Page 4 of Tricky Girls

‘Here you go.’

I take the cup, sipping up the overspill. Even through the mask, I sense her staring at me. ‘What?’

She folds her arms. ‘Don’t know who we are, do you?’

‘Should I?’

‘Ouch.’ She puts a hand to her chest. ‘You’ve only spent about a billion hours in our company.’

I tilt my head as I examine them, for the moment choosing to forget about Ryan and Natasha and this whole fucking night. ‘Are you on my course?’

‘Bingo.’

Purger One leans forward. She has a serpent ring on her middle finger, over her glove. I wince. That must have hurt. ‘The fittest in the class,’ she says.

‘Take your masks off and I’ll be the judge of that.’

It’s dawned on me who they are by now, but it’s fun to play along.

Purger One says to their friend, ‘We done with wetting knickers?’

Purger Two snorts. ‘Be a different story if they knew we had tits. But yeah, this mask is like wearing fucking ice.’

‘Care to accompany two purgers through the forest?’ Purger One asks, turning back to me.

‘Dunno, planning on killing me?’

‘Wouldn’t that be a waste of a pretty face.'

I chuckle, already turning away. I’m paranoid about seeing Ryan and so cold that being out isn’t fun anymore.

‘If you can take me somewhere warm, I’m all yours.’

She slings an arm around my shoulders, spilling cherryade over my fingers. ‘Right choice.’

One perk to living in halls is how close they are to the castle. There’s none of this—trampling over loamy pine needles, eyes to the ground dodging roots and half-buried rocks, the ‘paths’ lit only by sporadic lamps that have a fifty percent chance of coming on at all once the sun goes down.

That hadn’t been a deciding factor when Ryan, Natasha and I decided to stay on at Portia House, but it certainly came in handy after a heavy night at Vipers.

We enjoyed living together in the rowdiness of halls, despite being lumped in with a bunch of freshers this year. The more I think on it, though, the more I wonder if Ryan and Natasha had wanted to stay living next door to each other for different reasons. Only single sexes can house together in the off-campus lodges.

Have I just been an unwilling third wheel this whole time?

I toss my head, blinking back tears.

A hand comes down on my shoulder, squeezing hard. ‘They’re not fucking worth it.’

No,I want to cry back to her,it’s me who’s never worth it.

Beyond caring where they’re leading me, I’m only thankful when one of them shrugs off her cloak and wraps it around my shoulders.

I moan, burrowing into the fabric. ‘Don’t care if you have tits, this is warm.’

She chuckles, reaching up for her mask. ‘Believe me, my face is better than my tits.’ They whip it off, baring the smiling, freckly countenance I was expecting. ‘Well, would be if my nose wasn’t snotting everywhere.’

The other lets out a disgusted sound before removing her own mask, shaking thick, shoulder length dark hair from her face. She peers at me through eyes just as dark. ‘Know us yet?’

I hum, sipping more of my drink. ‘Faces ring a bell, but remind me of your names?’ She narrows her eyes until I laugh. ‘Kidding. Harriet, right? And Elly.’

---