Page 87 of A Dead Man's B-Side
At his last words, the girl in question sent him a nasty look over her shoulder.
Rain’s voice trumped them all, authority ringing in her tone, “You’d better hope there aren't any bylaws regarding outrageous hair colours in the Founder’s Society.”
Ajax groaned as he got comfortable on the floor, rifling through the bag I’d carried in from the store. “Forget the Society. Castle Hill’s bylaws alone are airtight around these types of things–Score! Who got these?”
Wolf leaned over him and perked up at the contents inside. “You restocked?”
Ajax wiggled his brows at me and waved them up. “Alexandr, you naughty, naughty boy. Rain, look.” He thrust them into her face. “He could get in trouble for these, couldn’t he?”
She smacked his hand away with a resoundingthwack,and I almost smiled at the way he’d held his hand close to his chest with a grunt and a glare.
Narc.
August, with a playful tone, said as much, though in a much more colourful manner, before a thud and a groan sounded.
Wolf plucked them from his hands, and Rain was sure not to speak of anything within his possession, so she left theconversation there, focusing on something outside Paris’ window, though I was sure there was nothing of interest out there.
After the dinner tonight, I hadn’t thought there was anything that could save this group of misfits, but Thaddeus had been proved right and wrong.
With a few lit cigarettes and the devil’s hour, I watched the tension within the shoulders of each of the six students around me slowly ease away. Conversation, albeit in between long periods of awkward or stilted silence, ran smoothly.
Paris had almost finished when a lit cigarette found itself near my mouth. I didn’t question Wolf’s gesture, only leaning slightly forward to take a drag.
Spending time in each other’s presence did help, although only slightly, ease the tension and grudges between them.
A formal dinner was exactly that, formal.
Ajax seemed to have grown bored and joined Wolf as they leaned on either side of Paris’ desk to face us. “So, should this really be taking this long?”
Paris didn’t spare a glance as she placed the plastic sheet over my head. “So simple-minded. I envy you.”
He smiled sarcastically but didn’t bite back. It was either the nicotine in his system or the eyes I was watching him with that made him let it go. “I think we should all play a game. What with it being dark and… chilling.”
With the window open, Paris paused to throw a fit when August wrapped himself in her throw blanket and exclaimed, “It’s cold!”
But I knew that wasn’t what Ajax had been implying when he said chilling, “You’re not scaring anyone but yourself.”
I stood and stretched from the chair that I had been sitting on for quite a while when Paris tapped her vacant wrist.
“Thirty minutes,” she reminded me.
I nodded and removed the cape around me, turning to Wolf, who remained leaning with one leg over the corner of Paris’s desk, to take the cigarette from his hands.
August, still wrapped up to his nose, laughed and almost rolled off the bed. “You look like you’re looking for radioactivity with that headpiece on.”
Ajax flattened his arms out. “Enough, let’s play truth or dare.”
Right, because nothing screams chilling night activity like truth or dare.
How riveting.
Paris jutted her hip out and fixed him a glare. “You don’t call the shots in my dorm, you bonehead.”
“Alright, genius, what’s your great idea?”
I was hoping she’d send them all straight to bed, but Paris had a reputation to uphold where fun was practically her middle name.
I could also see the glint of mischief in her eyes; she was going to gain something out of this, “Let’s play truth… or truth.”
