Page 44 of Hunting Pretty

I repressed a shiver.

From fear but also… something hot ran underneath my nerves, too.

I practically tumbled into the thick wooden doors of the dining hall, the warmth welcoming after the cold outside.

I glanced back over my shoulder. I could swear I saw a figure moving in the shadows outside before the door closed shut behind me.

“Do you see Aisling?” I asked Lisa as I scanned the hall, echoing with voices and the clank of cutlery.

I always felt small anytime I stood beneath those high, peaked ceilings. Outside the reach of the iron lamp lining the stone walls, the mahogany eaves appeared black like a scorched rib cage.

High-backed chairs screeched across the stone floors as students prepared for dinner.

Commons was a Darkmoor dinner tradition, three courses of pomp and circumstance for Dublin’s future politicians and corporate heirs.

Lisa and I usually ordered a pizza to theDark Diariesoffice up in the turret and ate in the two disintegrating leather chairs with our feet in each other’s laps, tossing story ideas back and forth for the paper.

“There,” Lisa said, pointing toward the back of the dining hall.

I spotted our honey-blond friend sitting alone at a table.

As I weaved through the elegantly set tables, I realized how Lisa had been able to spot Aisling from so far away.

Aisling was staring into space and had a whole half table to herself.

She barely registered me as I lowered myself slowly in the chair opposite her.

She was a mess. Mascara smeared around her greeneyes. Tear tracks cut through the blush and foundation on her cheeks.

Her usually perfectly curled blond highlighted hair was showing dark regrowth and it was pulled up into a messy bun on her head.

Despite the heat in the dining hall, she shivered in her coat.

A pang of pity stabbed at my heart. Grief at losing Liath was hitting her hard.

She and Liath had been besties since they were in junior high and crushing after the same boy. They’d been inseparable since, their names always spoken together in the same breath.

My chest twanged with sadness. Aisling’s usual cheery smile and eternal optimism was gone, stolen, like the girl I knew disappeared with Liath.

“Maybe we should get her home first,” Lisa whispered next to me.

I nodded.

Aisling needed a hot shower, a good meal, and a soft bed. We could ask her questions after we’d taken care of her.

I glanced around as Lisa and I stood; groups of students nearby sniggered and whispered behind their Chanel Le Vernis French manicures. Fucking assholes.

Just as Lisa and I went to hoist a slumped Aisling from her chair, the front doors of the dining hall slammed shut. The deafening noise resounded in my chest. What was louder was the sudden and complete silence.

Commons had begun. There was no leaving now.

Lisa and I slipped back into our seats as the Latin gracewas read, the student’s voice droning out the words like a cult initiation.

My Latin was a little rusty, but it was something like:

Thank you, Lord, that we are not poor.

Thank you, Lord, that Daddy doesn’t ask questions about what we buy.

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