Drowning Studies (Artemis University Book 2)

by Erin R Flynn

  “Did you at least get any good flavors?” he asked me.

  “No, I got all the dog shit ones,” I drawled.

  The look he gave me was priceless but the comment had been pretty well deserved. Especially when he had three slices while editing my midterm papers later in my room.

  “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time,” he muttered when Izzy and Mel left to take over half of the rest to her place.

  I shrugged. “I get it. I’m going a bit crazy with things now that I have money. I just want to enjoy it a bit. I never had anything of my own. I mean, the state or foster families gave me everything and they made sure I knew it. Fine, it was inherited but it’s mine and I want to do good with it, share and—”

  “I know and I think it’s nice,” he cut in as he sat down next to me on my bed. “I think you’re nice and if there was ever someone who deserved a jackpot inheritance it’s you. I’d be cranky and not share a penny after what I’ve been through but you’re different.” He reached out and ran his fingers through my ponytail. “Very different. It’s confusing but you push me without pushing me. I think I like it.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do with that. “You’ll let me know when you decide?”

  “Hmm, I think you already know my answer,” he muttered as his other hand slid over mine. “I think you know a lot more than you let on.”

  I realized what he meant and shook my head. “I keep my telepathy off, Darby. Unless someone wants to talk to me privately or I’m worried something’s going on like that jerk in the cafeteria, I keep it off. It’s not my business.”

  He nodded as he ran his thumb over my skin. “I wouldn’t mind if you listened in and knew what I felt.”

  “Isn’t that cheating? Or maybe making it too easy for people?” I sighed when he gave me a confused look but found myself leaning in, wanting him to play with my hair more. “Don’t I deserve people telling me the nice things instead of just hearing it? I hear so much shit that I want people to want to tell me the good stuff.”

  “Hmm, I didn’t consider that. I’ll have to think about it.” He licked his lips and leaned in and I would have sworn he was going to kiss me but the door opened and Izzy strolled in as if not interrupting a thing. He moved past me as if he’d been reaching for papers behind me. “You did much better on this essay. Your grammar still stinks but your arguments are much sounder and I had few comments.”

  “My roommate is just that awesome,” Izzy praised, glancing between us and focusing on his hand over mine as if catching on she missed something.

  “Well, I should get going. Ladies, have a nice sleep and I’ll see you tomorrow.” He pushed off the bed and packed up, out the door not two minutes later.

  “Um, what was that?” Izzy asked me.

  I blinked at her. “I have no idea. The conundrum that is Darby?”

  “Men are weird. Come to the lesbian side with me.”

  “Nah, I like dick in me too much.”

  “I walked right into that,” she grumbled.

  “Yeah, you really did.”

  And I did sleep like a rock. The fact I dreamed of heavenly donuts, cheesecake, and eating them off of three sexy men was what worried me.

  18

  Apparently I was still miffed and confused by Darby Monday morning when I went on my run. Mason in bear form was there to play and join me and the next thing I knew I was venting to him.

  “I mean, really, what is that? Isn’t it supposed to be asking the woman out you like?” I demanded as we jogged along, getting a good rant off my chest when he couldn’t talk, and completely ignoring the fact he flirted with me too. “No, it’s ‘hey, listen to my thoughts to see if I like you because I’m chicken shit or not sure if I really like you.’ Oh sure, because who doesn’t want to hear that?

  “I totally swooned. Wouldn’t you? Why didn’t he just ask to take a taste of my blood or something to see if I could work for him and all around make it as easy for him as possible.” I shot Mason a look. “Do vampires drink from us? Is that like allowed if consenting?” I waited until he nodded. “But they drink from bagged blood otherwise?”

  Again he nodded. Right, good thing not to ask sooner when I’d been pissing off vampires all over the place.

  “Is that just a vampire thing to be prickly and cliché bitchy? I’ve not met one fluffy vampire. One has to be sweet and nice, right? Not all of them are aloof and cranky. Please tell me there’s one that’s at least normal. Yeah, fine, I like that Darby’s not normal, but he could be normal in this. Just someone be normal in this, please, and make my life easier.

  “And I’ve never really dated. I’ve never just been asked out to dinner like a normal date or normal anything. No, I got asked to hang and was stupid and thought that counted as a date when that age and he wanted to have sex and I was stupid again so sure, a guy likes me. Yeah, fine, I was an idiot but I’m not that idiot little girl anymore and in a lot of ways. Read my mind to find out.

  “Fuck, kiss my ass to find out that’s not what you say to a woman. I really do have bad taste in men. Well, maybe not all—yeah, maybe all of them. Or at least my bad taste has graduated to complicated. Is that a level of intimacy? That’s a social media status, right, for relationships? It’s complicated? Yeah, sounds about right. Fucking sexy ass vampire giving me the run-around.

  “Could he at least give the same signals in one night? Oh hey, I’m not sure I like you but I’m touching you and might kiss you but good luck with that and let me know when you need some more tutoring. So is that code I’m supposed to figure out? Does he think tutoring is my call sign for sex? Did I miss that? Would he respond if I did? This isn’t me, right?”

  I glanced over for confirmation and realized he wasn’t there anymore. I’d passed his limit in one stretch.

  Whoops.

  “Great, now I’m just ranting to myself like a lunatic. Ugggh, Izzy’s right and men are stupid.” I picked Mason back up after I ran the obstacle course and turned around. “Thanks for listening. Don’t tell anyone, okay? The last thing I need is this kind of thing getting around campus. It’s been quiet a whole week or so and that means something will blow up soon for sure.”

  Unfortunately I wasn’t wrong.

  It would be nice to be wrong about those sorts of things, but I wasn’t and I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit because I was really worried I was going to bomb my geometry midterm and this test Thursday would be a big factor.

  Though Professor Richardson was sort of a douche having a big test the Thursday before review week for midterms. Then again, I heard that was common as it gave you a chance to get help that review week.

  Yeah, in theory but getting help from him… I’d have better chances pulling out my hair and getting it myself.

  People were whispering when I got near the cafeteria Wednesday for lunch.

  “Is that really you?” someone asked when I reached what I thought was just the line of people going in.

  “Huh?” I replied, glancing at him.

  He nodded towards the front of the group. “Is that really you?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted, unable to see around people and he had a few heads on me. I sighed, wondering what the drama was now. Did that guy actually get that naked picture of me?

  I was going to beat in some vampire face if he did.

  The group—seeming to realize I was there—parted for me. And I saw what at first I thought was an outdoor art collection or presentation with all of the trade show– type display stands.

  It took me a few moments to put what I was seeing together as I studied the poster of a guy who looked on the losing end of a fight or car accident.

  Posted over the corner of it was an evidence fingerprint sheet. I turned to see several more posters of guys completely beat to shit and more of those evidence sheets.

  And I realized I recognized the guys.

  Finally, I turned again and found a larger display with several older and crappy images of me from surveillance along
with the full fingerprints taken from when I was in foster care. It had been some bullshit thing of one of the group homes to “make sure” we weren’t trouble, but it had actually been against the law as you couldn’t take fingerprints of a minor without reason and that wasn’t a valid one.

  And standing next to that board was Katy with Holly and several other of the bitch crews at her back.

  “You seriously need to get professional help,” I told them, completely floored and just appalled. “I mean, really. You need to speak to someone and probably an attorney as I highly doubt it’s legal to lift fingerprints as a private citizen on private property you don’t own and hack into several police databases to get this. That is a level of cray cray that needs medication for sure.”

  Katy’s face flamed red as steam about came out of her ears, but then she rallied, smiling widely at me. “Not even going to try and deny it, are you?”

  “That you’re crazy? Nope, I fully agree.”

  “That it’s you,” she seethed. “That you’re the one who did this. That you’re a criminal.” She glanced all around at the huge group getting bigger by the second. “That’s who they let into Artemis because she was an unknown. A criminal. She’s got a huge rap sheet and—”

  “You have no idea the full story of any of this, do you?” I asked. I burst out laughing when she smirked at me like what did it matter? “Oh fuck, you are crazy and lazy. So you thought you’d put this up and there you go, you got the smoking gun to get me out, right?”

  “There’s no justifiable reason for any of this,” she shouted, gesturing to the dozens of displays. “You’re a thug and you get off on violence.”

  “You sure?” I waited until she nodded. “Okay, then let’s give everyone here the full story and see who’s side they’re on. Let’s fill in some blanks and see which one of us they think psycho.”

  “Be my guest. Try and justify all of this if you’re not even going to bother lying it’s not you.”

  I snorted. “It was abso-fucking-lutely me and I hope you have extra posters because I will frame them all and hang them in my house.”

  “You really are a fucking nutjob,” Holly muttered, shaking her head at me like she wasn’t even enjoying this anymore but worried who had been near her.

  I shook my head too and pulled out a Sharpie from my bag, going to the first one and uncapping it. I took a good look at the guy, flipping through people in my head and nodded, remembering him.

  I started writing, starting with “serial rapist,” and then listed a few of their names I remembered.

  “Is ‘pedophile’ spelled with ‘p-h’ or ‘f’?” I asked the group.

  “P-h, Tams,” Mel answered. Oh, I could only imagine the steam coming out of her ears. “And don’t forget he had kiddy porn you turned over to the cops.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” I purred. I moved to the next one and in big block letters wrote “MURDERER.” I followed up with five bodies found in his backyard and the name I’d gone after him for, thinking he’d only killed one but it was five.

  I marked up five others done before I froze, looking at a face I hadn’t seen in over four years and tried hard not to think of.

  “I got this one, babe,” Mel whispered as she took the marker from me. “And just so all the people in the back know the truth, this one wasn’t Tamsin, but me. I went after this piece of shit and barely kept myself from killing him.”

  I swallowed loudly as she wrote the list of his crimes.

  Child abuser.

  Pedophile.

  Serial rapist.

  Domestic abuser.

  Con man.

  She let out a slow breath and looked over her shoulder at me. “There’s more I didn’t tell you. You ready for this?”

  I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest. “I can take it.”

  No, I couldn’t. I had to lock my knees to stay standing when she wrote “murderer” to the list. After she’d gone after him, he’d been arrested and convicted for killing five foster kids.

  I couldn’t get my voice to work at first. “Before or after me?”

  She licked her lips and capped the maker. “Four before and one after. That was the one I got him busted on and the police found the four others and put together they weren’t runaways.” She grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to her, lowering her forehead down to mine when I closed my eyes. “I wanted to tell you he was locked away for several lifetimes but I would have had to tell you why.”

  “One after me?” I rasped, my eyes burning and completely forgetting about all the people around us.

  “That’s not on you. You were a kid. You fought and got free from a rapist and serial killer, Tams. Because of you saving me and finding someone you could tell, those five girls were found and put to rest.

  “You saved however many others he could have gotten. He will rot for the rest of his life—no parole—because you were strong enough to fight and run. Okay? The rest is on him.”

  “What the bloody fuck is all of this?” Craftsman bellowed, making me jump.

  “Oh, just a few students illegally lifting fingerprints and trying to prove Tamsin is unduly violent and crazy,” Mel drawled.

  “And the writing over the posters?” Professor Campbell asked.

  “The reason we went after them trying to get them busted and saving women,” Mel said firmly. “I saved Tams, she saved me, and we saved others. It’s what we did.

  “She saved me from one of the biggest underground supe fighting rings run by humans who knew of us. She didn’t know that’s what she was saving me from. She thought they were sex traffickers but at fifteen risked her life to save me and others.

  “And you think she’s the nutjob here? She’s nineteen and has saved over two hundred women from everything ranging from abusive spouses to supes who were facing death matches to foster kids who were placed in the houses of serial rapists or worse like she was. All of your cliché talk she’s an orphan or a street rat, all your fucking judgment on her, and how many of you can say you’ve done a fraction of that?”

  “Finish it, Ms. Vale,” Professor White said firmly. “Let everyone see the full picture before punishment is brought against the fabricators of this story they didn’t bother to learn the truth of.” She clucked her tongue when people started to argue. “You might have gotten around the social media and privacy posting of the NDAs, but this was a public smear campaign just the same and not tolerated.”

  I glanced at her and found strength in her determined gaze, nodding when she did. I moved away from Mel and finished marking up all the posters. When I was done I went over to Katy and held out the marker.

  “And for the record, the school board always knew this was who I was. The night they found me my magic had come out in a power clap because I was taking down a pimp and eight of his friends who were forcing hot women in his neighborhood to become sex workers and the police wouldn’t listen to them because no one should listen to a whore, right? So good job, Nancy Drew. I was never embarrassed of any of this.”

  “You seemed to be mortified about your foster dad,” she purred. “He get your cherry? Are you a raped little bitch no one needs to pay for and just gives it up?”

  I pulled back my fist to punch her but was grabbed around the waist and held to a chest, two steel bands keeping me to him. I didn’t fight when I felt the energy from him dance along my skin, knowing it was Hudson.

  “No, I lost it two years later being a stupid girl and thinking a hot older guy liked me for more than sex,” I seethed, wanting to smash in her face. “That’s about the only cliché I’ve ever been. I fell for stupid lines and puppy love that I didn’t learn from the first time even. I have now and so what? Hell, the last guy I was involved with—”

  “Why are you defending yourself to her?” Hudson cut in.

  “I’m not, I’m saying my past is mine and I’m not embarrassed by my mistakes or my trip-ups because it made me who I am and I’m proud of who I am.” I sneered at the group of women
trying to tear me down. “It made me something of value besides who I’ll mate or marry. If that’s your only value, who you can hook for you family, I have more respect for the sex workers as at least they know they’re whores.”

  That might have been throwing a match on gasoline but it was how I felt and not unfair.

  “Not sure you needed to add that,” Hudson grumbled as he carried me off to the cafeteria.

  Darby snorted from next to us. “I think it was the least they deserved when you stopped her from pounding Katy’s face in. She deserves to be punched by every woman who’s ever been raped for implying they’re damaged goods or they’re all sexually promiscuous because of the trauma they survived.”

  “Damn straight,” I grumbled.

  “My cousin certainly is not and the rape culture we have is just as bad as the humans’, blaming victims and giving the rich passes on ‘bad behavior’ like they fucking blew a stop sign and didn’t rape a woman because she was poor and had no way to fight back.”

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, feeling horrible for him and his cousin. She clearly wasn’t the only one hurt.

  “Thanks, she’s fighting through it.”

  “And the guys?” I asked.

  “Not enough evidence to bring it up to the authorities is what the school told her, implying she should make sure that she didn’t make any more trouble or risk her scholarship.”

  “Fuck that,” I seethed, able to get my phone out of my pocket even with Hudson carrying me still. I unlocked my phone and tossed it to Darby. “Call Claudia. She would eat those guys and that school. Tell her I’ll take the billed hours if she can’t do it pro bono.”

  “You’re serious?” he whispered, his eyes bugging out behind his glasses.

  Hudson snorted. “Do it or she’ll find those kids to give them their own medicine and get kicked out of here. And she’s not the only one who would have helped with that.”

  “Right, because knowing the ones who would help or would help me get kicked out for even suggesting going against other rich families isn’t easy.”