got into a pickle over some investments. And your mom called on my mom this year to make sure I, the president of Rho Upsilon Nu, knew you were coming in. Which is why…”
She picked up Blair’s resume and ripped it in half. “This is unnecessary. Our connections here at Rho Upsilon Nu are bound by something much stronger than flimsy pieces of paper. You still have to rush and pledge because the experiences in the weeks ahead are your opportunity to prove your commitment. And as you’re the daughter of Margo Davenport, I have no doubt you will.”
6
“How was Curly’s last night?” Teagan asked as she and Harley got dressed for breakfast.
“It was good. It’s a typical fast-food job, but it’s kind of fun serving other Husher students. I chatted with a bunch of people who are rushing and a few kids from my classes and the time just flew. How was the library?”
“Perfect. I checked in books and only two people talked to me all afternoon.”
Harley laughed. “It’s your dream job then.”
“Pretty much,” Teagan agreed.
“What’s your schedule today?” Teagan asked Harley after they’d finished eating breakfast in the cafeteria.
“I’m meeting with the rush counselor first thing to see who invited me back for round three. Fingers crossed they haven’t all cut me.”
“What’s round three again?”
“Philanthropy round. So they’ll want to know about my volunteer work in high school and I’ll find out about theirs, assuming anyone even invited me back.”
“They did,” Teagan assured her.
Harley put on a brave face and nodded. “You’re right. This is all going to work out exactly as it’s meant to. I have faith that everything is falling into place.”
“There you go,” Teagan said. “There’s the nauseatingly optimistic Harley I know and love.”
They parted ways outside Willow Hall with a plan to meet in the cafeteria at lunch.
When lunch rolled around, Teagan watched the door for Harley, her stomach squirming at the thought of what Harley might have learned during her rush counselor meeting that morning.
When her friend walked in, she was beaming and Teagan knew instantly she’d been invited back to her top sorority choices.
Harley grabbed a sandwich and bottle of water and joined Teagan at the table.
“So?” Teagan asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I got invited back!” she squealed. “To Rho Upsilon Nu, Chi Omega and Delta Gamma. All of my top three! Can you even believe that? It’s like unheard of.”
Teagan grinned. “How did the talks go?”
“Really good. They all seemed impressed by my work with the special needs school, and it just totally flowed today. No mention at all of my dad. It was like it never even happened.”
“That’s so good, Harley. I’m really happy for you.” Teagan hugged her friend and ignored the niggling unease at the thought of how their lives might change when she joined a sorority.
“Promise?” Harley asked.
“Of course I promise. I’ve been sick to my stomach worrying about how the morning went. You could have texted to let me know.”
Harley smiled. “I almost did, but then I got this weird idea in my head I’d jinx it. Enough about me. How did your classes go today?”
Teagan finished chewing her bite of ham sandwich and nodded. “Decent. My biology teacher has the most monotone voice I’ve ever heard, but there’s shelves with jars full of preserved animal brains, fetal pigs, birds. I even saw a bat, so that should keep my mind occupied when I start to doze off.”
“Gross, but I’m glad you were entertained.”
They finished their lunches, emptied their trays and walked up to their room.
“I’m off to math,” Harley said, making a face, “then work at Curly’s until nine, so I’ll see you tonight.”
“Sounds good. I might walk over to the student theatre and catch Kill Bill.”
“I don’t know why you like going to the movies alone.”
“No one talks to me that way. Plus, I want to check out the campus theatre and see if the popcorn is any good.”
“If it’s good, bring me some.”
“Will do. Are you coming back to the dorm after work?”
“I’m planning on it, though a couple of girls during the philanthropy round were talking about some Greek stuff going on tonight, so if I get a message from one of the sororities, I might walk over and check that out.”
“All right. Don’t accept beers from any of the dudes.”
“No beer for me. Gotta be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Public Speaking 101 tomorrow.”
Teagan rolled over and shrieked as her center of gravity shifted and she nearly toppled from the loft bed. She clung to the wood frame, teetering, then managed to edge herself back from the drop.
“Jesus, Harley. Why did I let you talk me into these death traps?” Teagan sat up and swung her legs over the bed, expected to see Harley still tucked into her own bed or up and getting ready, but her friend wasn’t there.
Harley’s bed was made, the purple comforter tucked snugly beneath the mattress in the style fashioned by mothers who seemed intent on forcing their kids to sleep in straitjackets. Where Harley had picked up the inclination was beyond Teagan, who’d never seen Harley’s mom make a bed in her life.
Teagan dug through her tangled bedding and found her cell phone, which she’d forgotten to plug in the night before. She half expected the phone to be dead. Why else hadn’t she heard Harley’s call about not coming home? She found the phone wedged near the foot of the bed and gazed at the screen. The battery was at fifty percent. No missed calls or texts. It was just after eight a.m. and, though Harley had a nine o’clock class, there was no way she’d have left without waking Teagan to say goodbye.
Frowning, Teagan clicked Harley’s name and sent her a text.
Teagan: Where are you?
7
While Teagan waited for a response, she opened her email and scrolled past several messages from her new classes with upcoming assignments.
No text from Harley came in. After another minute, Teagan returned to her home screen, opened her recent calls and clicked Harley’s name. The phone went straight to voicemail.
“What the heck,” Teagan murmured. Unlike Teagan, Harley religiously charged her phone.
She always plugged it in at night so she’d have a full battery the following day, but she hadn’t come home the night before, so maybe she hadn’t been able to charge her phone. Still, if she’d stayed in any other dorm on campus the other girls would surely have had a phone charger.
Teagan left her a voice mail. “Harley, it’s me. Where are you? You seriously didn’t come back last night or even call me? Not cool. Call me ASAP.”
Teagan ended the call and stared at her phone for another minute, hoping it would ring or a text would come through, an innocent explanation, a few words to quell the anxiety creeping into her chest. Her phone remained silent.
Teagan hopped off the loft bed, landing with a thud. She pulled off her ratty shorts and t-shirt and slipped into a black tank top, jean shorts, and her Converse sneakers. She yanked her hair into a ponytail, grabbed her bag, and left.
After a quick stop in the bathroom that reeked of hair spray and a zillion different floral- or tropical-scented lotions, she stopped into the cafeteria. Two girls she and Harley had met during orientation sat at a table eating cereal.
“Hey,” Teagan said, pausing beside them. “You guys haven’t seen Harley this morning, have you? Or last night maybe?”
Both girls said they hadn’t. Teagan asked a few more vaguely familiar students, but no one had seen Harley in the dorms or cafeteria that morning.
At nine, Teagan still hadn’t heard from Harley and a nervous buzz vibrated beneath her ribs as she walked to her psych class.
She found a seat in the stadium-style rows near the back and watched students file in. There were more than one hundred kids in the class. They wore yoga pants and terry cloth shorts, carried paper cups of coffee and talked amongst themselves. Harley wasn’t in Teagan’s class, but Teagan found herself scanning faces anyway, searching for her friend.
The hour-long session felt more like three, and when the professor finally dismissed them, Teagan sprang from her seat and speed-walked back to the dorm. She still hadn’t received a message from Harley, who must have lost her phone or dropped it in a toilet. She took the steps two at a time to the second floor, bounded down the hall and unlocked the dorm door, pushing it open.
Harley did not sit in one of the bean bags or at her desk. Her bed remained smooth and untouched. Everything in the dorm room was exactly as it had been an hour and a half earlier.
Teagan called Harley again—voicemail. Sent her another text.
Teagan: WHERE ARE YOU! CALL ME THE SECOND YOU SEE THIS!!!
Harley had printed her schedule in her planner. She had Public Speaking from nine to ten and a writing class from ten-thirty to eleven-thirty.
Teagan arrived at Harley’s writing course just as class ended. The double doors swung open and students poured into the hall. She searched the faces for her best friend, for the telltale bun or messy ponytail she’d likely be wearing after not having come home the night before. Dozens of faces flitted by, none of them Harley’s.
The pit in her stomach grew larger as Teagan pushed into the room, hindered by the students rushing out, all focused on their next class or some other destination, barely aware of her as she shoved against them.
The professor stood at his desk gathering papers into a cracked leather briefcase. He glanced up when she stopped in front of him. “Yes?”
“Was Harley Rand in class today?”
“Excuse me?”
“Harley Rand. She’s in this class. Was she here today?”
He frowned, appeared annoyed at the question. “I’m not at liberty to discuss student attendance, Miss—?”
She waved off the request for her name. “Just tell me if she was here or not. She’s my roommate and she didn’t come home last night. I’m not stalking her. I’m trying to make sure she’s okay.”
He narrowed his eyes at Teagan. “Your intentions are not my concern. As I said, I’m not at liberty—”
But Teagan had already spotted the attendance sheet stuck to a clipboard on top of the desk. She snatched it and turned.
“Hey. Stop. You can’t take that. I’ll report you to student services!”
Teagan ignored him, marching away, eyes following the alphabetical list to Harley’s last name. Two squares sat beside each name. ‘Attended. Absent.’ The box next to ‘Absent’ was marked.
The professor was still talking to her, but she barely heard him. She ran a couple steps back and he recoiled as she tossed the clipboard onto his desk. It hit the surface and slid, stopping before it plunged off the edge.
Teagan turned and ran from the classroom.
Her next stop was the student center known around campus as the Den. Teagan pushed through the heavy door and strode up the stairs to the food court, stopping in front of Curly’s Sandwich Shop.
“Hey.” She slapped a hand on the counter to get the attention of the two guys chatting next to the fryer.
The taller one with spiky dark hair turned to look at her. He loped over. “What can I get ya?”
“Nothing. I need to know if Harley Rand worked last night.”
“Who?”
“Harley Rand. She just started this week. She had a shift yesterday evening.”
“Never heard of her.”
The second guy, wearing his Curly’s hat slightly askew, walked over. “She worked. I came in to get food at seven and she was here.”
“You didn’t work with her though?”
“Nope. I work the ten-to-two. She worked with Paul.”
“Who’s Paul?”
“Umm… he’s a sophomore, I think. Lives in Kramer Hall.”
“When’s his next shift?”
The guy walked to a wall where a clipboard hung, leaned close. “Not until the day after tomorrow at noon.”
“And when is Harley’s next shift?”
The spiky-haired guy glanced at his co-worker as if suddenly unsure about the information they were sharing. “She’s on tomorrow at four.”
“Okay.” Teagan bounded from the Den and sprinted across campus back to their dorm. When she burst through the door, the bubble of hope that Harley would have returned, that it all had been a big misunderstanding, disintegrated. The room remained empty.
8
Blair woke hot, her sheets sticky with sweat. She pushed them off, sat up and dropped from bed, barely reaching the trashcan in time for vomit to spew from her mouth. She clutched the little plastic can, sucking in sour breath, her hair sticking to her wet cheeks.
“Can I get you anything?” Colette asked. Blair’s roommate sat at her desk, hair tucked beneath a bandana, a tinge of repulsion in her worried face.
Blair shook her head, cheeks growing hot, and wiped her mouth on her t-shirt.
“Are you okay?” Colette asked.
Blair took hold of a bed post and stood shakily. “Yeah. I think so.”
“You were having a nightmare, I think,” Colette said. “You kept thrashing and talking. I said your name a few times, but you were out.”
“Hmmm…” Blair blinked at her bed, the covers crumpled and damp. She didn’t remember the nightmare, though the remnant of something dark and disturbing hovered in the periphery of her mind.
“Did you drink last night?” Colette asked.
Blair bent and picked up the trashcan. “No, I didn’t drink. It must have been the stroganoff in the cafeteria. I’m going to go clean this out and take a shower.”
Colette gave her a thumbs-up, put in her headphones and turned back to face her laptop.
Blair grabbed her shower bag, stuck a towel under one arm and walked, legs weak, to the shared bathroom at the end of the hall. Several girls stood in front of mirrors applying makeup, straightening their hair. Blair dumped her trashcan in the toilet, grimacing at the spill of yellow-brown vomit that trickled into the toilet bowl.
In the shower stalls, she hurried into the first open shower, pulling the curtain closed behind her. She turned the water hot, stripped off her clothes and stepped beneath the spray. Head tilted back, Blair let the water pour hot over her face.
When she looked up, a shadow moved in front of her curtain. Blair stared at the silhouette of a woman, her heart thumping against her breastbone. The previous night’s dreams pulsed in her head, barely there—a dark path, the pounding of shoes on a sidewalk, headlights fading into the dark night.
The shape didn’t move and a chill ran down Blair’s spine as she studied it, suspected it was the shadow from her dream. It was not alive. It had followed her from whatever dark realm the psyche slipped into during sleep.
Gritting her teeth, Blair ripped the curtain back, expected to see the shadow dissolve or to find nothing there at all.
