“Well?” he said grudgingly. “You coming?”
“Yes,” she said, snapping out of her grudge and trotting to the door. “Hey, what’s a parafreak?”
“It’s you,” he said in his normal, slightly caustic tone as he took Hailey’s “luggage” from her. “And me too. It’s anyone lucky enough to study ParaScience in the Last Frontier state. We are definitely the redheaded step children of the university.”
“I certainly am, but you seem to have a lot of friends here,” she told him while she tied her wet shoes.
“There’s only one friend I care about.”
He winked, and Hailey froze, her belly tightening. Then she shook her head and laughed.
Holding the door for her, he followed her out, and they headed toward Eureka Hall.
“Really, though, Fin, what were you doing in Pittsburgh?”
“Chasing women and getting into trouble,” he answered without hesitation as their path opened into a giant square.
Several buildings dotted the campus, some log, some stone, and one that looked like a giant igloo. Each bore an ornately carved wooden signpost with large, bubonic-looking knots.
“Eureka Hall is here on the north-east corner.” Fin opened the outer door for her and showed her inside.
“I’m on the third floor,” she told him.
“I know.”
Up the stairs they went, and Fin explained Eureka’s layout.
“So, this is the only co-ed dorm on campus.” The stairway opened onto a large landing that split the building in two. “To the right are the boys’ rooms and to the left are all the girls’ rooms. The girls have their own showers, which are conveniently located almost directly across from your room, next to the laundry closet. In front of us is the Spruce Room, which is a community study hall slash TV room slash kitchenette.”
He opened the door to the Spruce Room and turned on the lights.
“Nice,” she said, taking in the giant TV, five fluffy couches, desks, and tables.
“This,” he said pointing to a large presidential-looking suite adjacent to the Spruce Room, “is where your Resident Assistant lives.”
“Okay,” Hailey said with a nod.
“If you have any problems—you get locked out of your room, you have an issue with your roommate, you need more Yeti spray—any problems, Hailey, you come and knock on this door, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll answer.”
“O—what?”
Fin smiled.
“You’re my RA?” Hailey said brightly.
“Yup.”
Yes! He’d be right down the hall and could help her get her bearings and explain these in-betweens and answer her questions, and oh crap! What about Tomas and these ghost traps? She had to disable them.
“I need to go to the library,” she blurted.
“Of course you do.” Fin threw a confused hand in the air.
“I need a German dictionary and a book that explains these ghost traps,” she continued very seriously. She did not want Tomas getting stuck. “The campus map shows the library, but it doesn’t give the hoursand—”
