Page 47 of Beasts

“I still have a lot of questions.”

“I know, but I've got something prepared to show you, so hold off until then.”

“Well, if it's already prepared, why can't I see it now?”

“I left it at Mom’s.”

“Right, your mother, who is actually my aunt who I've never met by the way. Can I meet her sometime?”

“Yes, next Saturday week at eleven. We're going to have brunch.”

“I see this has already been pre-planned.”

“Or were you just about to suggest it, and I said it first?” The stupid psychic had me there. Before we even have a chance to finish opening the front door and walking inside, we can already hear the bustle of argumentative voices. It sounds like the guys are trying to plan something for the sorority girls for doing what they did earlier today.

“Guys,” I say catching their attention. In the living room are the triplets, but also Reyes, Echo, Kane, Nolan and Oliver. “I know what they did was bad. But if we retaliate in any way, it'll just get a lot worse.”

“None of us are exactly happy to settle with what they did to you.” Hendrik comments, “, and Reyes won't tell us what he and Seth did earlier today.” I look over at the medium who seems preoccupied with talking to the wall. I can only assume he must be speaking with Ivan.

“Well, if you want to find out, you can always get up really early tomorrow.” Seth smirks.

“How early is early?”

“If you can be at the sorority house before quarter to six in the morning, when the first alarm clock starts to go off, then you'll see exactly what we did.” Now that's tempting.

Echo sighs, “Wait, so making us choose between the quality of sleep and seeing some sorority girls fall on their faces? I'll set my alarm.” I look at my watch and I can see that it's a little past nine. I suppose now would be a good time to go to bed if we're going to be up that early in the morning. Everyone else also seems to look down at their watches or their phones to check the time and comes to the same conclusion.

“How was dinner?” Nolan asks both Seth and I.

“It was actually…really good.” I say with obvious hesitance, “Both my parents came to the conclusion that they're happy for me to stay here. Even though of course I did tell them I was planning to leave as soon as I could afford the rent on my own.” I don't miss the obviously disappointed look that Oliver tries to hide. In fact, quite a few of them are sharing the same expression. “Anyway, I'm really keen to see what these two knuckleheads got up to. So I'm going to get enough sleep so that tomorrow I can still manage to make my way through most of my lectures.” I get a few wishes goodnight, but I stop before I head up the stairs. “Also everyone, I just wanted to say thank you. You've all been really kind to me since I've been here. You didn't need to tolerate me, and you didn't need to share anything with me, but you have. I just wanted to know I really respect each of you and I feel that you're all my friends. If you're happy for me to call you that.”

“Wait, we're not like BFF’s?” Hendrik asks, with a plastered on sad look.

“We're really happy to have you here.” Nolan ends the conversation. As I turned to walk up the stairs, most of the others leave the living room and return to their rooms as well. When I enter my room, I can see that my guitar is laid out on the other bed. I'm feeling an itch to make sure that it's in tune and to maybe play a little bit, but since everyone was going to sleep, it's probably not a good idea to do that now. I feel a tug inside of my chest when I think about Oliver and what he did for me. I want to thank him. In fact, I wanna do a lot of things for him, but I really can't. Fact is, unless he wants to feel sick and drink fish blood every other day, I don't think we're going to be able to get past this. Seth said he needed to drink my blood, but he doesn't seem to think that would work.

Before the play I'm going to have to convince him.

Chapter twenty-six

Duet

It's close to half past five in the morning when a few of us end up walking down the stairs in our groggy tracksuit pants and messed up bed hair. The triplets look so disheveled that I'd can't even tell them apart at the moment. The only ones who seem even remotely awake are just Oliver and Nolan. Kane and Reyes also grace us with their presence, but they certainly don't seem awake.

“Good morning everyone.” I groan at his perky voice.

“Seth, you cannot approach people like that if you have not given anyone a chance to have a decent coffee yet. The fact that I have not had a coffee yet means that I am more likely to kill you than anyone else in this house right now.” Even though I did my best for it to come out as a threat, it doesn't sound very convincing when it's coming out of someone that's half the size of anyone else in this room.

“See, and that's why you belong here.” I rolled my eyes as he gestures for everyone to follow him outside.

Thankfully, the sorority house is not too far away, and we reach there in about ten minutes, according to Seth. Since we can't go inside, we're all waiting out on the curb side. I still don't really know what I'm expecting to see. I hear Reyes muttering to Ivan again, but I'm not really sure what he's trying to say. I look at my clock and see the number on it switch from 5:44 to 5:45. As if on cue, I hear one of the girls in the room start to scream.

“If I'm correct, which I am,” Seth begins, “, that one just went to turn her alarm clock off and realized that it is completely covered in a warm caramel coating. Thankfully it stays sticky because of the heat that the clock was giving off.” My mouth gapes open and Nolan starts to laugh. Suddenly more lights in the house turn on as more people start to wake up. There's more yelling in the house going on, and someone squeals extremely loud. “Ah yes. I forgot we put oil in the main hallway. Their wood floors look like they needed a refresher coat. It's going to be really awkward when someone turns on the light and the fan automatically comes on with it.”

Through eccentric laughter, Niles asks, “Why’s that?”

“Because we opened up one of the feather pillows and left it on top of the fan blades.” Oh my god, I cannot believe they did this. “Given all the things they've done in order to try and ruin Amelia's time here, I had contemplated streaming from one of their laptops everything that is happening this morning.”

“Why didn't you?” Kane asks him.

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