Morganville (Justin Bieber)

Chapter 105

Eve hadn't said a word, but she'd allowed Michael to take her back inside once the cops had pulled away; she'd taken only one look at her brother as he'd been hauled off in handcuffs, but that had been enough. On top of the shock of her father's death, and the trouble with Michael, Eve didn't seem to have any emotion left to spare.

Through common consent, none of us went to bed. We didn't eat. The four of us crammed onto the couch, grateful for the warmth and the company, and put on a movie. A scary one, as it turned out, but I was glad to focus on someone else's problems for a change. Being hunted by a city full of zombies might have seemed like a relief in some ways - at least you knew whom to run from, and whom to run toward. I lay with my head on Justin's chest, listening more to him breathe than to the characters babbling at one another. His hand kept a slow, steady rhythm on my hair, stroking all my tension and fear away.

Eve and Michael didn't cuddle, but after a while, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer, and she didn't resist.

By the time the DVD menu came on after the credits, we were all sound asleep, and trouble was far, far away.

Fridays were usually good days, classwise; even most of the professors were in better moods.

Not this Friday, though. There was a weird tension in the air, along with the increasingly chilly bite to the wind. My first professor of the day had lost his temper over a cell phone going off, and reduced some sophomore sorority girl to tears before exiling her from the class with a flat-out failing grade. My second class didn't go much better; the TA had a headache, maybe a hangover, and was grumpy as hell - too much to bother slowing down as he sped through the lecture, or to answer any questions.

The only good thing about my third hour was that I was confident it would be over in under an hour. Professor Anderson had widely advertised today's supposedly pop quiz; only a complete coma patient wouldn't know to come prepared. Anderson was one of those professors - the ones who gave you plenty of chances, but the test was The Test, full stop. He gave only two a year, and if you didn't do well on both of them, you were screwed. He had a reputation for being a nice guy who smiled a lot, but he'd never yet allowed anybody extra-credit work, or so I had heard.

The history majors liked to call his class Andersonville, which was a not very funny reference to the Civil War prison camp. I had studied my brains out, and I was absolutely sure that I would ace the test, and have extra time left over.

I stopped off in the restroom, since I was a little early, and carefully balanced my backpack against the wall of the bathroom stall as I did my business. I was going over dates and events in my head when I heard a soft, muffled laugh from near the sinks. Something about it made me freeze - it wasn't innocent, that laugh. There was something weird about it.

"I hear there's a test in Andersonville today," a voice said. A familiar one. It was Monica Morrell. "Hey, does this color look okay?"

"Nice," Gina said, fulfilling her job as Affirmation Friend #1. "Is that the new winter red?"

"Yeah, it's supposed to shimmer. Is it shimmering? "

"Oh yeah."

I flushed the toilet, grabbed my backpack, and braced myself for impact. I tried to look as if I didn't care a bit that Monica, Gina, and Jennifer were occupying three out of the four sinks in the bathroom. Or that the rest of the place was deserted.

Monica was touching up her hooker-red lipstick, blowing kisses at her reflection. I kept my eyes straight ahead. Get the soap. Turn on the water. Wash -

"Hey, freak, you're in Andersonville, right?"

I nodded. I scrubbed, rinsed, and reached for the paper towels.