Blood Oath

Chapter 6: Into The Unknown

Spinning my heels, I deliberately pivoted. Face-to-face with him now, my amber eyes silently locked with his brown ones, until a question fell from my lips before I could catch it, “How do you know me?”

Just when I quizzed him, he strode in my direction with his trench coat and Fedora hat in hand, drawing to a halt when he was at arm’s length away from me.

“I know all my students. Don’t flatter yourself.” He deflected.

In scrutiny, his eyes wandered everywhere, moving a tad bit closer to me, almost as if he didn’t want a single soul to hear the next thing that came out of his mouth.

“Ever heard of the term Lycan?”

“What?” I wondered.

“You’re different.” He randomly spoke, pushing the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose.

“Not in a good way.” I countered his statement, causing him to chuckle.

“If you have any questions about anything within or outside Psychology, you know just where to find me.” He knowingly intoned, a grave look on his face.

With a small squeeze to my shoulder, he slipped out without another word, rendering me even more puzzled than before.

Already catapulted into a flood of thoughts, I paced out of the place, cheerlessly retiring back to my dorm from a traumatizing day.

Storming in, I slammed the door shut, sinking into the lower bunk bed. Once laid, I covered my eyes with my palms and gripped at my head with a reverberating groan.

Then and there, flashes of that night haunted me, and so did my conversation with the professor. The word Lycan rang over and over again in my head, putting my distraught thoughts in even more of an unraveling frenzy.

You’re different.

His words thundered in my skull as my thoughts spiraled toward the possibility of the professor knowing a truth I didn’t.

He was at the party, so he had to have known something. But, why call me out now?

Unless he was certain of something.

Unless this was all intentional.

My heartbeat quickened, as I failed to conceal the storm brewing inside me.

Almost theatrically timed, Ava entered the dorm, her face a mask of calm I could only dream of wearing, especially now when every part of me was falling apart.

“Hey!” She greeted, placing her backpack on the littered table, and peeling a different jacket from this morning off her skin. Intently examining me, she remarked, “You don’t look so good. Everything okay?”

“Never better.” I swam in denial.

“Mind if I borrow your laptop?” I asked but stood to grab it from the scattered table, not waiting for her permission.

Heavily sighing, I threw myself onto the bed, settling on the spot beside Ava. After, I flipped open the laptop, stunned by what I saw next.

“You’re from Cali, too?” I asked, a flicker of a smile tugging at my lips—a look I didn’t have in what felt like forever—as my eyes laid on the Hollywood sign on her laptop’s lock screen.

Itching at her neck, she answered, “No. I just like the sign. I’m actually from around here.”

Her eyes seemed to look anywhere but mine, as if meeting my eyes would make her confess whatever she was holding back.

“Your password?” I inquired.

“Teacup. In block letters.” She sounded a response with a surprisingly straight face.

Right then, I peered at her intensely until I giggled, “Teacup, really?”

“What? It’s the name of my Rottweiler back at Cal—”

The sudden pause made me lock eyes with her again.

“Home.” She finished, breaking into one of her nervous tendencies with a scratch to her head.

Refocusing my attention on her laptop, my fingers set on the mousepad as I navigated to the web. Driven by fierce curiosity, I drummed the word Lycan into the search bar.

“Lycan or lycanthrope is a human who can transform into a wolf, associated with violence, primal instincts, and a loss of control. Lycans originated from ancient Greek mythology, notably the tale of King Lycaon, who was turned into a wolf by Zeus as punishment. In medieval times, it was widely believed that a full moon triggered transformations.” I read the top results of my search, confusion overwhelming me as I scrolled.

“What does this have to do with anything?” The words tumbled out of my mouth, as I tried to connect the dots.

In the blink of an eye, my disoriented thoughts collided. I looked at Ava, only to find her staring blankly ahead, lost in a depth of thought that made my own turmoil feel almost shallow.

“There’s something you need to—” She began to speak but was interrupted by the sharp ringing of her phone.

As it rang, a coldness crept over her face; her eyes darkened as she examined the caller ID.

She didn’t say a word after that. Instead, she rose, leaving me alone in the room with the deafening uproar of my own thoughts.

Tiredly, I shoved the laptop aside and collapsed on the bed. My emotions were all over the place; frantic and impossible to control. Peace, at that moment, felt like trying to dig through a haystack with bare hands, hell-bent on looking for a needle that may never have been there.

° ° ° ° °

A week later, I stood frozen before the police station, its looming presence gnawing at my resolve. Since the redhead had gone missing, police officers started to frequent school grounds more than ever, making my accusing thoughts claw at my fractured mind.

Now, here I was. Not called for an interrogation, but ready to willingly walk into the station with a confession that could help the search for Anna Fisher or bury me in the rubble of the entire investigation.

Deep down, I feared it was the latter.

My heart sank into my stomach. My cold palms rubbed against each other in a futile attempt to stop the shaky breath that escaped my lips. My face distorted, mirroring the sick churn in my gut.

No amount of pep talk could have prepared me enough.

Trying to shake off anxiety, I forced myself to walk. But then, the familiar scent from the audacious moron hit the air, dragging my senses into a whirlwind of intrigue as my eyes scanned everywhere in search of the source of the elusive fragrance.

Then I saw the same denim-clad backside, the one I had glimpsed on my first day at school.

Without thinking, I followed him into an alley until I was finally close enough to reach out and tap his shoulder, the pull of curiosity unresisting.

But the moment my hand moved, he spun with terrifying speed, gripping my wrist with a force that made my breath catch in my throat.

My heart thudded, my loud footsteps giving me out, yet it was nothing compared to the raw intensity that pulsed between us in that moment.

I was inches from him now. As my eyes wandered up, I realized just how much taller he was, towering over me. My head barely reached his shoulder, his presence overwhelming in every way. But it wasn’t just his height that stole my attention.

His gray eyes pierced into me with a coldness that seemed to carry untold stories. It felt physically impossible to look away, as the air around us thickened with each inhale.

He was heart-stoppingly handsome, his jawline sharp enough to cut glass, his build perfectly chiseled; a magnetic aura that pulled me to him. But as for wickedly charming? That was a no.

I watched as he stared at my wrist, still trapped in his grasp. And then, something strange happened. A dark, swirling circle formed on my skin. Tiny orbiting dots etched themselves into the skin of my wrist, and I inspected it in bewilderment, unable to make sense of what I was seeing.

Soon, a flicker of distress flashed across his cold features as if he, too, was seeing something that shouldn’t be there. I didn’t understand what was happening when he harshly threw my hand away, making me irate.

I was about to protest, when a cruel warning rolled off his tongue, “Stay away from me.”

He tugged his copper brown hair in exasperation, briefly closing his eyes as if wrestling with something deep inside him.

Just as quickly as he appeared, he was gone, leaving me with a thousand questions and a mind still in shambles.

Before I could even begin to process things, a sharp pain exploded through my neck. It felt like a needle stabbing into my vein. My body paralyzed in shock as I gasped.

In an attempt to see who had injected me, a bag was dropped over my head, cutting off the oxygen in my lungs.

Panic took over me wholly, but I was powerless to fight back while roughly dragged away.

Just before everything went black, one thought seared through the chaos:

What did I just walk into?