Patricia

"And you're sure you didn't hear Eddie wake up last night?" pressed Jerome, as we continued to stare at the table in wonder.

"Well I'm not positive, but what was I supposed to do? Tie a bell around his neck?" Fabian defended himself. "He's my roommate not my parolee."

Joy and Mara and I had come down to breakfast this morning expecting breakfast to be proceeding as usual, only to find Trudy dressed in a gigantic apron with some weird-ass hat with a buckle on it, feigning deafness when we asked what was going on with the rest of the dining area. The table was covered in what looked like paper turkeys, and giant orange leaves were scattered around the floor, and multiple American flags were being used as table cloths, as well as being tied around two of the chairs. Considering the fact that Nina had never pulled a stunt like this, we'd immediately assumed it was Eddie.

"Should we sit?" asked Mara, cautiously drawing back one of the chairs.

The rest of us uncertainly followed suit, waiting for Amber, Nina, and Eddie himself to show up and hopefully explain. The girls beat him to it. Amber physically choked in surprise, while when Nina – bags under her eyes prominent as ever – entered, she took a few seconds to register before blinking twice, sighing in defeat, and heading over to one of the Americanized chairs.

"Nina, you wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you?" asked Jerome.

Nina grimaced, propping an elbow on the table and resting her head in her hand. "I want it on record that I begged him not to do it." The rest of us had more questions, but before we could ask them there was the sound of a door slamming shut and music started blasting.

"Oh, say can you see

By the dawn's early light.

What so proudly we hailed

At the twilight's last gleaming."

The song continued, growing louder as Eddie entered, wearing a hat like Trudy's and yet another American flag in the form of a cape, holding an iPod hooked up to a speaker, his right hand over his heart. I glanced at Nina, hoping for clarification, but she'd buried her face in her hands.

"O'er the land of the free!
And the home of the brave!"

The song finally ended and was replaced by tinny sounding applause before Eddie clicked it off, and in one smooth motion, removed his hat and swept into a deep bow, before springing back up and beaming.

"What the hell?" I demanded.

His grin widened. "Happy Thanksgiving everybody!"

As one the table looked desperately to Nina, who at last, reluctantly lowered her hands. "I repeat," she said, "I begged him, not to do it."

"Do what?" asked Amber.

Nina sighed. "It's the fourth Thursday of November, which is when Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. I made the mistake of reminding Eddie that the UK doesn't celebrate this particular holiday, one thing lead to another, and I guess he didn't listen when I asked him not to do it."

Eddie adopted a highly offended expression. "Thanksgiving is a national holiday! It's the singular day of the year Americans have a decent, federally mandated excuse to gorge themselves and yell at our family members over politics and religion! And the fact that you, Nina Martin, have allowed the past two years to go by without so much as eating a drumstick in its honor is a tragedy for which I have no words."

"You seem to have plenty of words to me," I said, smiling sweetly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Joy smirk at me.

My boyfriend pretended not to hear me. "Thanksgiving is celebrated only by America, Liberia, Canada, Saint Lucia, some city in the Netherlands, and a random Australian island. Our holiday is endangered and I will not allow a single American to be docile as it vanishes forever!"

No one spoke at first, seemingly afraid of provoking him. "We're not going to find more of these," Amber held up a cut out of a paper hand turkey, one of a few dozen, "in our lockers or anything, are we?"

Eddie looked affronted. "Of course not. I would never stoop so low. However, I have convinced Trudy," he gestured to the kitchen and our housemother waved merrily, "to help me with a Thanksgiving styled dinner throughout the day, and gained permission from our dear headmaster to miss today's classes in preparation. As such, I will see you in eight hours!"

With a swirl of his star-spangled cape, he flounced – flounced – out of the dining room.

"Nina," Alfie tried tentatively, but our original American held up her hands to ward off potential questioning.

"I am having no part of this," she declared, before downing a glass of water and standing up. "I'll see you guys later. I have to go before he tries to rope me into dressing like a pilgrim. Again." Nina picked her bag up off the floor and headed out, quickly followed by Fabian who paused only to grab a muffin.

The rest of us ate quickly, eager to leave before Eddie returned with inflatable turkeys, period costumes, or god knows whatever else it was he had in mind for the day.

True to his word, Eddie was missing from all of our classes. Aside from this meaning that if Joy hadn't been there I would've died of boredom at least nine times, I felt a little off balance the entire day. I kept turning to look at him only to remember that he wasn't there, or look up from my locker expectantly only for him to be missing. It was like one of my feet had been replaced with a pirate's peg leg without my consent. Other than missing him and worrying about what else Eddie had in store for us, the day was mostly uneventful, except for French class, when our fourth sub since Halloween opened her drawer, only to have a live frog jump out. She shrieked in surprise, and most of the class cast hidden glances at Jerome and Alfie as we laughed. I had a feeling we'd be onto our fifth teacher very shortly.

After coming back to the house though, it seemed our worrying had been for naut. Victor was still off campus, so Eddie hadn't been busted, and he spent most of the day busy in the kitchen with Trudy. That by itself wouldn't have been so bad, but he insisted on playing the most ridiculous songs on loop while he worked, up to and including the American national anthem, a musical American pledge of allegiance, the same three country songs over and over, and what sounded like demonically possessed children singing songs about being grateful. After about an hour I gave up on getting any work done downstairs, and headed up to my room where Joy and Mara had already retreated. I had just gotten settled on my bed in a position where I could sit up straight without getting a crick in my neck, when arguing voices started drifting through the walls from Amber and Nina's room into ours.

Mara had headphones, so she was fine, and Joy was gifted with the ability to tune out of any conversation. However, my headphones were broken and I was gifted with a short temper, and so after less than two minutes I slammed my textbook shut in frustration and marched down the hallway.

"Amber you don't wear suits, and you've got like three dozen sets of shoes to pick from!"

"But none of my shoes match the suits I don't have, so I need a suit and I'll need shoes to go with! And I need the suits!"

"You don't wear suits!"

"I do now!"

"Could you two shut up?" I demanded, throwing open the door. Nina and Amber both snapped around to look at me, each slightly red in the face. "Whatever you're arguing about I can hear it through the wall, so just get it together would you?"

"Patricia," piped up Amber. "Do you think there's anything wrong with girls wearing dress suits?"

"Oh. My. God." Nina threw up her hands. "I never said there was anything wrong with it, just that you as a person don't wear them!"

"Maybe I'm starting!"

"At that price range?"

"ENOUGH!" Both of them turned to look at me. "What the hell is going on?" The two roommates started talking over one another in their haste to explain and I clapped my hands together. "One at a time." I pointed. "Amber, you first."

The blonde tossed Nina a maddeningly superior look that caused me to regret my decision, before flipping her hair and launching into an explanation. She, Amber, had been doing some innocent online shopping for the supper next Saturday when she was meant to meet Alfie's parents as his official girlfriend for the first time. She had called over Nina to get an opinion, and her roommate had promptly emptied the shopping cart and closed the site, in the excuse of saving Amber's credit score. They were now fighting over Nina's reasoning.

Head spinning, I pointed to Nina. "Ok, your turn."

Nina glared at her roommate. "Amber asked me to look at some clothes she was buying. When I saw how much she was planning to spend on said clothes, I made a unilateral decision and decided to let her thank me later."

I sighed. "Really? Guys come on." Because it was itching at me, I had to ask. "Just out of curiosity, how much were you planning on spending?"

Nina answered for her, and the number she announced made me laugh. "Yeah ok. Seriously though, how much?"

Nina looked me dead in the eyes as Amber began to look defensive and I grew uneasy. "You can't be serious."

"I wish I wasn't."

I blinked. "But that's –"

"Uh huh."

"On clothes?"

"Oh yeah."

"Amber!"

"What?" she folded her arms and scowled. "I'm not entitled to a spending spree every now and then?"

"Not when you're spending 86,000 pounds!"

Amber sprung to her feet, cheeks aflame. "Why not?"

"Amber, it's one dinner!" said Nina in exasperation. I got the feeling this wasn't the first time that particular argument had been used. "And besides, have you seen your closet? You have clothes!"

Amber pouted. "Can I at least buy some new heels?"

Nina and I folded our arms and looked at each other, before turning back to Amber. "One pair," she announced. "And I'm going to watch while you buy them."

Amber clapped her hands excitedly as Nina retrieved Amber's laptop from where she'd apparently hidden it under her pillow and returned it. I stayed just long enough to see them sit together on Amber's bed, Nina watching carefully, before returning to my room, waiting for the text that was sure to come. Sure enough, it pinged through a few minutes later.

If we hadn't just done Alfie I'd say it was greed.

I was already texting back. R we 100% sur tht was a sin? Could jst b panicking abt the dnnr.

No way. I know her. She shops when she's stressed, she preens when she panics. This is something else.

Maybe we wer wrong and Alfie didnt hav greed?

Seriously? He spent 500 on socks alone and voluntarily went shopping. The hell else did he have?

Pnt taken. So whts up w Amber?

Well I doubt it's pride, there's zero chance it's lust/anger. Maybe envy?

Idk. Can we wrk ths out l8r? I hve hmwk 2 fnsh.

Yeah whatever. She seems to be fine for now anyway.

I waited to see if any other texts would come through, but none did. I reopened my history book and resumed my notetaking, attempting to bully my brain into focusing. Unfortunately, it was determined to keep returning to the image of Eddie in that godawful cape and ugly-ass hat, insisting it was adorable, no matter how hard I worked to convince myself it was stupid. As a result of my internal debate, I ended up reading the same page over and over again without taking anything in for a solid two hours.

The 'thanksgiving' supper started out more on the awkward side of the spectrum, but once Nina convinced Eddie that no, we did not have to say the pledge of allegiance at risk of our eternal souls withering away into dust if we refused, we moved onto a kickass meal that had taken him and Trudy the better part of the day to prepare. A turkey, mashed potatoes, biscuits, stuffing, and some sweet potato casserole that Alfie and Jerome promptly claimed a monopoly on and viciously defended from the rest of us. After most of us had gorged ourselves to the point of groaning, an apple pie was brought out that turned Nina's eyes into saucers. Once we were finally finished, there were enough leftovers that Trudy probably wouldn't have to cook supper until next week, and by the time Victor dropped his pin we had all literally collapsed into bed.

"Come on Joy, up and at 'em!"

Joy made some sort of noise that was either a 'no' or a 'screw you', but with her face buried in the pillow it was hard to be certain. Whatever she said, she promptly pulled the blankets up so that all I could see was her hairline. I rolled my eyes and muttered an apology before grabbing the blanket and yanking.

Joy nearly screeched in protest, her body snapping upright and hands reaching blindly for the stolen warmth. Her eyes reluctantly squinted open and I smirked. "First off, you're lucky it's the weekend, because if you slept in this late any other day besides Saturday, it'd be Victor in here instead of me. Second, when the hell did you go to bed last night? It's nearly noon."

"Couldn't sleep," she grumbled. At least, I'm pretty certain that's what she said. It might've been, 'wooden sheep', but I was betting on the former. I eventually managed to coax Joy into a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, waited while she brushed her teeth, and threw water on her face so that she could walk down the stairs without falling. Thanks to Alfie and Jerome, I had recent experience with the unpleasantly painful bruises such a fall could gift. "How are we doing with Amber?" Joy asked as she pulled back her hair into a ponytail.

I shrugged. "Nina stole her laptop while she and Alfie were making out and changed all her passwords for shopping sites. But other than watch her and shove opportunities for selfless deeds in her path, there's not much we can do. Although Nina says she apparently went a little crazy yesterday and cleaned their entire bedroom. Mop, vacuum, color-coordinating their closets, the whole enchilada."

"How is that relevant exactly?"

"I was hoping you could think of something," I admitted. She laughed, and I felt a surge of pride. Ever since Joy had told me the truth about what had been happening to her, every piece of happiness I was able to wring out felt like a great personal accomplishment.

We got to the kitchen and began making Joy a sandwich from leftover turkey, and things were going fine until I caught her glaring at something. I turned to see that that something was Nina, doing homework at the kitchen table. Fabian was sitting next to her reading a book, and as I watched he gently ran his fingers down her back a few times before turning a page.

"Joy?" I briefly hesitated. "You doing ok?"

Joy rolled the mayonnaise jar back and forth between her palms a few times but didn't answer. I was about to ask again when she said abruptly, "You know she snuck out last night."

I blinked in confusion. "Who did what?"

She looked over at me. "Nina. She snuck out last night."

My mouth opened and closed a few times as I looked back and forth between the two girls. "And you know this how?" I demanded when I eventually remembered my voice.

Joy shrugged and began aggressively spreading mayonnaise onto her bread. "I told you I couldn't sleep last night. Around midnight I went to the bathroom to go and grab some water and someone walked past. I went to go look and it was Nina. I followed her a bit and saw her go downstairs and leave the house." She seemed to sense the question I was about to ask and beat me to it. "And, no, I don't know where she went."

Nina Martin? Sneaking out after curfew? Well I'll be damned. I blew out a breath and made a decision. "Maybe she was sleepwalking. At any rate, we can worry about it later."

Joy shrugged and held out a hand for the mustard which I threw over, my thoughts swirling despite what I'd told Joy. Why the hell was Nina sneaking out in the middle of the night? Was this a regular thing, or her first time? Where was she going? I realized Joy was looking at me expectantly and forced myself to focus. "Sorry, what?"

"Knife."

I rolled my eyes and went to grab a new, clean knife. "Right, you have that obsession."

"It is not an obsession!"

"If it were any stronger I'd call it a fetish."

Joy scowled. "Look, just because you're perfectly ok with using one knife for multiple condiments –"

"Along with roughly 96% of the general human population."

"– doesn't mean we're all animals!"

I laughed, and so did she, and we fell into an easy rhythm. Later, while Joy was sitting next to the sink eating her breakfast/lunch, and I was throwing cashews at her that she caught with her mouth, I heard laughter that gave me goosebumps and turned to see that Eddie had come to the living room at some point and was talking with Nina while Fabian continued reading. Against my will I felt a surge of jealousy, which I wrestled with, overcame, and mostly managed to subdue. I wanted to be the only girl who made him laugh. Dragging my attention back to Joy I resumed my cashew tossing, this time with considerably more force than necessary. She seemed to notice but didn't comment, at least not until one hit her on the nose. "Ow!" Joy complained, rubbing the spot the nut had hit and glaring at me reproachfully. "Just talk to him already," she hissed.

I shrugged defensively. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Joy made a face, shoved the rest of the sandwich in her mouth and hopped down. "See now is normally where I say they're just talking and you shouldn't be jealous, but I know you better so I'm going to settle with leaving and banning you from my presence until you discuss this with him."

I folded my arms and stuck my chin out. "I have no idea what you mean."

"Patricia." Joy folded her own arms, although on someone of her stature it was considerably less intimidating. "You've got to get over this. He's crazy for you."

"Then why, exactly, does he keep running over to spend time with Nina?" I hissed, dropping my pretenses.

Joy made a noise of exasperation. "Patricia, you guys had a fight, but Eddie doesn't think he did anything wrong. He's now trying to prove he didn't do anything wrong, by doing the exact same thing. He does this half the time you guys argue!"

I didn't answer, my mind flashing back to yesterday. I'd just gotten off the phone with my parents, putting me in an already crappy mood, only to see Eddie and Nina doing the dishes and screwing around. That would've been fine, until I saw the screwing around escalate to him physically lifting her off the ground and rubbing bubbles over her. They'd both stopped when they saw me. Even then, we might have been ok, were it not for the very revealing conversation I'd had with Nina afterwards that had made me feel as though my heart had been torn out of my chest. Eddie and I had had one of our more scathing discussions over it, and hadn't spoken to each other since.

Joy came over to stand next to me and put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Patricia, look. I love you, but you need to talk to him. Work this out."

She left me standing alone in the kitchen, facing the sink where Eddie and Nina had been. I swallowed past a hot lump in my throat and turned to see the two of them. Eddie had managed to coax a grin out of Nina, and I felt like my heart was sinking to my toes. I decided right then and there I hated that feeling. I glanced over to Fabian, who was sitting there calmly, occasionally participating in the discussion. How did he not feel like he was drowning as he watched them? Like all he wanted was to swim to the surface but all he did was get sucked further and further under? I felt a spark of anger at how I seemed to be the only one suffering, and I desperately latched onto it. I nurtured the spark, I fed it and fanned it until it had grown out of control and I was pissed off far beyond any reasonable margins. I clenched and unclenched my hands before stalking over to the table.

I wrapped my hand around Eddie's bicep and pulled him up out of the chair, before turning to scowl at Fabian. "IF you don't mind, I'm going to need to borrow your room while I murder my boyfriend." I didn't bother to see if he did mind, because I was already forcing Eddie out into the hall, before shoving him into his room and slamming the door, locking it behind us.

"Problem, Yacker?" Eddie asked sarcastically, making a point of rubbing his arm where I had grabbed it.

"I don't know," I snapped. "You tell me."

He raised his eyebrows. "If you're still mad about that thing with Nina from yesterday, then yes, you have a problem. Other than that, I can't help you."

I wanted to smack him. I wanted to kiss him. "Why can't you just be honest with me? If you want to break up with me, why can't you just come right out and say it?"

Whatever he'd been expecting this conversation to be about, that clearly wasn't it. His eyes expanded and his hands dropped uselessly to his sides. "I – what?"

My eyes were stinging but I focused on that fire of anger instead. Anger was better, anger was safer. "You heard me."

"What – I don't – Patricia, what the hell?" His eyes flashed with anger.

"What I don't understand," I kept going, in no mood to make this easy for him, "is why you couldn't just tell me. 'I'm not that into you Patricia', 'I want to break up with you Patricia', 'I think we should see other people'."

"I don't know what you've been drinking, but I have no intention of breaking up with you," Eddie snapped, hands contracting into fists.

"Well maybe you should, since clearly you've got eyes for someone else." On some level, I was aware of how vastly unreasonable I was being, but I was feeling pretty unreasonable at the moment.

I'd apparently thrown him another curveball because Eddie appeared completely floored by this accusation. "You don't mean – you think I've got feelings for Nina?"

I folded my arms. "Well don't you?"

"NO!" He yelled, before catching himself, and continuing in a quieter voice. "No. Of course not. And besides, what happened to you working on trusting me?"

I flinched, but didn't back down. I didn't know how to explain the insecurity I got around their relationship, ever since it had come to light that he was her Osirian, her gods-designated protector. Those feelings had expanded upon finding out they'd lived together over the summer, and I thought I'd dealt with them after finding out the secret they had been keeping was completely unromantic in nature, but here they were. And if he was going to dump me to pine after her, I'd rather he just get it over with. I told him this. "Look, I don't know what you think is going to happen between you two, but I can tell you she's only into Fabian, so if you want to break up with me so you can torture yourself over wanting someone who's unavailable, just rip the Band-Aid off why don't you?"

Eddie looked faintly sick. "Where is all of this coming from?"

I could feel the words that had been building up in the back of my throat, and before I could stop them, it was like a dam had burst and they poured out. "Why did you tell Nina about what you did with those girls and yet you can't tell me?"

The room seemed to freeze. Eddie stared at me, before his tongue darted out to moisten his lips, sending my mind places that were drastically unrelated to the current conversation. "Did she…" he licked them again and I internally kicked myself. "She didn't tell you, did she?"

I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice. I'd been hoping I'd misunderstood it. "No. As soon as she realized I had no idea what she was talking about she clammed up and left." I choked out a laugh so bitter I didn't recognize it as my own. "I thought you weren't ready to talk about it."

"Patricia –"

"That was what you told me. You said that you trusted me, that it had nothing to do with me, it was just that you weren't ready to tell anyone!" My voice was rising to a shout and with more effort than I'd considered myself capable of, I forced it back down. "Why didn't you just tell me that you didn't want me to know? How do you think I felt, finding out that Nina knew before me?"

"She found out by accident!" Eddie snarled, a note of desperation now entering his voice. "Look it's complicated, but she found out over the summer, and I only told her to stop her from jumping to conclusions."

A second ago I'd felt frozen, and now I felt boiling hot all over. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to touch him. "Why can't you just tell me what happened?"

"Because I don't want you to hate me!" Eddie snapped eyes brighter than normal. "Is that what you want to hear? Because I did shitty things and I don't want you to look at me and see me for the piece of shit that I really am!"

"Oh, come on," I snarled. "So you were feeling slutty and slept with a bunch of girls. Tell me, what could possibly be so awful that –"

"They paid me."

My voice died in my throat. Eddie saw my expression shift and kept talking, each word angrier than the last. "I was pissed at my parents and so I had sex with a few girls. Word got around and so a couple other girls slept with me to lose their virginity. I decided it was a pretty good idea so I put word out that if they were willing to give me fifty bucks I'd be their first."

I had no idea, no goddamn idea what to say to this. My brain was still struggling to comprehend the 'got paid for sex' bit. I could understand why he thought I might hate him, but I didn't. I had to tell him that I didn't. He wasn't done though. "Eventually my parents found out and I got sent here as punishment. They agreed a change of scenery would be good for me."

While he'd been talking, his eyes had slowly shifted from fury to defeat, and looking at him standing a few paces away from me I could see him waiting, waiting for me to tell him I hated him, to scream at him, tell everyone, say I never wanted to see him again. "You're an idiot." Eddie didn't even bother to nod to acknowledge this. "You, Eddie Miller, are quite honestly the stupidest person to walk the earth, if you think I'd hate you for this."

Now he blinked in surprise, like he thought he might've misunderstood, but I kept going. "I honestly can't understand why you thought, out of all my possible reactions, I'd hate you for this of all things." I could actually imagine quite a few reasons, but decided to keep quiet about that. "So you charged them money. Big deal. It's not like you held a gun to their head while you did it. I have half a mind to be insulted that you think so little of me that you were convinced I would hate you for this."

Eddie shook his head. "I don't –"

"You don't understand?" I interrupted, crossing the distance between us in a few quick strides, until I was close enough that I could've counted his eyelashes. "Well then allow me to enlighten you." Determined to cut him off before he could keep talking I lifted my hands to grab him by the collar and pulled his lips to mine.

At first, he just stood there, not moving, as though he didn't want to kiss me. But then I wrapped one hand around his neck and he surrendered to my touch, arms going around my waist, lightly moaning into my mouth. His grip tightened until he was almost lifting me into him. I kissed him harder, almost bruising his lips with mine. I felt my heartbeat spread from my chest to overtake my entire body as I pulled away, completely and utterly terrified of the next words about to come out of my mouth. "I couldn't…" I broke off, almost unable to complete the sentence. Eddie leaned down to kiss me away but I pulled back, swallowing past a suddenly dry throat. "I could never hate somebody I love as much as you." He stared at me, frozen, either unwilling or unable to hear the words I'd just said. I said them again. "I love you." They were a whisper this time as my insides began shriveling. He wasn't going to say it back. He was going to say that it was too soon or too much or that he just didn't –

His hands came up to cup my face. "I love you too."

I couldn't talk, I couldn't think, I could hardly even breathe. I leaned into kiss him again and I felt something in the air shift. My body turned into liquid fire beneath his hands, Eddie's own skin hot underneath his clothes. I wanted them off of him. I wanted my clothes off too.

Like he'd read my mind, his hands came up to tug at the zipper on my shirt, pulling it down until my shirt fell open and I shrugged it off my shoulders, revealing a mesh lace bra of red and black. It was the same sort of thing I wore every day, but from the way Eddie was staring at me it could've been made of solid gold. However pretty it may be, it was too much clothing for my taste. I grabbed at Eddie's shirt, impatiently pulling it up, and he quickly took over, breaking away just long enough to grab the collar and yank it over his head. I got hot all over at the newly revealed expanse of bare skin. His hands went back to my hips, pulling me into him as we kicked off our shoes.

His lips seemed to be connected to all the nerve endings in my body, causing me to spark and catch fire. There were embers beneath my skin, their heat collecting to pool between my legs and every other part of me. His hands came around to snap my skirt open, and I was acutely aware of the black leather sliding down my legs. I waited for my body to freeze up; to say stop, no, wait a minute but it never came. It didn't come when Eddie kicked off his jeans and we fell backward onto his bed either. His hands came up to unhook my bra and there was fire racing up and down my veins as his hand closed around my breast, his tongue sweeping through my mouth. All that mattered were his hands on my skin, his mouth on mine. It was all that mattered for a long while.

After Amber literally got down on her hands and knees and scrubbed the entire house, cooked a five-course meal and taught herself the martial arts, Nina deduced that she had gluttony. When Amber complained that she didn't overeat, Nina pointed out that Amber was overdoing, which as an act of excess, still counted. Wednesday night, when Nina started screaming in her sleep, Amber woke her up and talked her through it, getting rid of the gluttony. I was worried about Nina, of course, but most of the week my mind was preoccupied with other things. Eddie's mouth tracing a path down my stomach, his hand wrapped around my shoulders with my head on his chest, our legs tangled up in the sheets together –

"Patricia!"

I jumped, and quickly looked over to see Joy glaring at me impatiently. "You know, if we're going to walk back from school together, the least you can do is pretend you're not mentally screwing your boyfriend."

My cheeks immediately flared up with heat. "I was not!"

"You were so," she complained. "Your eyes get this glazed over look and your hands tighten up. And if you're going to make me put up with you spacing out on me every thirty seconds, the least you can do is give me info. But you're stingier with details than Alfie was with money when he was infected."

"Mind your own business," I said loftily, hitching my bag up on my shoulder.

Joy spent most of the day alternating between attempting to squeeze information out of me, and squealing in delight whenever I agreed. By the time she left to shower I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. At half past eight, we both went over to Amber and Nina's room and found the guys already there waiting for us.

Nina began putting the sigil down on paper as I stole glances at Eddie every few seconds. He was looking at me every time. I'd purposefully chosen pajamas that showed considerably more skin than normal. I wondered if he'd done the same, considering he was wearing a muscle tank instead of his regular oversized tee shirt. I let my eyes trail over his shoulders, down his arms, trying very hard not to let my mind stray to what he looked like without the pajamas, or any clothes at all really.

The paper flared up red and I yanked my focus over to see Nina wrapping a new Band-Aid on her freshly pricked finger. We took turns touching the sigil, and when we got there, Amber cleared her throat in a spectacularly loud fashion.

"Now does everyone remember our deal from last time?" Amber asked, raising perfectly plucked eyebrows. "I was victim to a hideous conspiracy that forced me into being infected with, shudder, gluttony, and so I have been allowed to pick our next victim. I was going to choose Alfie as punishment for not helping, but Nina overruled me since he's already been infected. So, I have decided to choose… Patricia."

"Whoa, hold on," I interrupted, stepping over. "What did I ever do to deserve this?"

Amber flipped her hair and folded her arms, staring up at me with wide, innocent eyes. "While I was busy getting mopping calluses and dirty water in my hair, you were running around looking suspiciously happier than normal. Because you were happy while I suffered, it's your turn."

I tried to protest some more, but Amber made a 'abup!' noise, each time I opened my mouth. I eventually stamped my foot. "Fine," I growled. "But I get to pick who goes next."

"Hide the children," Eddie called, and I turned to glare at him only to see him smirking. I suddenly found it annoyingly hard to concentrate, knowing exactly what that smirk looked like when he was looking up at me from a very different position.

"Patricia?"

I whipped my head back around to Amber. "Sorry what?"

"We all agreed, you get to pick who goes next. So, go on." She gestured to the box we'd all come to hate so dearly. "Open it."

I blew out a breath and walked over to the table, gently tracing a finger over the lid. Despite the wavelike design carved into the side, the top of the box was smooth like glass. If I didn't know the horrors it housed, I would've thought it beautiful. I silently counted to three in my head, before sliding a fingernail underneath and flipping it open.

Just like before, it was a small explosion as miniature suns flew out of the box, the whole spectrum of colors dancing against the walls and ceiling, before the balls died down to a pearly white, floating in a slowly moving circle above the box. I squinted, trying to see if I could discern a hint about their personalities, but they simply continued to bob in formation, a circle of silky, wispy pearls. Acutely aware of everyone glancing at me, I shut my eyes and subtly pointed, opening my eyes to see I was pointing at the orb on the opposite side of the circle. I waited until it was within touching distance, and reached out a hand to it.

The effect was instantaneous. The second my fingers made contact, the sphere exploded in a violent burst of bright scarlet, streaking down my arm and racing over the rest of my body. I tried to blink and found my vision tinged with red, and for the briefest second, before the emotion faded along with the light, I felt myself grow very, very angry.

AN: hey everyone, I'm back! How was Thanksgiving for all my American readers? I hope you enjoyed it as much as Eddie normally does! Feedback wise, since this was my first time writing a sex scene, if you guys could tell me how I did/what I can improve upon, I'd really appreciate it. And for that one guest reviewer, I will try to have more Amfie in future chapters. Hope you all have some happy holidays!

Favorite, follow and review please. Let me know whose POVs you'd like to see.