CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 2 9

MYRA

The after effects

KRISTIN WAS WAITING for me when I got up to our room. "Where have you been?" she demanded. "I've been worried sick. I texted you like twenty times. I was ready to call the cops."

I remembered I put my phone on silent when I'd left her in the cafeteria that afternoon so she wouldn't bother me any more about Ron. I dropped my purse on the bed and pulled out my phone. As she'd claimed, there were twenty-two text messages and two missed calls from her. I guessed she really was worried.

"Sorry. I lost track of time."

"That's your excuse? In case you've forgotten, there's a killer out there."

"I was safe."

"Safe? Where have you been?"

I sighed and laid back on my bed, absently twirling a lock of my hair. "I was having dinner with a friend."

I smiled to myself; it was more than dinner, though that was good, too. Not that I'd let her know any of that. Just thinking about Julianus sent a warm rush through me. Who would've thought this day would end with me losing my virginity against a wall in a dark alley?

"A friend?" she asked suspiciously. "Who is this friend?"

"No one you know. He's not a student here."

"So it is a he ? Where did you meet this friend?"

I glared over at her. "Who are you now, my mother?"

"I'm just trying to look out for you."

"Well maybe I don't need you to," I snapped. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

She was ruining my good mood, making me wish I hadn't even come home, though I didn't know where I would have gone. Maybe Julianus could have taken me to his place. He said he lived in a house on the hill. I wondered what it was like. Probably someplace exotic, judging by his clothes and taste in food, not to mention his income status. He was from Europe; he'd probably traveled around the world. I suddenly wanted to see where he lived.

"Are you even listening to me?" Kristin asked, and I realized she had been talking.

"I'm sorry, what?"

She rolled her eyes. "I said I talked to Toby today and he told me when he went to see Ron at the hospital this weekend, he wouldn't speak to him either. In fact, he called an Uber instead of Toby to bring him home today."

Why was she telling me this? I thought I'd made my feelings about Ron perfectly clear this afternoon. I sighed. "So? "

"So it wasn't just you he was rude to."

"Great. He's an all-around rude guy. Kind of fits with my first impression of him."

I stood up and started undressing to go to bed. It was barely nine, but I was suddenly tired and didn't want to talk about this subject anymore.

"Ron is not usually a rude guy," she pressed.

"Well guess what? He is now. Looks like he fooled you, too."

I pulled back the covers and climbed into bed before reaching over and switching off my lamp as a message that this conversation was over.

She flopped down on her own bed and picked up the book she had been reading, making a point of sighing every time she flipped a page. I turned over on my side facing the wall and tried to block her out. Sometimes I missed the privacy of my room at our old house. A closed door there had meant no one bothered me without first knocking. Now there was no private room and no more home. I'd sold it to afford to come here. Not for the first time, I wondered if it was worth it.

Unlike most people my age, I enjoyed my own company. Since I'd arrived at Whitfield, I'd hardly had a single moment when I was truly alone. Even when I went for a walk around campus there were always people around. It made me wonder how anyone could have found the privacy to rape and murder someone in this place. I was in no way condoning what the killer had done, but I had to offer him a grudging respect for finding what I could not.

I pushed that twisted thought from my mind and forced it to more pleasant subjects. Like Julianus. I could still feel the dampness between my legs from our earlier coupling, and part of me wanted to touch myself there, to remind me of our encounter. I squeezed my thighs together and let my hands wander over my breasts under the covers, teasing my nipples to hard round points.

Was he thinking about me? Was he remembering how it felt to touch me? I imagined it was his fingers that rolled my nipples. His voice that breathed against my ear. What was it he called me? C uore mio. I wondered what it meant and determined I would look it up in the morning.

I realized I was getting myself excited all over again and clamped my mouth shut to keep from moaning out loud. I didn't need to give Kristin any more ammunition to use against me. She'd probably think I was dreaming about Ron again. I slipped one hand down between my legs and lazily fingered my pussy until I felt myself drifting off, imaging it was Julianus's hand that eased me into sleep.

? ? ?

"I'm sorry," Kristin said when I was getting dressed the next morning.

I looked up at her. "For what?"

"For bringing up Ron. I promise I won't say another word about him. Us girls got to stick together, right?" I nodded hesitantly. "Are we friends again?"

I sighed. "Of course we're friends. It's just…you can be a little pushy."

"I can't help it, it's who I am. Besides, you need a little push now and then. You wouldn't have that awesome dress if it weren't for me."

I grinned, looking down at the green sweater dress she had convinced me to buy. I had worn it in anticipation of my date with Julianus later. Well, if it could be called a date. He had just said he'd meet me here tonight.

"Come on," she said, slipping her arm through mine. "We have time to grab a muffin in the cafeteria before our first class."

"I never say no to a muffin," I laughed. Though I did last night, and look where that got me. I smiled to myself at the thought.

"So are you going to tell me about this new friend of yours?" Kristin asked as we made our way out of the dorm.

My reply was guarded; the last thing I wanted to do was talk about Julianus with her. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, for starters, where did you meet him? You hardly go anywhere."

"We met at the coffee shop in town." Technically, it wasn't a lie. That was where I'd first spoken to him.

"What does he do? Is he older, younger? Good looking?"

I rolled my eyes. "Enough with the twenty questions. I just met the guy. We're in the feeling out phase." Feeling out was an accurate way of describing him. It was difficult to think about Julianus without squirming. The man was sex on a stick, not that I would share that with her.

She snorted. "You just don't want to talk about him."

"You're right, I don't. I'm taking it slow."

"Fine. But as your roommate I expect the first introduction."

"If and when I ever introduce him to anyone, you'll be the first to know."

When we entered the cafeteria, Carly and Renee were already there. They called out to us, motioning us over to their table. We each grabbed a muffin and a cup of coffee then headed over to where they were bent over Renee's phone .

"Did you hear about it?" Carly asked as we sat down.

"What?" Kristin replied.

"There was another murder last night. The girl was found behind Melrose's. Raped and throat ravaged, a rose on her chest."

Renee held up her phone, where the story was pulled up on a local news site. The fact that it happened behind Melrose's sent goosebumps over my flesh. Julianus and I had passed right by there last night on our way back to the campus. Was the girl already dead then, I wondered.

The story didn't give many details, other than what Carly had already provided. No name or any other identifying information, so there was no way of knowing if the victim was a student, though that seemed likely. Most of the people who frequented the bars on this end of town were from the college.

"Looks like Toby was right," Kristin said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It's a serial killer." She turned to me and grabbed my hand. "You can't go out at night."

"What are you talking about?"

"Someone is out there killing women. You can't go wandering around town at night."

"I wasn't wandering around town," I insisted. "I told you, I was with someone."

Carly and Renee were following our exchange with interest. "What's going on?" Renee asked.

"Myra went out to dinner last night with some mysterious new man."

Oh my god, now I'd never hear the end of this. "He isn't mysterious."

"He is to me," Kristin replied .

"Well, contrary to popular belief, you don't need to know everything," I snapped, getting up and slinging my backpack over my shoulder. "I've got to get to class."

"Myra, wait," Kristin called after me. "I'm sorry."

I kept going, shutting out her pleas as I slammed through the exit. The girl was impossible. She wouldn't stop until she knew everything about everyone, like she had some self-appointed entitlement to being the sole source of news at the school.

I was still angry when I got to my first class, barely comprehending anything the professor said, and in fact, didn't really calm down until I had blown through three classes and was sitting in the library trying to make sense of my humanities assignment. It was lunch time, and under normal circumstances I'd be in the cafeteria eating, but I didn't want to chance running into my roommate again. I should have known better than to mention anything about Julianus to her.

I don't know why I was so adverse to talking about him. He was a secret I wanted to keep to myself, though I didn't know why. It's not like I was ashamed or embarrassed by him. I just wanted something that was mine. Something no one else could take away.

That's how my relationship with Poe had started out. We met in secret, not that anyone would have cared. We were both considered freaks in school; the weird goth kids. But the secrecy lent an edge of excitement to our relationship. Like we had something no one else had. Even when I started bringing him home, my father gave us our privacy, not objecting when we'd sit for long hours in the basement listening to music and reading books or discussing philosophy. My father told me he was just glad I had found a friend. He was the only one who knew how hard Poe's death was for me .

Not that Julianus was Poe, but I felt a certain familiar possessiveness about him. The way we'd first met, that soul-shattering connection between our eyes at the bar, the way I could always feel when he was near–there was something special about it. Something that went beyond explanation. It was as if we were destined for each other. How could I explain that to anyone else, especially someone like Kristin, who wanted to turn everything into her next viral Instagram post? Just like the kids in my old school, she would find a way to cheapen it for her own purposes.

I could be making more of this thing with Julianus than it deserved. While he seemed to be as enamored with me as I was him, it could just be a phase with him. Every time I looked at him, I had to ask myself why a man like that would be interested in someone like me. But there was something about him–was it simply loneliness? I'd never seen him with anyone else. Was it because he was so far from his home? He'd said there was nothing left for him there anymore, but what did that mean? Had he lost someone? Was he running away from his past?

I didn't know the answers to any of this, but I did know he seemed to be as obsessive about his privacy as I was, and I could respect that. Whatever this thing was that we had, I knew instinctively that he didn't want it broadcast. It was nobody's business but ours.

He occupied my mind for the rest of the afternoon, and when my last class was over for the day, I slipped back up to my room and dropped off my backpack before Kristin returned, then found a bench outside in the quad where I could wait for him away from the prying eyes of my roommate.

I didn't know what I was going to do about Kristin. Fighting with her was exhausting, but she seemed determined to stick her nose in my business, and I just couldn't tolerate that. I thought we'd come to an understanding this morning, but I guess Kristin didn't see it that way. If she ever focused her powers of deduction on something positive, she'd make a good detective or a reporter. I just didn't want to be the subject of her scrutiny.

Because the days were getting shorter, it was full-on nightfall by five o'clock, which meant I was sitting out alone in the dark. I should have been worried, or at least more cautious, but I felt safe with all the extra security patrols on campus. Plus there were still students making their way around the quad, either going to dinner or to friends' rooms to study or socialize. I watched them move about, recognizing some from my classes, though thankfully no one I actually knew. The last thing I needed was to answer more questions about my presence, especially since whatever I would say would get back to Kristin, thus giving her more fodder for her crusade to dig up every last scrap of information about my life.

I was lost in my own thoughts when I felt the hairs on my arms stand up and a deep voice caressed my ear.

"What are you doing out here like this?"

I breathed in his musky scent and smiled to myself. "Waiting for you," I murmured.

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and reached down to take my hand, pulling me to my feet. "It's dangerous out here."

"I know. There was another murder last night."

He began to lead me across the quad toward the gate. "You know about that?"

"It was in the news. How did you know?"

He hesitated for a moment before replying. "The same way you did. "

"Do you think it's a serial killer?"

He quirked a brow, as though he hadn't considered that angle. "I think it's someone who enjoys what he or she does."

I supposed that made sense. Serial killers must take a certain perverse pleasure in what they do, otherwise why do it? "Do you think there will be more killings?"

His reply was quick. "If they aren't stopped, yes." He looked down at me and squeezed my hand. "Do you really want to talk about this right now?"

"No." We passed through the gates and turned in the opposite direction to downtown. "Where are you taking me?"

"To my house."

I bit back a squeal of delight; I was finally going to see where he lived. "Is it far?"

"A little over a mile. You up for that?"

I nodded. "Sure. How long have you lived there?"

He grew quiet, and I wondered if he was going to answer at all when he finally replied, "I'm not really sure. It seems like a long time, and yet, it's like it was only yesterday that I found this place."

"Time is like that sometimes," I agreed. "What made you decide on it?"

"It reminded me of home in a way. Large enough to be called a city, but intimate like a small town." He squeezed my hand. "The college is a big reason for that. It keeps things fresh."

"What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "There's a new crop of people every year, bringing their own backgrounds and experiences with them. It makes things…interesting. "

We turned down a tree-lined street where the houses were bigger, sitting back from the road behind wide porches and manicured lawns. An occasional dog bark or the wafting scent of food drifted on the evening breeze, awakening a pang of homesickness in me. Unfortunately for me, there was no home anymore. Just the impersonal, ivy-covered halls of Whitfield College, and not for the first time I felt a surge of panic at what awaited me after I graduated. No home, no family, no safety net. I'd put all my eggs into this one basket hoping for a better future. What if I failed?

"Hey? You okay?"

I smiled up at Julianus and nodded. "Yeah. It's just, this neighborhood reminds me of my old home."

"You miss it." It was a statement rather than a question, and I wondered if he was talking about himself.

We turned down another street that led up a gradually steepening hill. The houses were farther apart here and less well-maintained, crouched among the sprawling branches of ancient oaks that joined overhead to form a living tunnel that blocked out the moon and stars. The milky light from the iron lamp posts cast a dim glow that barely made it to the sidewalk, rendering them practically useless.

"This is the oldest neighborhood in the city," Julianus said, his voice hushed. "Most of these houses have been here since the college was built."

I moved closer to him, suddenly feeling vulnerable. Overhead, the lonely hoot of an owl echoed in the darkness, adding to my unease, and I hoped we were close to our destination.

As if to answer my prayers, Julianus turned up a narrow drive, leading me through a row of tall hedges that leveled out onto a compact lawn. The house ahead was a stone mansion, three stories in height. It reminded me of an old church with its arched windows and steep gables.

"It's called gothic revival," he murmured as he pulled me up the wide steps to the double doors. "It was built by one of the founders of the city."

He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the doors, pushing them open and standing aside for me to enter. I glanced up at him before stepping into an arched entranceway that opened into a high-ceilinged foyer. A brass and frosted glass chandelier hung in the middle, illuminating walls papered in a lush floral print and gleaming wood floors. A hallway led straight back to the rest of the lower floor, flanked by a tall, ornately carved staircase.

Julianus closed the doors behind us and watched me, waiting for my reaction. I turned to him and smiled.

"It looks exactly like I would picture your house to be."