Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions (Wicked Lovely 5.50)

The door swung open slowly and Joe came crawling out, his fishnets torn and holey. “I hid when he went after David,” he admitted sheepishly. “Sorry, buddy,” he said, casting David a baleful look.

David groaned loudly.

“Where’s Dickson and Kelly?” Joe asked.

“Already out. You want to go find them?”

He nodded, and David groaned again. Joe led the way to the front door. “Well, this has been the best night of my life,” I said, as we limped toward it. “I think I’m in the mood to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show now. Maybe I’ll even go to next year’s convention. You guys want to go with me?”

Joe started to say something, but as he opened the door, we were greeted by a new sight. And a new sound.

Ten little Girl Scouts in perfect green sashes and perfect green bows with bared teeth and raised hands lunged at us, growling in unison.

Troop 409.

I looked back and forth between Joe and the boy, calculating my chances of getting out of here with the least number of flesh wounds. Wondering who was going to get the worst of it.

It was David who surprised me.

“You little bitches,” he said, almost growling.

“Ready to do this thing?” I asked Joe. “We’re going to have to make a run for it and if you’re going to leave us behind, tell me now.”

Joe stood taller and straightened his shoulders, eyes turning completely black. Another neat vampire side effect. Impressive. Apparently, he’d decided to atone for his act of cowardly cupboardness.

“It’s only fair. You didn’t leave us behind, so we can’t leave you.”

The Girl Scouts snarled, moving closer, and I knew my night was far from over. “Okay,” I said, preparing to head into battle.

I knew my role. The one I played perfectly. And this time, I had backup.

“Bait me.”

IV League

by Margaret Stohl

I.

he thing I mostly care about,” I repeat, “is the food.” Hopper ignores the slick pamphlet in my hand. Instead, he pulls his hoodie closer around his face, digging his ratty sneakers into the ratty back of the green upholstered seat in front of him. “Yeah? You checkin’ out the eats up North? Thinkin’ of knockin’ back a six-pack of blue bloods, Wrennie?”

“Maybe,” I say, looking out the window. The sign says massachusetts avenue, which, if you think about it, is not the most original street name in the world, especially for a town that’s supposed to be so smart and all. “But I hear you eat like crap up here.” Our bus inches down the road, and a dirty city square comes into view. Long-haired street guitarists pull the crowd into distinct encampments. The lone juggler doesn’t stand a chance.

Miranda Cooper giggles in front of us. Natalie Anne Rutledge, one seat over, shoots Hop and me the same old look she’s been shooting us since the day we met, except now all you can see is eyeliner. She sighs because she’s the expert at pretty much everything, which I guess understandably calls for a whole lot of sighing.

“Don’t you know, Maynard Hopper Wilson? That’s Harvard Yard over there, behind that gate. Har-vard Yard.” She says it like it’s a hot guy or a hot car or something, which it isn’t. Still. Gyll-en-haal. Fer-arr-i. As far as I can tell, it’s just a gate, and not even as nice a gate as they have over in Charleston, where the iron’s all twisted up like pearls and ribbons around every window and every door.

“So?” Hopper shrugs under his hood.

“So, dumbucket, old money just tastes better.” First her tongue, then her teeth slide out over her Dr Pepper-Lip-Smackered lips, and I can tell the kill is coming. “But I guess y’all wouldn’t know much about that, would you?”

“You still talking to us, Natalie Anne? ’Cause you know we stopped listening about two hundred miles back.” I look past her, out the window, and she sighs. Again.

Hopper grunts, pulling the strings of his sweatshirt even tighter. Only in this conversation is Hopper suddenly Maynard Hopper Wilson, and me Wren Lola Lafayette. Natalie Anne Rutledge never calls a person by just one name. She’s called us plenty of other names, Hopper and me, but none of them are worth repeating. Hopper because he’s Hopper, poor as church dirt and dumb enough not to care. Me because all I got is a name, and that’s the most part of what you need to know about my no-good Breather parents, according to my Grandma Hoban. She’s not one for what she calls “reachin’.” Especially not when it comes to a stray like me, left behind on her doorstep seventeen years ago. Might as well be an empty bottle of O-Pos, from way back when the bloodmobile still came around.

She didn’t want me to go visiting colleges in the first place, not up North. “Bloom where you’re planted. That’s what my momma used to say.” Her momma also used to say things like “A woman’s work is not to work” and “Get U.S. out of the U.N.,” but I didn’t think pointing that out was going to change my Grandma Hoban’s mind anytime soon. So I did what any college-bound, twelfth-grade Drinker would do. Lied to the teacher. Forged my grandma’s name on my papers. Went out the back screen door while she was watching her shows and got on the bus with the rest of my class from Just Keep On Drivin’, There Ain’t Nothin’ to Look At ’Round Here High School. That’s what our sign says—at least, the graffiti on our sign by the freeway exit to our craphole little town. The one at the other

end of town says no tresspassin will shoot. Tresspassin’s the closest thing we have to a name anymore, now that there aren’t any Breathers left in town to do things like clean graffiti off the road signs. Nobody comes, nobody goes. We got nothing.