by JJ King
“Yes, Ms. Jensen.” Dr. Sherman smiled brightly at me.
“I was just wondering if you think the majority of Sisterhood members are public now or if most of them are still hiding their allegiance.” I tapped the eraser of my pencil against my lips and thought of how hard organizations like The Sisterhood would be to keep secret if the membership was as enormous as speculated.
Dr. Sherman’s eyebrow twitched up. “I’m a history professor, Ms. Jensen, which means we won’t really know until history shows us.” She smiled again. “But, if I were a betting woman, I’d say the majority of members are still incognito.”
I thought about that while she made her way to the computer to put up an image of Sylvie LaFlamme. After the Alpha Council had been held accountable for their role in the genocide of North American wolves, The Sisterhood had taken to the political stage in a big way. Alpha’s wives, doctors, lawyers, and women of all levels of prominence had proudly boasted their role in the sorority. Even though my home town was as small as it got, there were still a few women who’d outed themselves as Sisters and, subsequently, got bombarded with a million questions. My math teacher, Mrs. Stephenson, had walked into class, bold as can be, and told us the rumors were true. She’d been working to change society for most of her life.
The writer in me wanted to know more, as did the woman. I managed to pay attention through the rest of class but it was hard when all I wanted to do was ask Dr. Sherman if she was a Sister and where I could sign up.
“That’s it for today, folks,” Dr. Sherman announced ten minutes before the end of the hour. “Your readings are uploaded to the group doc already. Make sure you’re checking it daily.”
I held back while students shuffled out, chatting with friends or rushing off to get a moment of solitary peace. When the room was empty, I strode up to the desk where Dr. Sherman was tucking papers into her bag. She looked up in surprise when I cleared my throat. “Oh, Ms. Jensen. Is there something I can do for you?”
I chewed my bottom lip for a moment, hoping I wouldn’t come off sounding like an idiot, then just went for it. “I was actually wondering about The Sisterhood and if there’s a chapter here at Alpha Wolf Academy.”
As always, Dr. Sherman’s face showed every emotion she had. Her eyes sparkled with interest as she sized me up for what seemed like too long, then shrugged delicate shoulders and shook her head. “I really couldn’t say, Ms. Jensen. If there is, it’s certainly well hidden.” She nodded once as if dismissing me and turned to gather more papers.
I left class disappointed. Despite not being the obvious choice, she was my favorite professor, and I’d really hoped her enthusiasm about The Sisterhood was due to the fact that she was a member. I pulled my book bag tighter over my shoulder and made my way across campus, thankfully without seeing a single member of the bitch squad. I breathed a sigh of relief as I pulled open the door to my room and stepped into the blissful silence of privacy.
I was in the mood to stare at the ceiling while music played too loud into my earbuds, at least for the next hour until I had to get ready for chemistry class. I tossed my bag at the foot of my bed and pulled off my shoes, wishing I could get away with wearing Converse sneakers with my uniform like Rory but lamenting that I wasn’t cool enough to pull it off.
Clothes came next, tossed, this time, on a chair so they wouldn’t wrinkle and cause me the grief of having to iron them. I was pretty sure none of the other students here ironed their own clothes but I was also sure their mommies and daddies were rolling in coin, so…
It wasn’t until I was standing in my bra and panties that I noticed the rose. I frowned and glanced toward my closet, instantly on alert. Just like my first day here, someone had been in my room without my permission, and this time they’d left something other than a uniform.
I picked up the nearest heavy object, a vanilla bean candle I’d bought in Montreal, and approached the closet, sure I’d find a creeper in there. When it stood empty of all but my clothes, I relaxed incrementally. There was still the bathroom to check.
My heart thudded in my chest as I yanked back the shower curtain, candle raised, and shouted loudly to throw off my attacker. The tile mocked me.
I eyed the rose as I reentered my room, still holding the candle. There was a silver ribbon tied around it as if it were a gift, but breaking and entering wasn’t a fun pastime in my opinion. Unless…
I flew to the bed and picked up the rose, which was, thankfully, dethorned. Threaded through the ribbon was a little slip of paper that I was now sure would bare Bash’s name. I frowned at the decidedly feminine cursive writing and wondered what the hell it meant.
Sisters in arms, 9:00 p.m. tonight.
Chapter 9
I read over the message again, despite the fact that I’d already committed it to memory.
Sisters in arms, 9:00 p.m. tonight.
Sisters in arms. I chewed my lip and tried to bite back the flare of excitement in my stomach. It had to be from The Sisterhood. I’d read about invitations for initiations before and watched way too many secret society movies, so I knew that a rose with a cryptic hint was par for the norm. Or, at least, I hoped it was.
The possibility that it was from Bash had disappeared the moment I’d read the message, although the thought had crossed my mind that this was another of Daniella and the bitch squad’s nefarious plots to get back at me. But none of the squad were in my history class, so why would they even know about my interest in The Sisterhood? It wasn’t as if I’d made it obvious.
It had to be real, which meant I had only a few hours to figure out the clue.
Sisters in arms had to refer to The Sisterhood but it didn’t tell me where to go. The time was obvious, I thought, although…
I let out a groan. 9:00 p.m. was just after sunset. There was no way I’d be able to meet Bash at the wolf gate and attend the meeting, if there actually were a meeting. It was an impossible decision, I wanted to do both with every ounce of my being.
But I could meet Bash tomorrow and there would only be one invitation. I picked up my phone and typed out a message.
I can’t make it tonight. Can you meet me in the solarium after lunch tomorrow?
I held my breath as three little dots appeared almost instantly.
See you then. ;)
My breath whooshed out in relief. The words alone were ambiguous, although, to my knowledge, guys tended to say exactly what they thought. The winky face, though, lifted my lips in a smile.
My next urge was to text Rory and tell her about the rose but I hesitated. Weren’t these secret society invitations usually… secret? What if bringing in another person disqualified me from membership?
I put the phone down and decided if it were actually a Sisterhood meeting that I’d ask whoever was in charge if Rory could get an invitation to the next initiation. She was, after all, a strong, smart, female. What more could The Sisterhood ask for in a member?
A glance at the clock on my wall reminded me that I had another class to attend before I could give this mystery more thought. I still had a while before I had to get dressed but my desire to check out and listen to music was now gone. I grabbed an oversized t-shirt and pulled it on then sat at my desk. Maybe there was something about Alpha Wolf Academy and The Sisterhood online.
I searched the underground wolf net for ten minutes, trying every combination of search words I could think of but nothing gave me what I was looking for. I found articles about Sylvie LaFlamme and her role in establishing AWA and lots of articles about The Sisterhood. I scrolled through the links and skimmed more than a dozen but found nothing that linked the two subjects.
I made it to class with only a minute to spare and took my place on the stool next to my lab partner Louis.
“Hey,” he glanced up with his usual crooked smile that always made him look half stoned. If I didn’t know that wolves’ exceptionally high metabolism made intoxication almost impossible, I’d think that he was a stoner.
“Hey Louis,” I set my books down and glanced at the board. We were studying atomic structure and the prof had apparently gotten there early enough to fill the board with formulas and notes. I sighed, took out my notebook, and started writing in case she decided to erase the board and add more. Dr. Sweets was anything but sweet.
We worked together in silence for most of the class while my mind wandered back to the invitation. If the wolf net didn’t have what I needed, maybe the library would. I was so deep in thought, I barely heard Louis talking until he nudged my arm.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “What were you saying?”
Louis glanced up at me as if surprised that I was responding to him and I wondered how often he talked to himself in public. He stared at me for a moment then grinned and bobbed his chin toward a glass fronted set of cabinets. “Third row down. Pyridine. Do you know what happens when even a drop of that chemical is spilled?” He chuckled, looking altogether too pleased with himself, and lifted his hand from beneath the table where he held three vials of liquid.
My eyebrow shot up. I had no idea what the clear liquid would do when and if the vials broke but I had enough respect for chemistry to back away to the edge of the table. Louis’ look of impatience didn’t help.
“I’m not going to release it here,” he said as if speaking to a child. Then he leaned closer and whispered softly so no one nearby could hear. “They’re stink bombs!” His eyes lit up with a glee I hadn’t seen before.
My mouth dropped open. “You aren’t going to use those are you?” If he was, I needed to plan on being far away from the drop site. Our kind had incredibly sensitives olfactory abilities and something as innocently gross as a stink bomb to humans would be downright debilitating to wolves. “You could get expelled,” I hissed.
He made a dismissive sound and waved a hand towards me. “They can’t kick me out. My parents practically built the north campus.” He grinned crookedly. “But if you get a whiff of fish stink one day, run.”
“Mr. Ansley,” Dr Sweets barked out Louis’ surname and began weaving her way toward their table. I shot the vials a slide glance and tried to distance myself from him even further. He might not fear being expelled, but I was under no such protection. He lowered them out of sight and leaned forward on the table’s edge.
“Yes, Dr. Sweets?” His voice was all innocence now but out of the corner of my eye I could see him maneuvering a shallow drawer open just enough to slip the vials inside without our professor noticing.
She eyed him suspiciously and moved around the table a split second after he shifted his hand and closed the drawer with his chest as he leaned forward, looking compliant and eager to help. For a long moment, I thought she’d remember the drawer and check, but she shifted her gaze to his notes, read them over quickly, then turned and walked away with a spine so straight I got a backache just watching her.
I sagged with relief as she leaned over another student to check their notes and closed my eyes. It wasn’t as if I could complain about my lab partner, not if he was as connected as he claimed to be. I’d just have to watch out and steer clear of any trouble he presented.
An alarm sounded from the front of the lab, signaling the end of the class. Dr. Sweets nodded curtly and turned to look back at us as she reminded us to keep up with the readings. I watched Louis’ hand hover above the drawer for a moment as she strode toward us, then fall to his side. With an audible swallow, he gathered up his books and left class as my nerves sang with tension.
I didn’t relax until I was well out of the lab and, even then, my heart thumped painfully at the thought that I would be lumped in with Louis’ deviant plan. It wasn’t until my mind skipped back to the issue of The Sisterhood that my anxiety began to settle and fade away.
Without bothering to change out of my uniform, I started towards the library, hoping there would be something there to help me locate the meeting of the sorority I felt in my bones was happening tonight. I’d wandered the library several times already, searching the stacks for research or enjoying the walls covered in art ranging over a thousand years. It really was my favorite place on campus.
I chewed thoughtfully on my lip and worried over the problem. The note’s clue had been so vague that I didn’t really have anywhere solid to start and it wasn’t as if I was particularly knowledgeable about a campus I’d never dreamed of attending. I didn’t even know all the names of the buildings that made up Alpha Wolf Academy.
I slipped into the library, for once not taking the time to appreciate the majestic columns and ceiling, and headed to the front desk. An older woman, who looked surprisingly like my mother, looked up from her computer with a smile.
“Do you need some help, dear?” she asked in a soft Irish lilt that reminded me of home even more. I swallowed down the lump that had appeared in my throat and nodded.
“Please. I’m looking for a map of campus.” I knew it had to be in here somewhere but I didn’t have time to waste searching myself.
“That’s easy enough.” She pointed to her left where a hallway angled away from the main library. “Down that hall and to the right. There’s a wonderful display of maps from the area including one from before work began on AWA.” She smiled again then looked back at her screen, dismissing me.
I hitched my backpack higher on my shoulder and followed her directions. The hallway opened up to a fair-sized room whose walls were covered in framed maps. I dropped my stuff near the door and started around the room, stopping to take in the hand-drawn maps of the original campus layout. It had been so small, I thought, noticing the legend that marked the campus as no bigger than your average Walmart. There was very little information on the map, though, only a basic outline of the local land and the campus outline. I kept wandering.
I struck gold on one of the large electronic table displays. An architectural plan of the campus as it was now could be seen on screen but the controls showed labels that read, “Campus 1816,” “Campus 1859,” “Campus 1900”, and “Campus 1973.” Curious, I started at the beginning, pressing the buttons one at a time and watching in awe as the campus grew from its modest beginnings to what it was today.
The Sisterhood had been in existence for centuries, according to their PR front person, and Sylvie LaFlamme had been instrumental in its inception. She’s also helped her husband plan and build Alpha Wolf Academy. I clicked on the earliest plans and enlarged the screen to get a better look at the original names of the buildings.
Swing and a miss, I thought wryly. The buildings had been named after Alpha families, so there was LaFlamme Hall and Dougherty Auditorium. I flipped to the next screen then the next and realized they’d been changed at some point between 1900 and 1973. The main campus had been added to and renovated over the years but the buildings that had made up the original structure were still there. I recognized one as campus housing for professors and their families. It wouldn’t be there, though, I reasoned, there would be too much traffic for a secret society. No, they’d need a more reclusive location for their meetings, somewhere women could easily access.
I chewed intently on my fingernail and stared at the screen until my eyes went blurry then leaned against the table with a frustrated sigh. Time was running out.
Determination stole through me, fortifying my will, and I narrowed my eyes at the plans again. There had to be something here.
Old buildings, new buildings, the campus quad, even the library and cafeteria, I poured over every inch of the plans, enlarging the measurements, the notes done by the architect, and every insignificant detail in case I’d overlooked something.
My eyes slid over the crest as it had twenty times already but this time, I came back to it and enlarged. The Manford Building, so called for the Alpha family of England, housed the education faculty where women had been trained to teach since the founding of Alpha Wolf Academy, I realized. Its crest was represented by two wolves and a lion, representing both their people and the country in question. At first glance, it looked simila
r to the other family crests shown on the plans, but there was something different there, something…
The two wolves were female I realized with a gasp that echoed through the silent room. They were rounder than the wolves depicted in other crests, which made no sense unless it was a clue. I studied the lines of the wolves, the way they faced the lion between them, and the swords that lay at their feet.
Sisters in arms.
I nearly squealed but managed to hold it back at the last moment. Instead, I quick-stepped in place, doing a silly little dance I’d done a million times with Sara and Bethany over the years whenever one of us was excited. I fished my phone out of my pocket to text them, to tell them my news, then froze with my finger above the keypad.
As much as I was sure this was real, I wouldn’t know until after the meeting. Besides, there was always the chance the super stealthy society was watching me and would rescind my invitation if I blabbed. Better to wait until after I was a sister.
It was time to meet my destiny.
Chapter 10
I stuck to the shadows and fingered the slip of paper with the clue as I made my way across campus under the protection of the new moon. Campus security was thick, especially since the second body had been found. A shiver ran up my spine as I remembered the smell of death on the body Bash and I had discovered, and a thought I’d been trying to ignore forced itself to the forefront of my brain.
What if whoever had murdered those innocent wolves was waiting for me at the end of my little adventure? What if there was no Sisterhood, and I was being lured into a trap?
I dismissed the idea, though not altogether, as I crept forward. The bodies had both been male and only one had been a student, or so the grapevine reported. Not that I paid much attention to the grapevine. I was probably front-page news in its publication.
I glanced down at my phone for the millionth time to check if I was still good. I’d given myself an hour to get across campus and find what I assumed would be a super-secret entrance to an underground meeting room. The education building loomed before me with thirty-four minutes to spare. Now to find the Sisterhood lair.
