Eddie

I have discovered that Patricia and I have a pattern.

We'll be fine; we'll be walking or talking or laughing or making out or anything really, and it'll be fine. And then we'll have some attempt at a meaningful conversation or go a bit farther than we have before, and something will happen before we can finish and then she'll avoid me. Or she'll avoid me all on her own, without any prompting from outside forces whatsoever. She hadn't so much as looked at me since yesterday afternoon, when we found Victor in Nina's room. I'd managed to sneak another kiss right after we sent him out, but she'd quickly pushed me away and sent me to the end of the hallway to make sure he wasn't coming in again.

This was the third time this had happened this semester, and I'd be lying if I said it wasn't frustrating. Which was why I was currently playing Tetris on my phone as I leaned against her locker, waiting for her to come over once the next bell rang. Because she liked to have her backpack as empty as possible for fifth period drama, she always left her book for sixth period world history in her locker, meaning she would need to come get it.

The bell blared out through the now repaired loudspeakers, and students immediately began trickling out of doors up and down the hallway. I did my best to look like I was still focused on my game, when in reality I was straining my peripheral vision to the best of its abilities looking for my girlfriend.

I waited until the halls had thinned back out to their usual capacity before shoving my phone in my pocket and heading over to her fifth period class. Maybe she'd decided to ditch again, seeing as I'd never even found out why she left the first time. As classroom doors slammed shut I kept my pace leisurely, utterly unhurried. I'd realized last week that I was disappointingly low on tardies this semester, and firmly resolved to stack a few up. I neared the now empty drama room as the bell rang, turning the corner to see Patricia flat against the wall, clearly eavesdropping. I had half a mind to call out to her in a loud voice, just to see her jump, but fought the urge. Instead I crept over, keeping my steps as silent as possible until I was directly behind her. "What'cha doin?" I breathed.

She jumped and swung around, half a second away from punching me in the face before she saw it was me. My shoulders started shaking as I tried to rein in my laughter and she scowled, shoving against my shoulder. "Damn it Eddie, that wasn't funny!"

She kept her voice quiet and I took the hint. "Yes it was," I said. "I for one found it very funny. In fact, I found it so funny—"

Patricia clapped a hand over my mouth. "Would you shut up?" she muttered, leaving her hand on my mouth as she focused back in on her conversation. I was tempted to lick her hand, but opted to listen with her. As my ears began picking up voices I did a double take. I recognized some of them, but one in particular struck me.

"Victor, I thought we were done with this." He sounded tired, but more or less holding firm in whatever argument they were having.

"Come now Eric." The voice was female. One of the teachers, maybe? "The gods call to you as they call to us. Are you really going to run from them?"

"You know as well as I do this is my only shot." Victor. "When you prepare to enter the realm of Anubis, what do you want to be able to say about your life?"

"I will be able to say in no uncertain terms that I put my students in no further danger!" My eyes widened. Rarely did I hear that tone come out of Eric's mouth, that steel. "I don't know what madness has come over you Victor, but this is my school, and these students are under my protection, and I will not allow you to enact this insanity for the sake of a blasted book!"

"The Book of the Dead is not, as you so eloquently put it, 'a blasted book'," the woman crooned. "Believe me when I say my partner and I would make your assistance worth your while."

"Over my dead body," was the headmaster's reply. I exhaled sharply through my nostrils, wishing he had used a different phrase, then mentally kicked myself for taking it so seriously.

"What of the dead body of your son who you seem to be so keen on keeping from us?" That simpering female voice. I blinked, unsure if I'd heard her correctly, but from the way Patricia whipped her head towards me, the hand on my mouth slightly tensing, I knew I hadn't misheard anything.

"You do not touch my son." Never before had I heard Eric's voice so deadly. "Edison has no part in this, and if you bring him into it you will never set foot within a hundred miles of this campus again."

"Blast it Eric he's already a part of it!" Victor roared. Patricia jumped. "He is Osirian, like it or not, he and Nina Martin are bound by an inextricable chain and you will convince him help us or so help me gods we will go through with our plan for Halloween without you, no matter the consequences."

What plans? Patricia and I looked at each other as we both leaned a bit closer, urging them to say it, say it…

Her phone chose that moment to start ringing.

Patricia swore under her breath, scrambling in her bag and yanked it out, ignoring the call, but the damage was done. The headmaster and Victor rounded the corner, frowns on their faces. No sign of the woman they'd been talking with. Victor stuck out his chest, folding his arms as he glared down his nose at us. "What do you two think you're doing here?"

I kept my eyes off my – Eric's ashen face, training them on Victor. Patricia spoke first as I struggled for words. "We were looking! For a place – to have a, um…"

"Private conversation," I cut in. "Teenage drama, you know how it is." I flashed my most charming smile, willing innocence into my face.

Victor raised a bushy eyebrow. "And why, pray tell, could this conversation not wait until after the school day was finished?"

I clasped my hands together, putting on my best 'I'm superior and also innocent so please don't realize I'm lying' airs. "Well, you see Victor, conversations like this require a certain mood. And once the atmosphere hits the right mood and the prior conversation that lead up to the conversation hits a certain spot where you just know you have to pause, you have to find a spot to keep the momentum going otherwise you'll never have the conversation and then you just wind up in the same spot a few days later—"

"Enough, Mr. Miller, I understand the concept." Victor's face had been growing steadily more purple the longer I'd talked, and I bit down on a smirk. "Get to class, both of you. I'll deal with you later."

Not needing to be told twice, she grabbed my hand and we turned and walked back down the hall as quickly as we could while still looking casual.

"Edison! A moment please!"

I barely turned my head, plastering on a grin. "Sorry, gotta get to class! Later dad!" The word was ash in my mouth.

We turned the corner but didn't stop walking until we were in the main hallway, when we both loosed a collective breath. "Well that was fairly dramatic," I said. Patricia glared at me, but didn't pull her hand out of mine, which I assumed was a good sign. "I don't suppose you heard what were they talking about?" She shook her head and I grimaced. "Wonderful. I'll tell Nina to have the nuclear bunker ready come Halloween."

My girlfriend frowned at me. "I feel like that's a tad extreme."

I snorted. "You're kidding right? Shall we review Victor's previous plans? What should we start with, the ones that almost got people killed or the one that actually got a person killed?"

She rolled her eyes. "Look we'll figure out what we can about whatever they're planning before Halloween, but for now let's just keep it to ourselves alright? Nina's got enough to worry about as it is."

I turned the idea over in my head before giving a nod of consent. "But if we haven't figured it out the week before, we at least tell Sibuna he's planning something. Victor and whoever that other lady was. Deal?"

"Deal." She turned and used our joined hands to tug me over to her locker, which she promptly spun open.

My throat dried up a bit. She was obviously in a good mood right now, and I was loath to cause her to release my hand, but we did need to have a talk. Preferably soon, definitely in private. I gazed longingly at her mouth, allowing myself a few seconds to stare at it before opening mine and ruining whatever calm we'd somehow reached. "I think we need to talk."

The hand inside her locker froze, and the one clasped in mine immediately went taut before she withdrew it and used it to rummage in her locker. Her head shifted ever so slightly so that a curtain of hair fell to block part of her face from view as she asked, voice steady, "About?"

As I tried to pluck out the right words from the hurricane raging inside my head, I decided I really should have thought of what to say before bringing this up. Some practicing in front of a mirror may not have been overrated either. "I need to know why you keep pushing me away."

Her shoulders lifted and dropped, hands still moving things around in her locker. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do." I waited for her to deny it again, but she just keep looking around in her locker for something I had a feeling she'd never find. "Yacker." Nothing. "Patricia."

"What?" She turned to glare at me, eyes alight with anger. "What is it Eddie? Are you mad I'm not ready to have sex yet? That I don't want to spend every single minute of every single goddamn day with you? Or maybe it's that I actually have an identity that exists separate from my relationship with you? Is it that—"

"Do you ever stop to breathe?" I demanded. Her accusations had caught me off guard, enough that I'd been to stunned to say anything at first while she railroaded me. "Patricia where are you even getting these ideas from?" She opened her mouth – presumably to yell at me again – and I cut her off. "If this is about you telling me you've never had sex before, newsflash, I already knew that."

Her mouth abruptly slammed shut and her hands curled into fists. "Who told you that?" she demanded, her voice low. Angry. Scared.

I swallowed back a sigh of exasperation. "No one told me anything. I figured it out." She remained frozen, a very angry, somewhat embarrassed statue, and I kept going. "Look you told me I was your first kiss. So unless British relationships have shockingly different bases than American ones, it would stand to reason you've never had sex before."

Her fingers flexed before reforming a fist and I sighed. "Look Yacker, I'm trying here. OK? I'm trying so damn hard with you, but you have to find a way to meet me halfway. You can't be my girlfriend one day and then totally ignore me the next, that's not how a relationship works."

"Which I suppose you would know," she said acidly, "Given that you have roughly fourteen failed ones."

"Jesus Christ – really Patricia?" I demanded, fighting against the anger rising up into my head, clouding my thoughts. I didn't know anyone else who could get under my skin this easily, this deeply or quickly. She thrust her chin out, eyes glittering with defiance. I bit down on my cheek, hard, before speaking. "What do you want me to say? That I regret it? That I'm ashamed of what I did, ashamed of myself, for what I did? Because believe me Patricia, there is not a day that goes by that I don't remember the things I've done and hate myself for doing them, so whatever you feel towards me for it cannot possibly match the disgust I feel for myself."

Her face had remained stony while I talked, but by the end of my rant her eyes had narrowed. "And what, exactly, did you do that was so awful?"

"None of your business," I snapped, mentally cursing. I hadn't meant to tell her all those things, it was too much too fast and I was not ready for her to know the unfiltered truth of the things I'd done.

She snorted. "Right, and I'm the one with trust issues."

"Well then I guess we both have issues," I said, working to keep my gaze squarely on her eyes. That damn mouth of hers.

"So what are we going to do about it?" A challenge. Everything was always a challenge with her.

I sighed in exasperation and leaned my back against the lockers. "I don't know."

She crossed her arms. "Well I don't know either and I don't care enough to figure it out."

The words hit me like a physical blow, each one a slap to the face and I jerked back around to face her. "You don't care?" I knew on some level my mouth had formed the words and that my vocal cords had pushed them out of my lips, but my brain seemed to be disconnected from my body, and I was watching the events unfold from afar.

Patricia's eyes still glittered – not with defiance at all anymore, but something else – and she stubbornly set her jaw. "About this relationship? Not enough."

I felt a hollow laugh scrape out of my throat. "Well then what the hell are we even doing?"

She shrugged. Shrugged. Each beat of my heart was a hammer to my chest and she was shrugging. "So if you're the expert, then what comes next?"

A hot, cloudy feeling was taking over my brain. "Well in my experience this is where one of us storms away and we never talk to each other again."

Patricia jerked at that. "Never what?"

Another empty chuckle. "You had to have guessed none of them had happy endings."

Ask her to take it back. Ask her to care. Ask her to care. Ask her to care, care, care. The words thrummed through me over and over again, timed to the rhythm of my pulse. But I knew deep in my bones that I could beg her on my knees but I could not make Patricia come to me. She had to want it. Like magic, she seemed to respond, "I don't want to never talk to you again."

I spread my arms. "Well then what do you want?" My voice broke a little at the end. "Because I can't keep guessing forever."

"I don't know." The words fell from her lips – God, those lips – to crush the remains of that thing in my chest. "I don't know what I want."

This conversation was not finished. Not nearly. But I suddenly found myself unable to be around her for another minute, not when every second I looked at her now felt like needles in my eyes. Not when just minutes ago I'd held her hand, and now if I so much as touched her she'd probably snap at me. "Well you let me know when you figure it out."

I turned was started walking down the hallway, ignoring the buzzing in my ears, my heart begging me not to leave everything hanging like that, to get some sort of definitive answer one way or the other.

I was so wrapped up in my head that I didn't hear her footsteps coming up behind me and then her hand was on my shoulder and she tugged me around to face her.

A tired 'what' was rising to my lips, demanding to know what else she could want when she'd just sucked all the joy from my system, but her eyes were still shining, this time with anger. "You are such an idiot," she muttered, not even giving me a chance to ask for clarification before she obliterated all conscious thought in my being by fitting her mouth to mine.

I was rigid at first, unwilling to give in to it, waiting for her to pull away. But then her fingers ran through my hair and her teeth were tugging at my bottom lip and a sound escaped somewhere from the back of my throat. I was on fire, I was no longer a human being but molten lava that had somehow managed to retain my previous human shape. I let my bag drop to the ground as one hand wrapped around to fist itself in her hair, the other cupping her neck, trying to move her, press her towards me.

I needed her closer.

I grabbed her by the elbows and steered her backwards, and as we neared the lockers she started to break away, confusion drawing new lines across her face but I grabbed her lips with mine again before she could voice a question, pinning her to the lockers to further drag her up against me, sending flames racing all throughout my nerve endings. She released a low moan into my mouth as her lips opened up, her tongue seeking mine and I shuddered with the pleasure of it. Her foot lifted to wrap itself around my leg as my hands roved across her neck, her cheeks, her arms, her back, her waist. All of her. I wanted all of her.

The thought sent a whirl of memories through me that I wasn't ready to relive and so I kissed her harder, opened my mouth wider, twisted my fingers deeper into her hair, blocking out all thought but the feel of her skin her hair her mouth.

We finally broke apart, lips swollen, struggling for air, and the realization of what we'd done dawned on me and I groaned. "Patricia," I gasped, leaning my forehead against hers, staring at her eyes, her mouth, her cheeks. I found one of her hands and wrapped it in one of mine, desperate to hold onto whatever contact I could. "What do you want from me?"

She licked her lips and another wave of heat coursed through me. "I don't want to break up."

Those might very well be the most beautiful syllables I'd ever heard. "Anything else?"

Her tongue darted out again and I suppressed the urge to catch it. "I don't want to have another fight like this."

I closed my eyes and breathed in once, deeply. "That means talking."

"I know," she said.

"Soon would be better."

"How does right now work?" I raised my eyebrows and she shrugged. "After a kiss like that, do you honestly expect me to be able to focus on history? Don't be stupid."

A laugh popped out of me, a welcome change from the previous atmosphere and she grinned.

"So how does this work exactly?"

I raised my head to look at her. We'd gone to the old library to make sure we wouldn't be interrupted. It no longer housed ancient Egyptian artifacts, and so there weren't locks or guards to get past, but someone still came out to clean it once a week, so students occasionally came over to make out or work on the occasional project or just to talk.

During our walk over I'd tried to get my body temperature back to some semblance of normal, while Patricia had walked silently next to me. The silence had continued once we'd arrived, so the main difference was the fire that had flooded my veins while we were kissing had been replaced with a nervous buzz. We'd been just sort of meandering around the room, both of us waiting for the other to talk first.

She shrugged. "As you've so thoroughly deduced, I don't have much experience in this department. So what happens now? Do you talk first? Do I talk first? Does one of us start talking and then we spontaneously break into a dramatically choreographed musical number about our feelings for each other?"

I laughed. "Well remember I don't really have a whole lot of experience either."

She raised an eyebrow. "So we just sit here in awkward silence until curfew then?"

Growing listless, I shrugged and gravitated towards one of the chairs, and Patricia followed, sitting across from me. I tapped my fingers on the armrest, thinking of how these things normally went on TV. "We could say one thing we're happy with and then one thing we have a problem with?"

Patricia smirked at me. "Really?" she said. "That's the best you can come up with?"

I shrugged and the smirk slowly fell away. She sighed. "Well, hell. Alright fine, I'll go first. I like how…" Patricia cast her eyes about the room. "I like how I can be myself around you." Her cheeks turned gloriously red as she said this, and she refused to look at me. "I don't like how… I just…" she took a deep breath. "I feel like there's something about what you did with those girls that you don't want me to know and it's leaking over into our relationship, but since you won't tell me what it is we can't fix it. Instead we just have a different problem crop up every twenty minutes that leads to either discussions about our emotions or arguments, neither of which I enjoy."

"I feel like it's not a different problem, if it's rooted back to the same problem," I said. She glared at me and I raised my hands in surrender. "OK, fine, my turn. I like the kissing." Patricia blushed even harder and I smirked internally. "I don't like how you tend to pull the plug on us every time I piss you off."

She frowned and I could sense her proverbial hackles raising. "I do not!"

"Yeah you do. All the time. It's annoying."

The frown deepened and I mentally sighed. "Well excuse me for actually reacting when I'm irritated. God forbid I should actually act angry when I'm angry, I don't know what is wrong with me."

"See? You're doing it right now," I said, cutting off her monologue.

Patricia scowled at me. "I am not."

"Well you're about to. Another few seconds and you would have crossed your arms and been a statue for the rest of an extremely unproductive conversation."

She did, in fact, cross her arms, looking most displeased as she did so. "Well what would be a, 'productive alternative' then?" she demanded, using over exaggerated air quotes.

"You could try remembering you're my girlfriend?" I suggested. "When I piss you off, you're allowed to be pissed, you can ignore me or whatever, but don't act like we're strangers. And maybe if it takes me longer than twenty-four hours to figure out, tell me what I did?"

Patricia let out a much-aggrieved sigh and I swallowed a laugh. I was asking for communication, not a kidney. "I will… work on it," she acquiesced. I grinned, feeling proud of us, but then Patricia opened her mouth again. "And what about you?"

I knew what she was talking about but pretended not to. "What about me?"

She rolled her eyes. "Am I right? Is there something you did with those girls that's affecting what happens between you and me? And judging by what you said in school, it's at least some what of a big deal."

I blew a breath out through my nose, ignoring how my chest tightened when she said 'you and me'. "I was hoping that stuff had somehow gone over your head," I admitted. Patricia looked amused at that, but stayed silent. I sighed. "There were… certain, things, certain, certain events that transpired during that time period. I am not proud of what I did, and it's not something I'm ready to relive, so when I say I can't talk about it that is all on me and has nothing to do with you."

She pursed her lips together and I forced myself to look only at her eyes. "So there's something that's happened that's causing problems, but you won't tell me what it is, and you want me to believe your reason for not telling me has nothing to do with me."

Well it's partly because I don't want you to see me for the despicable human being I am, but yeah that's pretty much it. That was the first answer that popped into my mind. Instead I gave a self-deprecating grin and said "Basically?"

Patricia tilted her head back, considering, then sighed. "OK, fine. If you're not ready or whatever, I'll respect that. I've got some stuff I'm not ready to tell you either."

I ignored the relief those words ignited. "Alright, this seems to be a pretty good system. I reckon we give it until next period and then head back."

And so we did, trading our likes and dislikes, each of us promising to do our best to improve on the other's problems before heading back to school. I mean, we made out for a little while after we finished, but I felt we'd earned it.

Nina is not a fun person to be around when she's stressed. Mostly, but not entirely, because her brain has the rather depressing tendency to jump straight to worst case scenarios at every possible opportunity, and said scenario tends to keep getting worse and worse until she's convinced we're all going to die.

"Maybe you've got an anxiety disorder," I interrupted.

Nina, who had been devolved from thinking of solutions to panicking about the newest task to a diligently listening Amber, turned to me with a scowl. "Excuse me?"

I shrugged. "Seems reasonable. The rest of us are more or less calm, and meanwhile you're over there planning out our eulogies. A disorder may not be entirely out of bounds."

She rolled her eyes. "That's rubbish," she snapped before turning back to Amber only to clap a hand over her mouth as Amber shrieked excitedly.

Joy winced, removing her hands from her ears as Amber started pointing repeatedly at Nina. "What?" Joy demanded.

Amber stopped pointing but looked no less radiant, standing from the couch. "Everyone! Everyone! Announcement! Nina has finally been converted!" She squealed.

Patricia, Fabian, Joy and I looked at her in confusion as Amber beamed. "Converted how, exactly?" asked Fabian.

Amber whirled around to him excitedly. "She said, and I quote, 'that's rubbish'," declared Amber, sounding ecstatic. "Rubbish, Fabian, she said 'that's rubbish'!"

Patricia started laughing, Joy rolled her eyes, and Fabian looked amused at the whole ordeal. I clapped a hand to my chest and mimed falling out of my chair as Nina vainly tried to defend herself. I pointed at her accusingly, pretending to choke. "Traitor," I rasped out, causing her to laugh.

I stayed on the ground, pretending to spasm as Amber took full credit for the transformation, before eventually flopping into stillness as I 'died'. Patricia took the opportunity to kick me in the leg and I sat up, disgruntled. "Ow." I pointed at Nina accusingly. "I have been betrayed," I announced, putting on a wounded face. "I give you three months before you're drinking tea and talking with an accent."

"It was a one time slip I promise!" Nina looked at me beseechingly, fighting laughter.

"You know we don't have a whole lot of time before Jerome and Mara come back." Joy's voice cut through the merriment as we all sobered up. Alfie could only keep them busy for so long. "We should really get back to trying to figure out what to do about the new task."

After the door had opened last night, we'd been greeted with total darkness on the other side. We'd fought over who would go through first before Fabian volunteered, much to Nina's detriment. He'd gone through, declared himself to still be alive, and the rest of us had followed. When the last of us had gone through however, there had been a sudden flood of light, blinding us. Once we'd regained our sight, we found that the group had been split into two different rooms, unable to see each other, barely able to hear each other through the wall. If Amber hadn't thought to text Nina (how she had cell service I don't know), we may have assumed the other half had vanished. Unable to think of what to do next, we'd familiarized ourselves with our new surroundings until we'd woken up. Today during lunch, Amber had suggested that Alfie distract Mara and Jerome after school while the rest of us tried to figure out what was happening now. So far all we'd managed to do was compare rooms, watch Patricia and Joy compete to see who could balance the most pencils on their face, and see Nina almost hyperventilate. Well not really. But I digress.

"If there was a way out of the other room, there's a way out of this one," Nina said. She kept repeating this, as though if she said it often enough the answer would appear out of thin air.

"You keep saying that," said Joy. "Maybe it's a trick. Maybe Sally already got what she wanted and now she's toying with us." Tired of calling her 'the green-skinned person' or 'Lizard Lady', Amber had decided that the woman would henceforth be known as Sally and promptly texted it out to the rest of us a few days ago.

"Until we know there's no way out, we should try to find one," said Fabian. "I agree with Nina."

"Shocking," Joy mumbled. Patricia elbowed her and Fabian's forehead tightened. Nina, in what I thought was a remarkable show of self-restraint, let it slide. "Moving on," she declared.

"What if you try and talk to Nepthys again?" asked Patricia. "Maybe she can tell us what's going on."

Nina started to shrug and then shook her head, before biting her lower lip. "Maybe. Last time she came to show me about the charm she said she was too weak to give me much help, and that was almost a month ago."

"You'll never know if you don't try," Patricia pushed.

Nina sighed. "Well yeah, but there's the small problem of I've never really been able to contact her before. She's always come to me."

"You could check the Book, see if it's got anything." suggested Fabian.

Before we could start to debate this new method, the front door swung open, and we all started to busy ourselves with school work as Mara and Jerome entered, both of them seeming disgruntled with Alfie. "Don't you 'come on Mara' me," Mara snapped at him. "We spent almost two hours looking for that frog you stole from the biology lab before you realized it never left the room."

"It was an honest mistake!" Alfie protested.

I shared a look with Patricia, both of us grinning as Jerome went to the kitchen and Mara stomped upstairs, Alfie on her heels still pleading his case.

Jerome tossed and caught a jar of peanut butter, before turning to where we were all busily working in the living room. "If you people had anything to do with this, I will be most displeased," he said idly, grabbing a spoon and heading over to the table.

Joy raised her eyebrows at him. "Are you going to eat that plain out of the jar?" she asked incredulously.

He nodded sagely and Joy shuddered in disgust as she turned back to pre-calc.