Page 23 of Mask and the Magnolia

Evie is also not wrong about the other thing she brought up.

Ever since my father told me that this is the year he’s basically going to let Camden Blackhurst force a bond between us so he can mate me, I’ve lost all interest in sex and dating. What’s the point if I already know how things are going to end? Sure, I’m trying to figure out a way to change that, just like I figured out how to switch from Reynolds Memorial to Blackhurst Ridge, but each day that passes without some sort of progress feels like another year added to my life sentence.

“Evelyn? Are you here?”

My eyes go wide and my heart starts to race as I spin away from the mirror to look at my best friend.

No fucking way.

“You summoned him,” I hiss as I pull my cardigan closed and rush to put on my flats. “You said his name and summoned him from the depths of hell right into our apartment!”

“I did not!” Eve grabs my purse and loops it over my head then runs toward my desk. “I hate him almost as much as you do!”

I watch as she shoves literally everything into my messenger bag before we hear footsteps coming down the hall followed by, “Evelyn? Magnolia?Hello?”

“I can’t do this today,” I whisper as I hide behind my bedroom door. “I can’t. Today is our first group session and if I walk into a room with Dr. Lowe and six bonafide murderers, all flustered and angry after a run in with your brother, I will?—“

“Knock, knock.”

I freeze as Camden raps his knuckles against my door, his horrible scent filtering through the cracks before he’s even in my line of sight. I gag as I start to panic, my heart nearly beating out of my chest, and just when I’m sure this douche bag is going to march into my bedroom and pull me out of it kicking and screaming, my best friend saves the day.

“Hey,” Eve blurts as she widens her arms so she can grab the door knob and the frame, successfully blocking him from entering. “What are you doing here?”

I hold my breath as his shadow moves directly in front of her. “I thought you ladies might like a ride into the quad this morning.”

Despite the way my anxiety is through the roof, I roll my eyes.

No one calls anything herethe quadbecause technically, there is no quad. It’s only Reynolds Memorial, Blackhurst Ridge, and Blackhurst Reynolds University. Three, not four, and where the paths to each converge in the center of the main campus is a triangle. Three buildings, three paths, three sides to a triangle. There’s a road that starts at the main gate and goes right into Raevenwood, but it doesn’t extend up the way it’s needed to create a fourth anything because all three of the buildings are walled in and cut off from town thanks to the asylum. So, there is zero logic or reason for Camden to call it the quad, but somehow, he still does it with a straight face.

“Maggie already left.” Eve starts pulling my door closed behind her while trying to push her brother out of the doorway. “She had to go in early today.”

Camden stops backing up and I can hear him inhale. “Evelyn, are you lying to me?”

“This is her room, Cam, it’s going to smell like her everywhere.”

“Evelyn…”

My best friend lets go of the door long enough to shove him into the hall then quickly grabs the knob again to slam it shut behind her. “Gone. Long gone. Not here. Maggie left before the sun was up.”

“Then why were you in her bedroom?”

“I was returning a sweater I borrowed.”

“Really,” Camden says dryly. “I suppose you were talking to yourself, too?”

“Yep,” Evie pops thePas she plants in front of my room. “How did you get in here?”

God, I love her.

Protecting me from the dickhead she shares genetics with, lying for me like a seasoned pro, and now she’s flipping things back on him as a distraction. Or to actually figure out how he got into our apartment. Either way, I could kiss her right now. Evie is officially my hero.

“I was knocking for at least five minutes and when I didn’t get an answer, I got worried and I tried the knob.”

Their voices become more muffled as my best friend successfully manages to get her brother out of here, but it barely puts me at ease. Eve and Ineverleave the front door unlocked. Never. We’re two omegas living in a coed BRU apartment building in town. There’s no separation of designation out here, no specific floors for unmated males and females, alphas and omegas. This is as close to normal as either of us have evergotten and while we are fucking thrilled to be far away from our parents and their bullshit, we aren’t stupid enough to leave the door unlocked.

Honestly, we’re both paranoid as shit after our neighbor down the hall ran out of his suppressants and went into heat. His alphas went nuts when they hit the lobby and by the time they got all the way up here, they were so hazy with rut that they kicked in the wrong apartment door and almost caused more damage than the busted wood. Thankfully, no one was home and they were able to figure out they didn’t belong there before finally getting to their omega, but all of the alphas, mated or not, went a little haywire for a few days, and it was kind of terrifying until things settled down.

We were vigilant when it came to locking up before that but since then, we’ve added a little more security, including a video doorbell, and the fact that Camden somehow bypassed all of that is unsettling as hell.

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