“Tiff, before we go in here, I just…want to let you know I had a lot of fun,” I sighed. “I didn’t even know you played this game and…I really like playing with you. Do you think if we lose our characters here we could still play again sometime?”

“Audrey, honey, of course we can play again, and we’re NOT going to lose our characters,” She reassured me.

“What…is this?” Tiffany asked me, turning her character toward me. I noticed that her character was frowning; she had motion capture turned on. Shit, how good was her computer that it could handle face tracking? “Turn voice chat on you goober.”

I didn’t like to use voice chat, mainly because I didn’t like the sound of my own voice but what could it hurt? She knew who I was. I switched it on, paused for a second, and then, finally spoke, attempting to sound as feminine as possible.

“It’s the Everburning Mines,” I said. “I’ve been here like…a million times.”

“How do the Garrons even have a million dollars to donate to Woodcrest?” Tiffany asked me as I took exit 78 onto the freeway. I’d brought her with me for emotional support, and for directions. Mostly emotional support; I could have used my GPS to get to Derringer Inc., this place where I was supposedly going to be landing a new job.

Note: This story takes place during Book 3: Finding Audrey

I hovered my mouse over the ‘call’ button for a good minute before I finally closed my eyes, sighed, and worked up the nerve to click. It took a second for my laptop to register what I’d done but soon enough the familiar ringtone broke through and I could see the word ‘connecting’ on the screen. I waited for ten, twenty seconds thinking they weren’t going to pick up. I think I was hoping they weren’t going to pick up; my parents were never pleasant to talk to and even less so since I’d unexpectedly changed my major.

Sliding the phone back into my pocket I quietly used the bathroom and exited back into the hallway. It was a bare hall; no pictures or anything hanging up on the walls, and I only passed one other room. Passing out of the mouth of the hall I emerged into the kitchen where Shelby was stood at the stove stirring stew beneath a yellow hood light, contrasted against the white lights of the kitchen and a backdrop of faded, peeling wallpaper. Zeke sat at the kitchen table, the shotgun apart as he cleaned it carefully with a series of brushes and fluids.

“I’m sorry Ma’am,” The voice on the other end of the phone said. “We can’t accommodate a transgender individual at our shelter. While I’m sure he’s a great…person, we can’t house him with the women.”

“You can’t house her with the men either!” I said angrily. “Do you know what could happen?”

“Did you try the shelter over on Bradbury?” The woman asked. I wanted to jump through the phone and strangle her.

“Of course I tried them,” I snapped. “They said the exact same thing and this is INSANE! You can’t just turn people away! Hello? Hello?!”

“You, girl, what’s your name? Why you sleepin’ on my lawn?” A gruff voice stirred me to life as the world came to me through squinted eyes and my vision was flooded with rays of light filtered by a thick canopy of tree branches far overhead. My skull pounded from a trauma I couldn’t recall and my hand dug into dirt as I coughed and sputtered to life. “What’s your name little girl? You’d best be about answerin’ me!”

In Book 3, Audrey disappears and Aleah is forced to face her demons - will either of them survive?

I nodded to Sakiya as I sat down at the table in the quad. She was nicely dressed, as usual. Tri Pi’s fashion sense had always been a little more refined than ours, I guess you could say. Yeah we were on top of the latest trends, but every Tri Pi girl looked like they could wake up in the morning and walk into church every single day of the week, it was disturbing, or even kind of Stepfordy.

“So,” She said. “I’m going to cut right to the chase, how can I help you exactly?”

“Tiff, what’s going on with you?” Isabella asked as we pushed a squeaky cart down a grocery aisle later that night. “You’re like…glowing.”
“Oh, nothing,” I said in sing-song voice. She was staring at me. She didn’t need to know anything. Tonight we were out getting stuff for tomorrow’s dinner. “Do you think we should go with a roast?”

“Think we should make Audrey make whatever it is we have,” Isabella huffed.

“Does Audrey even know how to cook?” I was genuinely curious. I really had no idea.

“Yes.”

“What? Really? She never even eats.”

I’ve always been pretty proud of my car, it was a blue Mercury Milan; my parents paid for it. I can’t say I was really proud of it as I pulled into Shawn’s driveway. If you could call it a driveway. It was more like a road, to be honest. As I pulled in I was greeted by a guardhouse and a wrought iron gate, both of which barred me from entry until I rolled down my window and spoke with the guard.

“Go right in, Miss Grey,” The security guard waved me in as the gate was pulled aside. “Mr. Derringer is waiting for you.”

I stared at the guy for a full minute trying to discern who he might be, then it finally occurred to me to actually ask him.

“What do you need help with?” I asked with genuine concern. He really was worse for wear and I thought about inviting him in but I really didn’t want to bring a boy into the house. “What happened to your face?”

“I…” He said, shifting uncomfortably on the porch, his eyes darting to the left and right as if he was excepting something to come at him. “I don’t want to…I’m afraid to say…”

I awoke to a blood curdling scream. It was Thursday, and what better way to wake up? It came from the second floor, the bathroom right across from our room. I opened my eyes slowly, Aleah was already up, feet on the floor and throwing on her bathrobe.

“Calm down,” I said sleepily as I rolled over.

“Well something’s wrong out there, come on!” Aleah grabbed my shoulder and shook me. It wasn’t even daylight outside.

“Stop it,” I said tiredly. “Either someone’s dead or DEM played a prank on us. Either way, there isn’t much we can do about it.”

“Wow, you guys actually showed up,” Melissa said, walking toward us as we entered the theater. She was appropriately dressed in a gray knit turtleneck, wearing those black glasses that I really wanted to make fun of her for. We made our way through the rows of seats and met her in the middle.

“Todd, this is Melissa, Melissa, Todd,” I dismissively introduced them to eachother and checked my phone again. No texts from Aleah.

“Hi it’s um…nice to meet you,” Audrey said. Her voice was a little shaky. She wasn’t good around new people.

Class wrapped up early so I dropped by the library to catch up on some reading. I probably could have done it at the house but it was kind of quieter here. Call me a prude I guess. I stepped into one of the private reading rooms, and I immediately remembered that it was the one we’d sent Audrey to for Lauren’s laptop.

“Is this too much?” I asked as I stepped from the hallway and into the bedroom where Olivia and Aleah were literally playing cards on the floor. Olivia looked up at me and let her eyes wander up and down my outfit; it was a strappy dress that came down to just above my knees.

“For a first date? With Shawn Derringer? Girl he’s lucky to be in your presence, you should just wear a t-shirt,” Olivia snorted at me and went back to her hand.

“Or a burlap sack,” Aleah laughed.

“Come on Todd!” Mason said insistently from across the room as his fingers worked the keyboard like an instrument. “Let’s see that epic DPS you’re always talking about”

“I’m trying!” I shouted back. “This thing has mad adds!”

We were deep in a Dark Pantheon raid, fighting the final boss. I was running low on health potions and the boss’s adds were shielding it from any physical attacks. The only thing I could get through its shields were weak frostbolt attacks but that just wasn’t cutting it.

“Target the adds then!” Mason said. “They’re weak to fire.”

“Are you awake?” Mason asked. His voice seemed far away.

“Mason?”

“Todd?”

The bathroom faded from my sight, torn away like a discarded canvas, and was replaced by the pale white of a hospital room. I heard the whirring of machinery, and felt the pain of a needle in my arm. It wasn’t a proper hospital room – that much I could tell. At my feet I could see a blue curtain, the only shield between me and a bustling emergency room.

Mason was sitting beside the bed, he looked uncharacteristically concerned. He wouldn’t be so concerned if he knew the truth.

Todd/Kelly and Mason go cave diving, Tiffany makes a demand.

Synopsis: For those who enjoyed Allison's Pledge, I'm posting a story that I wrote some time ago which you should enjoy. It's much darker but follows the sorority theme. Finally, note that like AP, it starts with a trope, but as you learned with the last story, my tropes go pretty sideways after the first chapter. Same applies here. Enjoy!