All I wanted was a goddamn cookie.  My stomach rumbled as I crossed the street and entered the student center.  As soon as I stepped through the student center, I smelled the tasty treat smells coming from the grill.  Cookies, French fries, pizza, hot dogs, burgers---maybe I would get something in addition to a cookie.  I entered the grill and got in line.  Groups huddled around the tables spaced unevenly around the counter; some were bent over their work, but many were talking and laughing.  Humor, stress, and food mixed together in the room in a way I had smelled over and over.

Even though the line was moving, one of my feet still bounced up and down.  I couldn’t linger here—I had to get back to Kaze, Tomika, and Catie.  The group project wasn’t quite done—and I admit I’d fucked up.  Let’s just say, I got a little creative on my section of the group assignment, and then the professor wanted us to make a bunch of changes.  In other words, I put down a lot of bullshit and apparently didn’t cite anything correctly.  So, that’s why we were sitting around on a Friday evening trying to finish up.  Tomika had some conference, and she didn’t want to leave without having a satisfactory draft done.  Given it was my fault that we weren’t in a good position, I complied, but that didn’t mean I was going to work without snacks!

The line moved forward, and I could feel my anticipation rise.  The grill had giant chocolate chip cookies, and they were soft and gooey.  Hmm…sweet delicious anticipation….a cookie and a hot dog would really hit the spot.  I reached the counter, placed my order, and went to lean against a wall to wait.  A familiar dead zone of scent came up on my left side, and I turned to see Verdandi standing near my elbow.

I snapped to attention.  “What are you doing here?”

Verdandi adjusted her backpack, her face frozen in its usual stony expression.  “I’ve come for a visit.”

I cocked my head.  “Seriously?”  Of all the things I’d expect from this day—hell year even—I would not have expected Verdandi to visit me unless she was forced.

Verdandi shrugged.  “Is that okay?”  Her voice was smooth and reasonable—the tone she always used to try to get things done while we worked at Malcolm’s Organization.

I pinned her with a suspicious look, but, before I could push her, the student worker announced my order, and I turned to grab it.

“I don’t have time for your shit, Verdandi.”  The smell of hot dog and chocolate chip cookie had less positive affect now that the living definition of buzzkill was standing in front of me.  “I have to get back to my group.”

“That’s all right.”  Her voice was very calm, which was weird.  Usually, she at least sounds like she’s thinking about all the ways I’ve fucked up while I’m talking with her.

I just walked out of the student center and made a beeline for the study quad where we had set up.  There was no point in trying to run from Verdandi—she could use her powers to track me anyways, so I didn’t bother to look back or speed up.  I reached the quad: Catie was sitting next to her roommate, Tomika, who was typing on her laptop.  Catie looked up and waved at me, giving me a waft of slayer.  I waved back—never thought I’d do that to a vampire slayer.  My friend Kaze waved at me, and I smiled back, despite the fact that I was now host to Verdandi, the grumpiest telepath who ever lived.

“Hey, guys, I’m back, and I brought a Verdandi.”

The group took in Verdandi with various politely puzzled expressions and confusion wafting off them.  Kaze recovered first and smiled at my former teammate.  I dropped my treats on the table and sat back down beside Catie.  Verdandi remained standing as I turned my back on her, although I could always smell her.  It took a fair bit of my concentration, but I managed to work on that stupid project.  When we finished, Tomika said, “Thanks, guys.  I gotta go pack now.”  She put away her laptop, nodded at Verdandi, who had taken a seat at a different table at some point.  Verdandi barely acknowledged her.

“I’m Verdandi.”  Verdandi accepted his hand, and they shook.  She took in Kaze’s jeans and anime shirt with a carefully blank expression.  “I’m a friend of Raefa’s from school.”

“Dude, cut the shit,” I said.  “He knows.”

Verdandi whirled on me, her disapproval reeking off of her.  “Why on earth would you tell him about the organization?”

“It’s not a fucking secret now that Malcolm’s in the news playing paranormal advocate.”

Verdandi sighed.  “But you still shouldn’t have---“

“And why the fuck not?”

“You know why,” said Verdandi.  “It could be dangerous.”

 “Honestly?” said Kaze.  “I’m happy Raefa said something—it helped me feel less alone on campus.”

Verdandi looked between the two of us.  Then she nodded.  Ugh, of course she thought telling Kaze I was a damphir was okay since she now knew that Kaze was a para.

“Anyways, Verdandi, what are you doing here anyways?” I folded my arms and moved to stand in front of her so that she couldn’t’ stand up.  “You didn’t tell me.”

Catie came to stand beside me, puzzlement wafting off her. “Yeah, what are you doing here?”  Neither of us had seen Verdandi since she brokered the truce between Catie and me.

Verdandi’s glance cut from me to Catie.  “I see you all are keeping to the truce.”  She raised an eyebrow.  “And you’re even working together.”

I folded my arms.  “So is this an official inspection?”

Verdandi shrugged, and my anger flared.

“Fuck you, “I snarled.  “You have some nerve.”

“Yeah,” said Catie.  Her anger came off her like the hot, sharp air of an incoming storm.

Verdandi raised an eyebrow.  “Both of you made that meeting necessary by your fighting.”

I growled low in my throat, and I was about to let her have it when my phone buzzed.  I yanked it out of my pocket, saw Odin’s name, and pressed “talk”.  “Why the fuck is Verdandi springing an inspection?”

“What?” Odin’s voice was genuinely puzzled.  “She’s with you?”

His tone brought me up short.  “You didn’t know she was coming?”

“No.  We haven’t had any complaints from Russ in Security—there’s no reason for her to be there.”  Odin’s confusion bled away, leaving concern.  “Is she okay?”

“Well, she’s pissed off me and Catie, but she’s fine.”

“Right.”  Odin’s concern didn’t leave his voice.

“Dude, I’m not going to do anything to her.”

“I know.  She’s just been acting weird lately.”  He paused.  “I know she wouldn’t want me tell you this, but…”  He trailed off, and I walked away from Verdandi until I knew she couldn’t hear me.  There was a small chance that she might try to listen in telepathically, but, well, there was little I could do about that.

“What?”

He sighed.  “She’s been having a hard time adjusting to college.  I mean, it can be difficult for anyone and not just paras, but I know she was having trouble meeting people.”

“It’s her own damn fault.”  The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

Odin sighed, but he didn’t fight me.  “I admit, I have been kind of wrapped up in my own thing, but I thought that she was finally clicking with some people.  And then I came home, and she didn’t come out for dinner.”  He paused.  “We agreed to have dinner together on Friday evenings.”

“No, no,” said Odin hurriedly.  “Just…look out for her, okay?  Maybe do something fun with her?

“We don’t have anything in common.”  I had planned to talk Kaze into doing parkour with me—his wind powers allowed him to keep up with me better than most people—but I certainly couldn’t do that with Verdandi skulking about.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come and get her?”

Odin paused for a minute.  I was sure he was giving it serious thought; they had always stayed close to each another, and, even in the new world of college, old habits would be hard to break.  “No, she went to you for a reason.”

“You just don’t want to deal with her while she’s in a mood.”

“I deserve a break occasionally.”   A feminine voice called Odin’s name in the background.

“Ooooooh, booty call?” A grin split my face, and a fellow student walking in the hallway edged around me.  Wimp.

“I, uh, wouldn’t put it that way.”  Even though I was nowhere near him, I could practically smell Odin’s embarrassment.  I grinned harder.   “Anyways, she went to you for a reason: she clearly didn’t want to talk to me.  I got to go.”

“Bye, Odin.”  I hung up and pocketed my phone.  Okay, so Verdandi was being weirder than normal.  I strode back to the quad, where Kaze and Catie were flanking Verdandi, who still remained seated.  I walked up to her and stepped closer until I was in her personal space again.  “So, do you want to tell me what’s going on and why you didn’t let Odin know?”

Verdandi turned red.  “I forgot to tell him.  I’ll text him.”  She pulled out her phone and typed away.  I looked down at her, annoyance warring with concern.  Verdandi and I have never gotten along, but something wasn’t right, and I had saved her obnoxious ass too many times beforehand to stop now.  I waited for her to say something more, but she didn’t reply.  Fine then.  Maybe I needed to persuade her.  I could be persuasive.

“So, how do you feel about hanging out?”

She finished texting and looked up.  Uncertainty flitted briefly across her face.  “What do you have in mind?”

#

I took her to sing karaoke.  Kaze went with us, and Kaze and I did the bulk of the singing.  Okay, fine, we did all of the singing.  Verdandi sat on the sofa, her face frozen in an expression of extreme discomfort.  After Kaze and I yowled our way through a few pop songs, I broke out the big guns: I sang Feed Me.  Verdandi’s eyes got wider and wider as I sang as a sweet talking carnivorous plant while Kaze was my awkward, naïve plant caretaker.  I finished my song and grinned at Verdandi, who frowned and looked down at her phone, which had just lit up.  Her frown deepened, and she slammed the phone facedown.

I raised an eyebrow and held out the microphone.  “Wanna sing?”

Verdandi shook her head.  Misery and discomfort rose off of her.  I sighed.  “What do you want?”

“I want to go to bed,” said Verdandi dully.  “I’m tired.

“What?  It’s like what midnight?” I scoffed.  “That’s not that late.”

 “That’s pretty late,” said Kaze.  “I think I want to go back.”

“Okay, fine,” I said.

“Here, I got you a cinnamon roll.”  I shoved the bag at her and handed Kaze a bear claw while I dug into my first chocolate muffin.

Once we got back to campus, Kaze waved at us from his floor as we climbed up to mine.  My dorm room was on the fifth floor.  When we reached the floor, I could hear sounds of loud talking and raucous laughter from Spencer’s room—he liked to throw parties to feel important.  The resident assistant’s door was tightly closed, although honestly I could easily intimidate Sam if having Verdandi here was really going to be a problem.  I doubt it would be—some of my floor mates had had visitors before, and he had never complained.

I went to my room at the end of the hall and unlocked the door.  Verdandi followed me in and looked around.  My mini fridge hummed quietly next to my desk where my computer sat.  My bed with its black and purple bedding was unmade, and my closet and drawers were in a similar state of disarray.  I could smell my familiar scent, and I was comforted.  I was home.

Verdandi stood in the doorway and looked around. “Oh, they gave you your own room.”

“Duh,” I replied.

“I couldn’t handle living in the dorms,” she said.  “I’m living with Odin off-campus.  It’s…quieter that way.  How are the dorms?”

“It’s okay.”  I shrugged.  “Most of my floor mates are okay, and I’ve taken care of the ones that aren’t.”

Verdandi gave me a look.

I rolled my eyes.  “We just had a conversation about spraying Axe body spray in the bathrooms where someone else could go in and suffocate from that shit.”

“Right,” said Verdandi.  She set her bag near the wall.  “So, where am I sleeping?  Not your bed, I assume.”

“Uhh….” I looked around, but nothing presented itself as a good bed alternative.  “You want a pile of my laundry?”

Verdandi gave me an affronted look.  “Certainly not.  Don’t you have an air mattress?”

“Why the fuck would I have an air mattress?”

Verdandi sighed and crossed the room to sit in my chair.  “Right.  This is a mess.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “You’re seriously not blaming me for this?”

“It’s not like I let you know.”  Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out and quickly put it away.

“Is that Odin?”

“Okay, I’m going to see if someone has something.”  I opened the door and headed over to Ysabella and Raina’s room.

Ysabella opened her door at my knock, and, after I explained my situation, came back with an air mattress.  I hoisted it onto my shoulder and carried it to my room. Together, Verdandi and I set up the air mattress, and I gave her the quilt from my bed.  I could hear her shifting around, and it made me edgy.  This was probably the most time I had spent with Verdandi in ages.  Even when we had been working for Malcolm’s Organization, we had usually had Odin with us.  Gradually, Verdandi’s breathing became slower and deeper, and I too went off to sleep.

#

“Wow, so I thought you weren’t into people that way,” I said.

Verdandi jerked into a sitting position and turned to face me.  “What?”

“I didn’t realize you fantasized about people.”

Verdandi glared at me.  She hadn’t put on her glasses, and her sharp gaze was not softened by her glasses.  “I didn’t.”

“Dude, don’t lie to me.”  I got up and crossed the room to stand over her.  “I can smell it.”

She looked away. “Damn it.”  She picked up her glasses and put them on, her face still turned from me.

“What’s going on?” I said.  Her usual flat smell was now mixed with the salt of her dreams, and it gave her a whole different flavor.  For so long, Verdandi had held herself away from others and kept her emotions tightly locked down.  This was different.

Verdandi did not seem particularly happy about this; misery and shame were mixing with the salty dream smell.

“Dude, it’s cool.  It’s is perfectly natural.”  If she had made a mess, I could probably get it out.  When you end up covered in blood and stuff like I do, you become a laundry champion.

“Then why the fuck did you come here?”

She turned to glare at me.  “I have no idea.  I guess I was hoping to be able to think, but instead you dragged me to karaoke.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled.  Verdandi jerked back as I leaned down.  “Odin is worried sick, and you’re still acting like you can just stay far away from all this.  I can smell that’s something’s different, and I am seriously pissed that you came here and now you won’t fucking talk!”  I leaned forward.  “So.  Fucking talk.”

Verdandi glared at me briefly—probably for my excessive—yet totally justified—use of the word “fuck” but then she sighed.  “No, you’re right.”

I bounced back on my heels.  “Ver?”

Verdandi sighed.

I stood up.  “I’m going to get us breakfast and then you are going to tell me what the hell is going on.”  I waited for Verdandi to nod, and then I walked back over to my bed, opened my window, and climbed out.  She knew better than to try to flee from me.

When I returned with cinnamon rolls from the bakery and bacon swiped from the dining wall, Verdandi had dressed in cords and a blue turtleneck.  I grabbed my desk chair and dropped the bacon and rolls on it.  I flopped back on my bed, bacon and cinnamon roll in hand.  “Okay, talk.”

Verdandi sighed.  “Right.  Well…”  She took a cinnamon roll and bit into it.  “Right, so…how many here know you’re a para?”

“A lot of people know…maybe not teachers, but anyone I hang out with regularly finds out eventually.”  I shrugged.

“Oh.”  She paused.  “Why are you so open?”

“You’re not telling me what’s going on.”

“I’m getting to it.”  Verdandi sighed.  “Can you please answer the question?”

I tore a bite off a piece of bacon.  “Look, for me, it’s hard to pretend to be human, and it’s just easier if people know going in that, yes, I can smell embarrassing personal stuff and am stronger than the average human.”

“You’re stronger than gym rats,” Verdandi pointed out.

“Point still stands.”  I raised an eyebrow.  “So?”

Verdandi sighed.  “I started taking an art class; my advisor thought I should take something other than math and science, so I signed up. And I met this girl…”

“Ohhhh?” I grinned.

Verdandi frowned at me.

I waved a hand.  “Dude—no judgement.  What’s her name?”

“Julia.”  Verdandi blushed a little bit when she said the name.  “She’s in another art class.  I saw her work hanging up outside the classroom, and…I knew I had to get to know her.  And we started talking.”  She looked down.   “I’ve never talked to anyone quite like her.  She’s so interesting—she creates the beautiful pieces—they look so fluid, kind of like water, but not.  Anyways, she can talk about the technical and mathematical aspects of the compositions.  We had some fascinating conversations, and I looked forward to seeing her there.”

Huh.  Verdandi’s cheeks were flushed, and I could smell her fondness and attraction.  “She sounds great.”

“Yeah.”  Verdandi looked back down her roll.  “Anyways, I started to figure out that I liked her more as just a friend, and she liked me that way.”  She stopped.

I stuffed my face some more and then said, “So, are you working up the courage or…?”

“No, she confessed to me.  And I—well I came here.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.  “Why?”

“I was afraid.”  Verdandi folded her arms.  “I was…afraid that I had made her like me.  That’s why I came here.  I needed to put some distance between her and me.”

“What, you were afraid you mind controlled her into wanting to date you?!” I exclaimed.  “Dude!”

“You don’t understand!  I was so lonely, and college sucked, and I thought…it would be so easy for me to make someone like me.  And I thought maybe…maybe I had made her like me.”

I started to laugh.

Annoyance simmered off her.  “Why are you laughing?”

I struggled to contain myself.  “Ver, as long as I have known you, you’ve had your powers under lock and key.  You never make a fucking mistake.”  It was kind of annoying honestly.

“I have to.  Do you understand what it’s like to be bombarded by information all the time, unless you do something about it?”

“Yes.” I waved a hand.  “Look, I can’t see you going so far out of control that you would mind control someone and not realize it.”

Verdandi looked down at her half-eaten roll.  I ate the rest of the bacon—and realized that Verdandi hadn’t eaten any and was still working on her first cinnamon roll.  Oops.  “So, has she been the one texting?”

“Yeah,” said Verdandi.  “She wants us to go to dinner.”

“Ooooo, like a date?”

Verdandi blushed.  “I mean, probably.”

“And you’ve just been ignoring her?  What the fuck.”

“I’m bad at this!” snapped Verdandi.

I laughed.  Verdandi’s anger rose off her, all smokey and hot.  I stopped.  “Yeah, you should fix that.”

“But—“

“Do you want to lose out?  Get on that bus and go on your hot date.”

“I can’t—I’m not supposed to go home tomorrow morning.”

“Change your fucking ticket, or I’ll do it.”  I leaned forward.  “Seriously, Ver, I’ve never heard you talk about another person like that before—unless they were already related to you.”

Verdandi didn’t reply.  She slowly ate the rest of her cinnamon roll.  She gathered herself.  “Fine.”  She pulled out her phone and started typing and scrolling.  Finally, she put it away.  “All right, I have a ticket for a bus that leaves at 2.”

She left shortly thereafter, likely to get to the bus station super early because she was like that.  It took me only a short time after that to decide that I was going to help Verdandi even more.  After all, she could be so damn restrained.

#

Carson University, Odin and Verdandi’s school, was much bigger than mine.  It was spread over way more streets than mine and had a lot more buildings.  I got Reza to tell me their apartment address, and, when Odin’s Subaru pulled up, I was leaning next to their building’s main door.

“Raefa, hi.”  Odin’s voice was pleased, but confused.  “This is a surprise.”

“How did you get here before me?” Verdandi demanded.

“I got Lazarus to give me a ride.”  I was going to have to buy him a sweatshirt from the bookstore, although it wasn’t usually his style.  Still, he looked like he was a teen (he is not) and might have decided he needed duds to look the part.  Maybe I could find one in a particularly garish color for him—that would be funny.

 “So, what brings you here?” asked Odin.  He walked past me and unlocked the main door.  I followed him and Verdandi up the stairs.

“Why is Lazarus over there anyways?” said Verdandi.

I shrugged.  “He’s my teacher.”  He was also likely distrustful of Catie.  Whatever—it was cool to have someone who could actually take one of my full-powered hits to train with from time to time.  We climbed to the second floor, and Odin unlocked the door.

“Why are you here?” said Verdandi.

I walked in and looked around.  It was a two-bedroom apartment—I could see two bedrooms—with the kitchen and living room being one large room.  A bathroom was visible down a narrow hall.  I turned back and grinned.  “I want to meet Julia.”

“Julia?”  Odin said.  He turned to his sister.  “That’s your art friend, right?”

Well at least Odin had heard of Julia.  “Yup.  I want to meet her.  She and Verdandi have the hots for one another—or at least Verdandi’s got the hots for her.”

“Raefa!”  Verdandi’s face was scarlet.

“What?  You were gonna tell him eventually, right?”

Verdandi grimaced.  “I wanted to figure out how to handle this on my own.  Besides, don’t you have schoolwork or something?”

I shrugged.  “Everyone knows you do all your homework on Sunday and in the wee hours of Monday morning.”

Odin looked to his sister, his brow furrowing.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Verdandi sighed.  “I don’t know.”  She glared at me.  “I was just trying to figure things out.”

Odin looked from me to her sister.  He looked good—he was standing tall, and his smell was content.  There was also the smell of an unfamiliar female on him and a sense of satisfaction…I guess he had a good time.  His brow crinkled as he frowned.

“Come on, Ver,” I said.  “Odin and I wanna meet her.”

Verdandi frowned at Odin, whose discomfort deepened.

“Verdandi, I don’t expect you to share everything with me, but I really would hope you wouldn’t keep someone important to you from me.”

“You haven’t told me about any of those girls you sleep with,” Verdandi said archly.  Damn, that was low.

Odin’s hands shot into the air.  “I’m just experimenting!  I haven’t met anyone I’m truly serious about.”

“Well maybe I’m not serious about Julia.”

“I’ve seen Portapotties less full of shit than you are,” I said.

Verdandi gave me a look.  Odin’s face contorted as he tried to hold in a laugh.  She gave an exasperated sigh.  “Fine.  I’ll text her.  You’ll see.”

#

We met Julia at a diner in between the apartment and the campus.  She was a little taller than Verdandi, and the yellow and black striped shirt she wore under her overalls picked up the blond streaks in her long, curly light brown hair.  She smelled strongly of paint and the comforting smell of baked goods.  A button on her overalls said, “I Support Paras.”  She took hands with me and Odin with a bright smile on her face and sat beside Verdandi in the booth.  I could instantly smell their pheromones get excited at the proximity, and I fought to keep my grin from getting too wide.  Odin asked Julia some questions about where she was from and what she was taking, and she answered the questions brightly.  I was completely engrossed by her and Verdandi’s smells mingling.  The interest and desire was there; Julia smelled a bit confused and frustrated, but, hey, I would be too if someone ran off on me and I couldn’t get in touch with them.

“So, Raefa, you’re…a friend from school?” Julia asked.

Verdandi gave me a pleading look.  Fine, for love, I would play human.   “Yup.”

“Where are you going right now?”

“I go to New Hope College.  It’s okay.”

“Have you declared your major yet?”

I shrugged.  “I like forensics.   That could be cool.”  Forensics wasn’t an official major at New Hope, but I bet I could convince Professor Harris to back me up.

“Well, you have the nose for it,” Odin remarked.  He waved down the waitress, who took our drink and food orders.  I got two hamburgers and some water.

“I can’t see you ever cooperating with law enforcement,” said Verdandi once the waitress was gone.

“Hey, I totally could.  I don’t even call Russ the Security Guard “Mall Cop” anymore.”

Julia’s brow furrowed.  “Mall cop?”

“He’s got no real power.  He’s not even packing.”

“Why would you notice that?” said Verdandi.

I shrugged.  “Why don’t you?”

Trivia?  Hardly—knowing whether or not someone was carrying a weapon was quite useful.  As was what you could turn into a weapon.  I regarded Verdandi who gave me a pleading look.  I nodded slightly.

The food arrived, and I dug into my first burger.  The conversation shifted into a discussion of interests and on-campus lives.  I let them talk while I chowed down.  Verdandi and Julia kept glancing at the other when the other wasn’t looking, and I could smell their desire for one another—sharp and salty and so damn potent I couldn’t believe they couldn’t smell it themselves.  The urge to scream “just fucking do it” was great.  I sure hope Verdandi knew how much I was trying to let her play it her way.  When we were done, Odin paid the bill over Julia’s protests, and we left.

Outside, Julia spun to face Verdandi, her face tentative and open.  “So, Verdandi, would you maybe want to come over and hang out?  Maybe watch a movie?”

“Well, Raefa’s still here, and…”

“Aw, don’t worry about me,” I said.  “I can hang out with Odin.”  I glanced at Odin, who nodded firmly.

Verdandi shook her head.  “I didn’t finish my homework.  Maybe later.”

I barely suppressed a squawk of indignation.  Julia’s face fell.

“Oh.  Well, uh, see you later.”  She turned and walked away.

As soon as she was gone, I whirled on Verdandi.   “What the fuck, man?”

“Verdandi, you really should talk with her,” said Odin.

“Hi, I like you.  By the way, I’m para.  Let’s bone,” I said.

“Maybe go into a bit more detail than that,” said Odin.  “But I watched you two sneak glances each other, and she looked really hurt when she left.”

Verdandi sighed.  “I just want—“She cut herself off.  Then she gathered herself.  “I need to go to the library and do some work.”

“Here, I’ll come with you,” said Odin.  He waved at me and followed his sister.  As they walked, Odin bent his head toward his sister.  Verdandi’s body grew stiff as she walked away.

Well, if Verdandi wasn’t going to act, I would.  I turned and followed Julia.  I caught up with her just as she went into her dorm.  I could smell her frustration and disappointment, and anger welled up.  Verdandi was really fucking this up—she had to know what Julia was feeling.  I got an idea.  I could make them talk together.  I wandered around until I found the student center and asked to borrow some paper and a pen.

After making my delivery, I texted Verdandi and asked her to show me the art building.  It took a fair number of increasingly pointed texts, but soon Odin and Verdandi agreed to meet me.  The art building had a bunch of glass windows and a funky sloping roof, which definitely would be difficult to climb.  Inside, there was an entrance theater in the main entrance; two hallways off the lobby led to what I assumed were classrooms.

“I can’t believe you want to see the art building,” said Verdandi as she led me down one of the halls to her art classroom.  “I can’t believe you want to see my art.”

“Dude, believe it,” I replied.  That wasn’t a lie—I was curious about what Verdandi’s art looked like.  Of all the things I pictured Verdandi doing, it wasn’t art.

She gave me a wary look, but she led me to a classroom door and moved a little past it.  Sketches of a still life with blocks arranged were hanging in the wall.  Verdandi’s lines were firm and precise; she had clearly spent a lot of time getting the shading just so.

“This is really good, Verdandi.”  Odin bent forward to look at the drawing.

“Thanks.”  She glanced over at the classroom and frowned at the open door; it was propped open with a door stop.  “That shouldn’t be open.”  She walked back over and popped her head in.  ‘No one’s here.”

“Well maybe you could show us what you’re working on right now,” Odin suggested.

“Well—“

“Hey!” Julia yelled.

I turned to see her stalking to us; she had tied her hair back in a high ponytail, which swished irritably as she stormed forward.  A piece of paper was crunched tightly in one fist, and her rage was pouring off her like the spices from a pepper.

“Hey, Julia,” I started to say, but she marched past me to Verdandi.

“What the hell is this?  Do you think it’s funny?”  She waved the paper I had slipped under her door earlier.

“What?” Verdandi stared at the letter.

Oops—I probably should have looked that up.

“I know you didn’t!”  Julia stared down.  “I just—I don’t know why you’re avoiding me, and I’m sick of all this.”  She looked up at Verdandi, who stood frozen, her face stuck in one of her usual stony expressions.  Anger and hurt rose off of Julia, and she turned and began walking back down the hall.  Verdandi stood in the doorway and looked at her feet.

I snagged Julia as she passed me, and, while she squirmed in my grasp, I stormed forward, booted Verdandi across the room, and hurled Julia into her.  They crashed into one another and hit the ground.  I sprang forward and snatched their phones out of their pockets.  By the time they had reacted, I was already at the door.  I grinned.  “Y’all talk this out.  Later!”  Before they could get up, I kicked out the doorstop, and slammed the door shut.  I heard Verdandi rush to open the door, but I held the door until I heard that the knob wasn’t turning.  Huh, you couldn’t open it from the inside—that seemed like a poor design choice.  Or perhaps a good security measure—I wondered if the room had any accessible windows.

“Raefa, get this door open!” Verdandi snarled.

I turned the handle, and it snapped off.  I snorted with laugher.  “Oops, I broke it.”  I heard Julia squeak.

“I meant call maintenance!” Verdandi shouted.  “Odin!”

Odin reached for his phone, but I snatched it out of his hand and started running.  He chased after me.  I quickly realized that the hallway was a dead end.  I put on a burst of speed and leapt for the wall.  I pushed off the wall and launched myself at Odin.

“Fuck me!’ Odin yelled as he dove for cover.

“No thanks!” I took off running again.  I led Odin on a merry chase out the door and onto the lawn where I ran out.  I made sure to give him sufficient belief that he might actually catch me before speeding up.  Like a—what are those dogs called again?  They’re skinny and speedy.  Oh right, whippets!   When I thought enough time had passed, I loped back to the art building and to the classroom where I had locked Verdandi and Julia in.

“Shut up,” I leaned forward to listen at the door.   For a second, I heard nothing.  Then I heard the sound of smooching and a soft sigh.  Finally the pheromones had taken their course.  I handed Odin back his phone and turned to walk away.

“Where are you going?” Odin asked.

“My work is done!  I’m going home.”   I took a few steps and then stopped.  I took out Julia and Verdandi’s phones and handed them to Odin.  “Now you can call your place the Love Nest.”

“We will not be doing that,” said Odin as he pocketed his sister and Julia’s phones.  “I’ll call maintenance.  Get home without causing more trouble.”

“No promises.”  I headed for the exit.  Once I was outside, I pulled out my phone and called Lazarus.  I swung by the bookstore and got him a sweatshirt before I got in the car.  As we drove, I decided that I had done good work today.  This called for two packs of raw hamburger.  And a big juicy steak.

END