“Cult?” Tiffany asked, her eyes widening.
The guy I was talking to gave me an annoyed look. “That’s not exactly fair. Or appropriate.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “How would you describe it?”
“More like a frat,” he said. “Minus the initiations and douchebag stuff. Very laid back.”
“With an emphasis on the laying?” I retorted.
His eyes narrowed. “See, now you’re upsetting me a little, and I’m a really hard sort of guy to upset.”
“Great,” I said. Trying to sound upbeat, not nearly as intimidated as I felt. “Your fault, really. You’re the one who approached me. You’re keeping me from leaving.”
“Now you’re being argumentative,” he said. He flashed another winsome smile. “Don’t do that.”
“Where’s this discussion going?” I asked.
“We’re chatting, friendly-like,” he said.
“What’s the goal?” I asked, “What are you after?”
“Well, I figure maybe your friend could come with us, and you, me, and some of my lady companions here could go have a private chat.”
The lady companions. They weren’t even trying to look like any private chat we had wouldn’t end up with me bleeding or dead.
“I don’t know,” Tiffany said. “We were having a nice chat, and we were going to go out for coffee.”
“Coffee with friends can happen any time,” one of the guys said.
“Tiffany,” I said, “Cult.”
The idea seemed to knock some sense into her.
“I’d like to say we’re more like a frat minus all the stuff that makes frats unpleasant,” another guy chimed in. “Question is, how often do you have a number of rather attractive young men expressing interest in you?”
I could see Tiffany trying to process the idea, as if it was a first-ever.
Fuck them, toying with her. Tiffany seemed pretty cool. I was not going to see her thrown to the wolves. Or whatever animals these guys were.
“I don’t think you’re getting the message, here,” I said.
Physical contact was not a thing I really did, but I reached out and found Tiffany’s hand. I gripped it, then pulled her closer. When she was beside me, I put my arm around her shoulders.
She kind of froze, more than anything else.
“We’re going out to coffee soon, because I think she’s cool, and I’d like to get to know her better. You’re being exactly the kind of douches you’re professing not to be.”
“Let me at him,” one of the girls said.
The lead-guy looked at me, “You know who she is?”
“I think I know what she is,” I said.
Which sounded pretty bad without context.
“I’m having a really hard time thinking of why I shouldn’t just let her at you,” he said.
Fuck. With Tiffany right here? I couldn’t do anything with her nearby. I-
The window five feet to my left shattered violently. Then another.
The group reacted, and the guy with his hand on the door moved it.
My arm still around Tiffany, I hauled the door open, forcing his gloved hand to slide rather than hold it shut, and hurried inside.
Coming face to face with Isadora. Human, but her face and hair were very much recognizable.
“Hi,” I said.
“Bringing trouble to my doorstep, Mr. Thorburn?” she asked. “And… female guests?”
“She’s the one who painted the thing you saw last night.”
“Mmm,” she said, “It was good. Not my style, but good. One moment.”
She walked past me, approaching the group of young men and women, who were on the other side of the door.
They backed away a bit as she stepped through. The door clicked shut.
I could only barely hear her. “Certain oversight at this University has been gracious enough to allow you to prowl on this campus. If you would like to make an issue of it-”
“No, ma’am,” the lead guy said.
“Behave, and don’t overstep your bounds,” she said. “Or privileges can be rescinded.”
They scattered.
The door opened. “A window was broken.”
“Wasn’t us,” Tiffany said. “It just happened. I didn’t see how.”
“I’m sure,” Isadora said. “I know what you’re going to ask, Mr. Thorburn.”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have a sense of the big picture. Or just what it means when you come to my doorstep, smelling like… something foul. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
“He… doesn’t smell,” Tiffany said. “You don’t have to be such a bitch.”
Wait, what? This wasn’t the Tiffany I’d been talking to just seconds ago.
“There’s an irony in those two statements being paired together. Nonetheless, I’ll cut this short, so you can be on your way. No. Not with the sort of business your family has done. If you try anything, I’m going to work against you, if anything.”
“If you could put me in contact with some of the other locals-”
“No, Mr. Thorburn, and goodbye.”
With that, she was gone.
All for nothing.
“What was that about?” Tiffany asked. “What a bitch.”
I sighed.
“I’m not sure why she reacted like that,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. Sorry about all that.”
“It’s okay.”
“The arm over your shoulder-”
“It’s- that’s more okay than the rest of it,” she said, eyes dropping to the ground. She stammered a bit. “I don’t- I’m not sure that makes sense.”
“It does,” I said. “Listen, I did promise coffee, and it looks like I’m clear.”
“Yes,” she said, and she smiled in a shy way that made her eyes squint.
I could see why Alexis had connected to her. Tiffany and I were similar in some ways, different in others. Alexis hadn’t been completely off her rocker when she’d considered introducing us. Only just a bit off her rocker in the how of it, maybe. This wouldn’t be an obligation coffee, or a rescue-coffee. I was pretty confident in that, now.
I just wished I could feel half as confident about the radiation and its momentary influence on her.
Or about Rose, who might have suffered for those two windows she’d broken.
Or the deadline, and the Imp we had to figure out how to bind.
Or anything, really.