Roommate from Hell: chaper 5 by Julie Steimle (free ebook reader for iphone txt) 📖

all, I had intimidated those from home. I wondered what Darla would or could say to me.
“No buts!” Darla pointed a finger right at Tabitha’s nose. “You were bad enough last term. Your paranoia has gone beyond anything I had ever imagined about you. And I don’t care if you are right! Our town has had to put up with freaky Eve McAllister for seventeen years. Now it is your turn.”
Put up with? I mouthed, rolling my eyes. But that was wiped away with a cringe as I felt the burn again. It was getting even worse.
Tabitha pointed at me again, her mouth open in protest. “But she has possessed my roommate Dawn, and this guy named Hanz!”
“You mean Dawn McAllister?” Darla looked to me. “Dawn is here?”
I nodded though I was also wincing in pain.
Darla rolled her eyes and then looked to Tabitha again. “Oh please. Dawn McAllister is not possessed. The McAllister family is a bunch of goody-two shoes. They’d take in any stray dog, even if it had rabies.”
Stray dog? With rabies? Was that how Darla saw me this whole time. I folded my arms, huffing. However, looking at Tabitha it seemed that at last it sunk in that I could not have possessed anyone. She certainly looked dismayed with acceptance.
“Ms. Raines, you have to let this go,” Darla said. She then looked at me. “And Eve, you have to promise not to do any nocturnal prowling. What rules applied to you in Cliffcoast apply to you here also.”
“Prowl? …Ow!” The pain surged up again. I whimpered. “Make it stop. Please. I don’t prowl.”
But Darla’s fixed glare was on me now. I guess she figured she was done with Tabitha who indeed sat subdued and sulky. “You prowled at night back home.”
“I never did!” I snapped, cringing as it burned. “Please, and I haven’t done any night flying since I got here.”
Darla pointed at Tabitha. “I heard she saw you flying.”
“It was the morning!” I winced, clenching my teeth. “I was going surfing!”
I could see Darla give me a dumbfounded look. Of course she believed me. Everyone at home knew I surfed.
Darla wobbled a bit, shook her head and turned to look at Tabitha. “Was she carrying a surfboard?”
Tabitha blinked. “Why does that matter?”
“This is so stupid.” Rolling her eyes, Darla huffed aloud. “Ok. You.” She pointed to Tabitha. “Quit causing a ruckus in the dorms. If you want, I’ll even arrange a room change.
“And you,” she pointed at me. “No flying. Your wings are creepy. Your face is creepy. And I don’t want the girls freaking out over something they don’t get. Now I know you haven’t harmed a soul yet, but so help me, if you cause trouble here, I’ll write the school and have you kicked out.”
I opened my mouth. “Oh…now that’s—”
“Not fair?” Darla put her hands onto her hips. “Life is not fair. I should have won the Miss California pageant and gone onto Miss America. But no, Miss Orange County had to win. How am I supposed to put myself through nursing school with a history like that?”
I just blinked at her. Thankfully Dawn was never that much of an airhead.
Darla kicked Tabitha and me out of her office after that. We stood outside the door both somewhat befuddled at how that lecture ended. Tabitha glanced at me, watching me cringe at the burning in my skin again then lifted up her chin.
“So, if you cause a ruckus here, you’ll get kicked out?” Tabitha said.
I narrowed my eyes at her, leaning in. My one orange eye that she could see turned red out of anger. “She threatened you first, you creep. Now get this hex mark off of me.”
Tabitha snorted, pulling back. “No.”
It hurt. It really hurt. And water didn’t clean it off. I could hardly think of anything else but the pain on my back. And looking at Tabitha’s smug face, as she was so proud she had caught me off guard, I felt a gut rooted anger that bordered on hate for her.
With my heel, I stomped on her foot.
“OW!”
Tabitha hopped, clenching her foot as I stormed off.
Darla’s door popped open. Her head stuck out. I didn’t hear what she said to Tabitha. I didn’t care anymore.
Stomping up to my room, I practically flung the door open. It slammed against the wall. I slammed it shut again, swearing under my breath. Both Lisa and Star were in the room. Their eyes bugged out wide as I nearly yanked the top drawer from the bureau inside my closet, the handle wobbling in my grip. Star was halfway done with putting a book cover over her thick biology textbook. Lisa had dropped her tennis shoe.
“Are you ok?” Lisa inched over.
“No.” I slammed the drawer shut. “My back hurts! Darla O’Bradey is our blasted dorm mother, and Tabitha’s a jerk! And my back hurts!”
Star turned back to her book cover folding, whistling from high pitch to low.
Lisa grew concerned, peering over at me. “Your back still hurts?”
“The cold water only helped a little,” I said. Then I looked to her. “Did that girl come back with an ice pack?”
“Yeah,” Lisa said. “But you were gone so she just took it back.”
I moaned. This was awful. I had to find a cure. There was no way I could go on a date with Hanz feeling so wretched.
Grabbing a shirt, some pants and rest of my clothes, I fetched my sun block and proceeded to dress. Missing one contact, I had to take out the other one also so at least my eyes matched. I put on my sunglasses then jogged to the stairs to go up to Dawn’s room. I had wanted to go in invisible, but with my wings bound I couldn’t even do that. They had to be open for me to walk through walls and become immaterial. After all, those were imp traits.
“Dawn?” I knocked on the door.
“Enter.”
I took hold of the doorknob and prayed that Tabitha wasn’t in there with her. When I went in, I saw that prayer was answered. It was just Dawn, all dressed in a green and black plaid Goth style skirt vest combo. Her hair was up in pigtails.
I gave her a look before I spoke. “Dawn, can I ask you a favor?”
She blinked at me, her imps shouting for her to automatically say ‘No.’
“What kind of favor?”
Cringing as the pain was searing hotter. I rolled my shoulders and said, “I’m sorry, I have to go into town on an errand, but I need you to meet someone for me and tell him that I’m going to be late.”
“Someone?” Dawn’s look spread to that of surprise. “Do you mean a date? With a boy?”
To be honest, I hadn’t wanted to tell her about Hanz just yet. However, I said, “I met Hanz Johaanson in the quad yesterday. We were supposed to go to lunch together today, but something urgent came up. I’ll be late, but I’m still coming. I just thought—”
“That he’d be happier if he didn’t just get a phone call from you.” Dawn grinned at me. “You really like him, don’t you? You kept him a secret, you little devil. What did you think? That I’d steal him from you?”
I had. All the boys had always looked at her since I was the monster.
“Don’t worry,” Dawn said with a glimmer of a smirk in her eye. “We’ll only reminisce about you while we wait.”
Nodding, I thanked her.
From there I hurried back downstairs, grabbing my backpack before running for the bus. Though the burn was something awful, I could endure it enough so that I didn’t cry out. Still, my eyes watered. People stared at me the entire time I was on the bus, but I really just had to hold out until I got to Mr. Horwitz’s shop. If anyone knew a cure for a witch hex, it had to be him.
Getting off at my stop, I jogged from the bus stop to the street where the bookshop was on, hurrying across. Looking up with concerted effort to ignore the pain, I intended to head straight up the store steps to the door, but immediately my eyes set on the three police cars on the curb, the barricaded off sidewalk and the police tape. There was also an ambulance. The doors to the ambulance were open, but nothing inside—yet.
Someone hurt at an occult bookshop? That was a bad scene. I hoped Mr. Horwitz would not too be busy giving a statement to the police to take care of my problem.
Rushing to that side of the street, I stopped at edge of the barricade. Reaching out, I called to one of the policemen. “Hey! What happened here?”
He turned as he gave me a dry look. “Would you please stay on your side of the barricade? This is police business.”
“Yes, but what happened?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“I heard it was a murder,” the woman next to me said. Several other rubbernecks leaned in, listening.
“A murder?” I looked to her and then tried to peer into the doorway. A tall cop propped the door with his back, and I couldn’t see past him. However, I could faintly smell blood, slightly old and dry. “Who? Who died?”
That woman shrugged.
“I think it was the owner,” a teenager holding a skateboard said at my left.
My heart dropped into my stomach. “Mr. Horwitz? No….”
One of the cops turned to look at me. “You know the owner?”
I nodded. “I was here yesterday. And—”
But the burning sensation seared up again like a knife stabbing into my back and dragged through my skin. I cringed, groaning through my teeth.
I didn’t notice it until I opened my eyes again but the people around me had jumped back.
“We’ve got a live one!” the policeman suddenly said, drawing his gun.
Panting, I raised my hand. “No…no. You…you got it all wrong. I…I came to see…” It hurt too much. I groaned again, hunching over to brace against it. “…Mr. Horwitz. He…he’s gotta have a cure.”
Yet as I opened my eyes again I saw several cops surrounding me, all their guns pulled and pointed right at me.