Once they had arrived at the changing room, she just stood around while Eva shed her clothes. Eva had left her behind with a wave and crossed the fake, snowy mountain to one of the slightly more secluded springs. She fully expected to get out five minutes later to find that Irene had run off.
When Irene walked out, trying and failing to cover herself with her hands, Eva had let some surprise show on her face. Irene had stood outside the pool, blushing furiously. She had only slipped into the water after Eva let out a short cough.
Since then, her heart rate increased with every passing second. Irene’s eyes darted between the door and Eva, as if expecting someone to barge in and assign detention. If Eva was feeling somewhat guilty about skipping Zoe’s class, Irene must be freaking out at the thought of missing two whole classes.
Eva was beginning to think her stress relief retreat had backfired.
“If I am bothering you so much,” Eva said without opening her eyes, “you can go. I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay on my account.”
“N-no. I’m just…”
“I’m not going to eat you or anything.”
Irene hugged her knees to her chest. “How did I let myself get talked into this?”
“You didn’t. I dragged you out here.”
Eva’s words fell on deaf ears.
“Mom is going to have that disappointed look on her face. And Shelby,” Irene let out a soft groan, “is going to be insufferable.”
“She’s skipped plenty of times in the past.”
“But
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“That’s not the point.” Irene’s voice turned soft, just barely loud enough for Eva to hear. “She’s going to make fun of me.”
Eva frowned and actually opened her eyes to look at the girl. “Your twin bullies you?”
“Not really. But this might warrant extra attention,” Irene said with a sigh. “I can see it already. She’ll ask me where I was and ‘who was the lucky guy’ that I was with. When I say that we were here, she’ll gasp and put her hands over her mouth like it is such a scandal before breaking down in laughter. Maybe even asking if your,” her eyes flicked up to Eva for a second before they turned back to the door, “if your pet was part of our activities.”
Eva’s frown deepened. That didn’t sound as bad as she had been expecting, but it was clearly bothering Irene. “Well, you don’t have to worry about Arachne joining in. She found a new toy to play with and I just haven’t the heart to pull her away from it. She won’t be around until the end of school to pick us up.”
Irene shot a glare at Eva. The glare withered as Eva stared back. “Now you’re doing it,” Irene mumbled.
“Just play it up. Square your shoulders and say ‘it’ was great. Relish the surprise on her face when you turn her little tease around on her.”
Irene sputtered in the water for a moment before she said, “I couldn’t do something like that.”
“When she asks exactly what ‘it’ was, just smile. If it really is so bothersome, tell her you were just relaxing in the hot spring and nothing else.”
A small splash rippled the water as Irene dunked her head beneath the water.
Eva leaned back, shutting her eyes once again. The conversation managed to lower Irene’s heart rate by a small bit. That was a win in her eyes.
Another splash signaled Irene popping her head back above the surface.
Her scream split the silence.
Eva jumped to full alert. Before she even turned, she saw it through her sense of blood.
It was like someone had taken a flesh golem and strapped on the arms of a bear. It had a human head and a mostly human torso, but the thing became a snake from the waist down, ending in a second fanged head.
As Eva’s head turned to fully observe the creature, she realized those were not bear arms. They were the paws of a dog. A dog that left smoking trails of brimstone anywhere it stepped.
The paws of a cerberus.
“Wha–”
Eva wasted no time. She gripped Irene around the waist and used her powerful legs to vault out of the hot spring in a single bound.
“Come on,” Eva said as they landed. “We have to get out of here.” She firmly gripped Irene around the wrist and started pulling her off towards the men’s changing room on the opposite end of the room.
She’d probably have bruises in the morning.
To her credit, Irene had yet to scream a second time. Her heart was racing. If Eva thought it was beating hard earlier, it jumped into potentially dangerous territory now.
Eva’s own heart was hammering in her chest. She couldn’t help it. Her blood vials and dagger were both back in the girl’s changing room.
With a thought, the blood–pretouched by her dagger–burst out of its vials. She was almost out of preservative vials, they kept breaking or needed breaking. But this was an emergency. She tried to wrap the dagger in blood and move it the way she had with the bloodstones in Hell, but the dagger was too heavy and failed to budge.
Cursing under her breath, Eva left the dagger where it was. She’d double back as soon as she got out of the boy’s changing room.
