“You could have taken him up on it. You don’t have to ride your bike.” Wrath is unhelpful from his spot at the counter.

  “You think I don’t know that?” I mutter, unable to explain the pressure I was under. I panicked and made the safest choice I could.

  I don’t do well with surprises. I like to know things well in advance. The only reason that school isn’t such a big deal anymore is because I staked out the campus before freshman year started a week before anyone else showed up, and I learned exactly where every classroom and building was, and the fastest way to get from one building to another.

  I also researched all my teachers, the staff, and anyone else I was bound to come into contact with well in advance. And for three years it has served me perfectly well. I can even handle things like a brand new guidance counselor without too much pain because everything else remains the same.

  But getting a ride is something different entirely. I still don’t know much of anything about Nico, and even though I want the option to get to know him, it’s not like I’m ready to actually take that step yet. There are concerns to be measured, thoughts and feelings to weigh. What if he’s a smoker? Or what if he listens to country music? What if he turns on the air conditioning while his windows are rolled down? He could be the type that has empty fast food bags littering the bottom of his Jeep. Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things it’s just… not what I would expect.

  The Nico in my head is a lot less surprising, and that makes him a comfortable option. The real version is too unpredictable.

  “Stop moping,” Wrath says. “I just saw him pull away, so it’s too late to change your mind.”

  I rush to the front of the house to confirm for myself, but Wrath is telling the truth. There’s no sign of the Jeep across the street. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Wrath snatch my phone from the counter. Pox looks up at him in curiosity and carefully steps over top of his playtime screw, hiding it beneath his cloak.

  “What are you doing?”

  Wrath brandishes it towards me, and then announces, “Smile!” The phone makes a series of clicking sounds generated by the camera app.

  I swipe for it but he yanks it out of my reach.

  “C’mon,” he pleads. “Do it for the ‘gram. You never post on Pentagram anymore. People need to see your first day outfit.”

  “All seven followers?”

  “I could get you to a few thousand if you’d let me manage you.” He says absently, typing carefully with his claws.

  “The last time you tried to ‘manage’ me, you tried to take a picture of me in the bath. There weren’t even any bubbles to hide…” I cut off abruptly, feeling the blood rush into my face.

  “Yeah, and you’d have thousands of followers now if you’d listened. You’ve got a great body! You should show it off. Now who’s feeling foolish?”

  “Keep it up and I’ll get another squirt bottle filled with holy water. You won’t like it when you get sprayed in the face every time you pick a fight,” I threaten.

  “That would be time better spent spraying your boyfriend in the face.”

  “Wrath!”

  “Theo!” he mocks.

  I walk out of the room before he comments on me blushing, or calls more attention to the fact that I’m embarrassed. Pox chirps before I get past the doorway, and I circle back for him, scooping him up into my arms and then taking him back upstairs to my room. I hunt for my book bag while Pox settles himself in the giant cardboard box that currently houses him. I know he climbs out of it when I’m not home, so I don’t exactly know where his little store of metallic treasures is located, but I know it makes him happy to have a secret, so I never let on that I know.

  Pox is somewhere between a pet and a little sibling, doesn’t take up too much space and doesn’t need as much attention as I first thought. He’s perfectly content to hang out in my room while I’m gone - he sneaks out of his box and is back in it before I’m home. It’s a perfect system. For now, at least.

  I drop him off, find my bag, and head downstairs. Wrath is waiting for me at the door, his plushed animal in hand next to my phone.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “You’re still bringing me along, right?” he asks, very nearly wringing his claws together.

  “I shouldn’t,” I threaten.

  He drops his eyes. “I just don’t want you to miss a good opportunity.”

  The fact of the matter is that sometimes, without Wrath, I wouldn’t take any chances at all. He pushes me outside of my comfort zone. He also supports me when I’m not ready for it. Either way, he’s there for me. So I can’t hold a grudge.

  He’s my best friend.

  I take the stuffed animal and my phone from him, and his physical form vanishes and disappears inside.

  When my parents first gave me the stuffed animal, I was still a little kid, and it was bigger than I was. I carried him around everywhere. I was too young to know that they’d bound a demon inside the doll, and that the demon was in turn bound to me as well. The doll is the thing that keeps him in this world, when normally he’d be returned to the Broken Hells the moment he was removed from a summoning circle.

  The doll is like a portable circle that lets him manifest anywhere in the vicinity. That’s why I started bringing him along, regardless of what other people said. Everyone at HHU thought it was cute, cool, or retro, and it became a thing. Eventually, everyone was bringing a stuffed animal or attaching one to their bag.

  “We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry,” I say, and then head for my bike. My phone vibrates with a notification. Wrath posted the picture.

  Exactly as I told Nico, by the time I get onto the dirt path that leads through the woods and cuts directly through the valley to the university, the ground is completely dry and there’s no trace of the morning’s storm. I strap Wrath against my bag and throw it over a shoulder before I start pedaling.

  The entire ride to school doesn’t last long at all, and I pull my bike up to one of the racks near the Social Sciences building. There aren’t any students bleeding from the eyes today, but it’s only the first day of the semester. It usually takes the new classes a few weeks to really get into the readings before they’re traumatized.

  “Theo!” a voice shouts when I head into the Social Sciences building for my first class. Isaac comes running down the stairs, stumbling halfway down and having to grab onto the railing before he tumbles down to the bottom.

  Isaac is probably my only friend at school, and I’m surprised to see him already this semester.

  “I saw you from the window upstairs so I figured I’d come down and meet you,” he says all in a single breath. Isaac is excitable, but also just as quick to volunteer for things, so he’s like a rabid bunny rabbit running all over campus at a moment’s notice.

  But we’re always the ones in a class that seem to be by ourselves. HHU is something of a pack school, and we don’t have a pack of our own.

  “You survived the guidance counselor, huh? Isn’t he a trip? He reminds me of someone, I swear. Maybe a cartoon.”

  I have no idea what he’s referring to so I offer a bland, “Completely” as if I agree. Feigning understanding is half of how I’ve gotten through the last three years.

  “What’s your schedule like this semester?” Isaac asks eagerly. I pass over a copy of my schedule without hesitation. “Recycling and the Living Dead? Excellent! We’ll be buddies again!”

  What are the odds that Isaac and I have our first class together? I don’t know, but I’m profoundly grateful. Even knowing one person makes me feel significantly more comfortable about what’s to come. The Ecology elective fulfills one of my PreScience obligations for my degree.

  But when we walk into the classroom assigned to ECOL 968, the first person I see seated at the back of the room is my wayward neighbor. Nico is absorbed by something on his phone, and doesn’t look up as more people begin to file into the room.

  “Winter!” Isaac nearly shouts and then drags me along the side of the room towards the back where a familiar looking dark-skinned girl is stretched out in a chair of her own. I’ve seen her around campus before, but I think this is the first time we’ve ever been in a class together. Her outfit, though, is incredible and I find myself gaping for a moment.

  “What? Never seen a black goth before?” she asks. She’s wearing a black dress slit up one leg with a corset, something like a bone white circlet laid over her braids, both a black leather choker and a necklace with tiny bones woven into it and a bird skull-like pendant, bracers on either arm and a pair of high heel boots. All black and silver and bone. She looks, hands down, like the most fashionable person that Hollow Hills University has ever seen. Or possibly a villain in a big budget teen slasher.

  “Winter is amazing,” Isaac effuses, taking the seat next to her and pushing me down into the seat in front of him. “You two don’t know each other?”

  “Huh-uh,” Winter murmurs through pursed lips. “You look familiar, though.”

  “Theo,” I say, waving a little, and then feeling like an idiot. I happen to look past her to Nico but he’s still not paying any attention. I take Wrath and my bag and push them both down into the seat in front of me.

  “You’re the Morecroft boy,” she says suddenly in recognition.

  “I’m not a—“

  “You live at the Morecroft Manor. Yeah, I’ve heard about you. That’s badass. That place is supposed to be extreme haunted. Hardcore.” She seems extremely impressed, and she graces me with a smile.

  However, our initial bonding session is not built to last. Just as soon as we begin to engage in smalltalk someone stalks into the room and slams the door shut behind them. It strikes at the wall with a clang, and the sound bounces off the concrete walls of the classroom.

  Freddie Kaye struts into the room like he’s a tenured professor and not just a TA with a superiority complex. Tall and spindly, he looks like one of those inflatable dancing dolls that draw people into car lots and steal their souls after the sun sets.

  He’s also been the TA in at least one class of mine every semester since I started school here. I’m starting to think he’s a little bit obsessed with me.

  And sure enough, as he takes a look around the sparsely populated classroom, his eyes narrow in on me and a cruel, thin smile stretches across his jaundiced face.

  “Mister Morecroft,” he drawls.

  “Is it too late to drop this class?” Wrath says from my side.