29
Stefan arrived with Taylor and Otter. “What do you want us to do with her?”
Duane was still pressed against the window, the farthest point in the lab he could stand from where Lexie was curled on the floor. “She told me to call you.”
“We don’t have a car,” Otter said, his voice a jagged melody always ending on a sharp note. “What are we supposed to do with her?”
“I don’t know, but I’d like it if my professor doesn’t check in on me and find four dudes hovering around a passed-out girl.”
Lexie mumbled from the floor. “Mmm… not… passed out.” She squinted at the boys’ faces from her awkward vantage. Her eyeballs felt like they were going to burst.
Taylor made a face. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing,” Duane sighed, his arms crossed tight against his chest. “It was just an EEG experiment, and she had a seizure, and … stuff.”
“And stuff?” Taylor said. “Okaaay, creepy man.”
“I’m not a creep,” Duane said. “She … her body did … weird things.”
“Weird girl things?” Otter said with a grimace.
Duane fidgeted. “Not exactly.”
The fear in his voice confirmed that he’d seen it all. It wouldn’t be long before he put the pieces together.
“Just pick her up, Otter,” Stefan said.
Otter rolled his eyes and lifted Lexie in a fireman’s carry, her torso dangling over his back like a cartoon cavewoman’s.
She groaned, and Otter matched it.
Lexie watched Duane upside-down. He stared with a perplexed frown at the skinny boy holding her as though she weighed no more than a half-filled duffel bag.
“What?” Otter said.
Duane shook his head and waved away the question.
“All right,” Stefan said. “Queers out.”
The three of them walked down the hallway, leaving Duane alone with the beeping machine.
Lexie woke on Stefan’s bed wearing an old but fluffy terrycloth robe. A cup of peppermint tea sat in a pool of condensation on his bedside table, filling the air with fresh-scented steam.
Stefan was at his desk, staring at a textbook open on his lap, his hands clattering furiously on the computer keyboard in front of him.
Lexie groaned and looked at her hand, reassured to see smooth skin instead of fur. She sighed.
“Morning sleepyhead,” Stefan said over his shoulder.
“What … day is it?”
“Still Tuesday. Still shitty.”
Lexie groaned assent.
Stefan clicked ‘save’ on his paper and turned to face her. “You alright hon? Hungover? Preggers?”
Lexie snorted and rubbed her eyes. “I shifted.”
“You … ?”
“Shifted. Yeah.”
“Like, just now? At like 4pm on a fucking Tuesday afternoon?” Stefan shouted.
“Halfway. Like, both. In-between.”
“In front of Duane?!”
Lexie couldn’t muster any expression more than weak exhaustion. First, she narrowly avoided outing herself to Randy, and now this. “I am bad at the secret identity thing.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.” She shrugged.
“Nothing?”
“You heard him. I don’t think he realized what was happening.”
“He was in shock.”
She shrugged again.
“My god,” he said finally, assessing her face, “You look like you’ve been doing bong rips for days.” He went to the bathroom just outside his bedroom door. From the hallway wafted the smell of anywhere between four to seven boys, various permutations of beast, boy, and hustler. She sipped the tea and rubbed her forehead.
Stefan threw a bottle of mouthwash and a vial of eye drops onto her belly.
“I couldn’t let him take me home. I’m afraid he’ll figure it out.”
“Figure what out?”
“Renee is the one who killed his friends, mauled the shit out of them while making Duane watch.”
“Oooooh,” Stefan said. “I heard about that last semester, but I never made the connection. Poor Duane.”
“Yeah, but also poor us if he puts two-and-two together.” Lexie eased herself to sitting.
“You think he will? That’s kind of a big logical leap to make.”
Lexie swigged the mouthwash, swishing and swallowing, the heat ripping off the first layer of esophageal lining, cleansing her from the inside. “I’ve got to stop hanging out with normal people.”
“You don’t think he’d go to the cops?”
“I don’t know where he’d go, but crazy is probably one tick above cops on his list. And neither of those will be good for anyone.”
“Speaking of cops … ” Stefan said.
Lexie groaned. “What now?”
“They came back yesterday, asking about you.”
“What? Me? Why?”
“Some speed trap cop ID’d Randy’s bike near the scene. They already talked to her, I guess. They wanted to know where you lived.”
“Fuck,” Lexie said. “Can all the bad things just slow down so I can handle them one at a time?”
Stefan shook his head. “Never.”
“Do you think she told them?” Lexie asked.
Stefan chewed on the end of his pencil. “I doubt it. But Christ, Lex, how many normals know about this werewolf shit?”
Lexie fell back on the pillow, wanting to suffocate herself with the terrycloth bathrobe. “I don’t know anymore.”
From the side table next to her tea, Lexie’s phone buzzed twice. REMINDER: LING. REQ READING & ORAL REPORT DUE TMRW 10:15AM
“Take this from me before I throw it at the wall,” Lexie said, handing her phone to Stefan before burying her face under the pillows and pulling the covers up.
She stayed that way for a few long minutes before Stefan finally said, “Lexie, honey, you are going to have to leave my bed eventually, keedoke?”