Chapter 28
My side of the big cell was empty. Just me and the toilet. The far end held the frat boys, all fourteen of them. By now they were doing a pretty good job of ignoring me and I wasn’t paying them any attention at all.
The outer door to the main police station opened and a cop came through, followed by Toni Velazquez and Vesta, although Vesta wore a glamour. She looked like a vapid, bleach-blonde cheerleader but I knew instantly who she was.
“Beating up frats now, are we?” Toni asked.
The frat boys had perked right up at the sight of two very pretty females, but the cop was staring them down.
“Mostly just dodging them, Toni,” I said. “They thought I was stealing beer. WTF?”
“It’s a thing that seems to happen all the time,” the cop said. His nametag read N. Mortise. “Townie kids try to steal kegs and then have parties out in the woods. The frat boys try to catch them and beat their asses.”
“But why leave the beer on the porches?” I asked.
“He really belongs to you, ma’am? Your school, that is,” Officer Mortise asked, ignoring my question.
“He does.”
“Seems a little young is all,” Mortise said.
“And yet you found him standing and the rest of these mental giants lying around on the ground,” Toni said. “Why were you there, Craig?”
“V didn’t tell you?”
“Your story, not mine,” Vesta said. She was annoyed. I could feel it. I felt my own anger lift its head.
“Yoon Da-Ni was drugged and blood raped at Theta Beta Theta twenty-five years ago. Apparently, that’s the reason to move to Golf Alpha. No vamps. I wanted a look at the place where my mother decided the shape of my life.”
Officer Mortise looked suddenly very uncomfortable. Maybe the word rape. Maybe the name Craig mixed with Golf Alpha had sunk in.
“Freia told us that,” Toni said. “The director and I spoke to her mother. It’s a real story, but no evidence of who or what or even where.” There was a condemnation in her words.
“I know. I didn’t go there to burn it down or declare war.
I went for a look while I processed. These morons decided I should be beat up.
I didn’t agree to let them, but I didn’t kill any of them or even break any bones.
The way I see it, fourteen legal adult males attacked an underaged male.
I should press charges for assault on a minor. ”
“Is that your intention?” Toni asked.
“No. I’d rather go home,” I said. Vesta sucked a sharp breath.
“You don’t mean the dorms,” she stated, just a little shy of an accusation.
“No, I don’t. I don’t understand it here. I don’t understand adult boy babies either throwing out death challenges or ganging up to beat up middle schoolers. And I don’t understand why you’re mad at me.”
“I’m not mad. I’m annoyed it always ends with a fight for you,” Vesta said.
“Fight? That wasn’t a fight. I didn’t even punch anyone,” I said to Vesta, then turned to Toni. “Why? Because I listen when Jenks talks and he said no punching on regular humans because they don’t heal like wolves when you break them.”
Mortise looked truly appalled and the wonder geniuses at the far end of the cell had started to catch up.
“Vesta, please tell me how I’m supposed to feel when I find out someone drugged my mom, drank her blood against her will, and traumatized her to the point where she left Earth and designed me. Please. Tell me. Because I don’t know what to feel, what to think.”
“Um, who are you two again?” Mortise asked carefully.
“You didn’t ask when you arrested him?” Toni asked.
“Omega told us not to. Just to call Arcane.”
“Craig, you wanna drop your disguise?”
I pulled mini-me back inside the tattoo, and Vesta did the same. Every intent in the room other than Toni’s and Vesta’s turned to sudden, overwhelming fear.
Vesta moved up to the bars and reached through to grab my hands. “I don’t know what to tell you, and I’m not mad. I’m just tired of you ending up in violence all the time.”
“That? That was more like tag,” I said. “Right, fellas? Just roughhousing with the townie kid.”
Not one of them answered.
“It just seems to find me, Vesta, like this morning. Nothing I choose. Maybe because she built me for it.”
“Does he have to stay in there or can I take him back to Arcane?” Toni asked Mortise suddenly, quickly.
“Could we hold him if he wanted out?” Mortise asked.
“No. But he would stay anyway. But he’s still technically a minor, a ward of the school for several more months.”
“Yeah, we can let them all go unless he’s pressing charges,” Mortise said, making it into a question somehow.
I just shook my head. He opened the door and stepped back, keeping the door between us.
None of the frat boys made a single motion, just their eyes flicking from me to Vesta and back again.
I sighed and stepped out of the cell. Vesta grabbed me in a hug, squeezing me bone tight.
“I’m sorry about this. About Freia, about your mom. Everything.”
“I know. Not your fault or mine or even theirs,” I said, glancing at the guys still in the cell. “Although if I ever hear of date rape in this town, I’m either going to solve it myself or tell your dad,” I said without looking at anyone but her.
There wasn’t a single sound as she led me out of the room. Everyone behind us felt like fear.
There were stares when we entered Arcane. Of course there were stares and whispers and huddles. Nothing in the known universe moves as fast as rumor.
“Come on. Freia is bunking with Reagan and Leila tonight,” Vesta said.
“Why?”
“Because she knows I want us together tonight and she also feels bad that she slapped that shit pile of information in your face like a cold dead halibut.”
“Now there’s a mental image I won’t soon forget,” I said.
She led me to her room, ignoring the looks the girls on her floor sent our way and casually undid an absolutely epic amount of wards on her door.
“How does Freia get through that?”
“I made her a pass token. It recognizes her and the wards recognize both together.”
“Why are you even here? You should be teaching this stuff.”
“Because I need the college experience and the broader education,” she said. “And I need to make friends among the supernatural… and apparently, I needed to find you.”
“Thank goddess you did,” I said, lying back on her bed. She didn’t answer so I opened my eyes and looked at her. She was crying but she didn’t feel sad.
“I’m not,” she answered my unspoken question. “That was the most honest and heartfelt thing anyone other than my family has ever said to me.”
“It’s true.”
“I know. I have a confession of honesty to admit, myself,” she said. “I don’t think I like your mother very much.”
“I get that. I’m conflicted too. But at the end of the day, all I can think of is that if she hadn’t been drugged and drained, hadn’t reacted to the trauma, hadn’t decided to build a son like me, well, I wouldn’t be here in this form and I wouldn’t be here with you.
So how can I hate that she did what she did when it led me here to you? ”
“Whoa, alien invader, that’s… that’s pretty deep thinking for a lizard and turkey cowboy,” she joked, but tears were streaming down both cheeks. I opened my arms and she landed on me, head into my shoulder, my arms tight around her. And that’s how we fell asleep.