“OK…

  ummm

  fuck

  where do I even fucking start?!” Madison thought.

  “OK…umm…so…I’ll tell you everything…but you have to promise not to run out or freak out or tell literally ANYONE…this is super crazy, and I still don’t know much about it.” Madison rushed out. She could see Suzy was freaking the fuck out and…to be fair…she wasn’t surprised.

  “I don’t bme her…I wish I knew where the whole racoon thing came from, did she like just mentally block out what actually happened?” Madison thought.

  Suzy looked at Madison. Looked at her deep, and hard.

  “I really don’t know her…but…it’s all felt so right. Like a real connection. OK, so hear what she says and then, take some time to think about it. Yeah, dad is always saying you have one choice in life and that’s how you react to stuff. I can choose to say ‘fuck this’ or I can choose to get mor information. Like Sargeant said in JROTC, she always said really smart people wait until they have as much information as possible to make a choice. I really do feel like we have something special.” Suzy reasoned as she looked at Madison. Madison looked so scared and alone.

  “I am not going to start crying now!” Madison scolded herself.

  “OK, so…umm, I really don’t know where to start. I found out about all this stuff in kind of a weird order…like…some stuff happened and I didn’t even remember and then there was this FBI agent guy telling me other stuff and then a guy attacked me and before that I was having really weird dreams and then we met, I mean we already knew each other but like we didn’t really know each other or anything, and it was soooo awesome and then we got attacked…but I know I’m not really making any fucking sense right now, so I’m not sure where to start to even try to expin all of this…” the words rushing from her in a torrent, all the while she was fighting to keep the tears in because, “…I'm not going to fucking cry right now!”

  Suzy, seeing Madison struggling to hold it all together felt her heart go out to her.

  “Hey, hey, just maybe try to expin it as it happened, you know like chronological order. I promise to listen.” Suzy said moving to hold Madison in a warm hug.

  “Wow! FBI? What does this girl have going on here? Shit, I want to help but…maybe she needs like a fucking wyer or something? Shit, I’m not really even sure about my major…” Suzy thought.

  “OK, so…I was out at ‘Earls’ like two weeks ago…” Madison reyed the entire story—the summoning, the dream walking (minus spying on Suzy’s back of the bus activities), meeting ‘Mr. Agent dude’, Solveig, the creep attacking her, everything.

  Suzy sat in shock. If she hadn’t seen the things she saw today…well, she would be contacting campus health services for Madison. But…an attack by two ‘creatures’ and whatever happened to Madison’s bite wound…had…opened her aperture a bit…now everything Madison said seemed, reasonable…scary, but reasonable.

  “So, I will completely understand if you want to call the whole retionship off. I cannot guarantee it will be safe to be around me.” Madison said with sadness in her voice.

  “What sane person would stay in a retionship with someone like me? At best I guess it’s gonna be just hooking up.” Madison thought forlornly.

  Suzy, still in shock, locked eyes with Madison, “Well…yeah…no. No fucking way am I letting you go through this on your own! I mean what if I wasn’t there today? Those things might have killed you! Fuck that! We need to take some like kung fu csses or something and you have to learn more spells or whatever! Shit this is crazy.” Suzy’s voice was steel.

  “You’ve gotta call that FBI agent, like right now!” Suzy continued emphatically.

  “Well, I was thinking about it but, I’m sure he won’t answer, its Sunday.” Madison replied reasonably.

  “You don’t know that, and it won’t cost anything to try. So why not call?” Suzy replied, reasoning out the situation. Suzy always found it irritating that people just made these negative assumptions.

  “Yeah, good point. You sound like my dad, hehe.” Madison answered with a little smile.

  Suzy smiled in return and looked around the room for their phones.

  Hers was on the floor near where she had been kneeling at her feast of passion. She did not see Madison’s though…

  “I don’t see your phone anywhere Tink?” she said, the endearment coming from her without thought. She was startled by it honestly. I mean, Madison did look like a full-size version of the character, but for the ck of wings…but she never could figure out where the idea to apply it to Madison, rather than some other more ‘normal’ nickname, came from. Sometimes she wondered at it. Why not ‘Mad’ or ‘Madi’ or ‘M’ or ‘Babe’ or literally anything else…

  Madison looked at her, startled by the nickname. Her grandparents, on both sides, had passed when she was still a young teenager, but they had all called her that from her earliest memories. She had loved the stories and movies about the flying boy and his friends. She had also loved the thought of herself as a small little person that flew through the air. Her parents had bmed, in a warm jest, the nickname for her interest in diving. It seemed an obvious connection.

  “W’why did you c’call me that?” Madison asked her voice catching at the memory of the st person that called her by that epithet. Her papa’s mother, the st time she saw her when she was fourteen. The thought brought warm feelings and a little moisture to her eyes.

  “Oh, I don’t know it sort of came to me without thinking. You have to admit it’s really appropriate. I hadn’t intended to call you by a nickname at all, it just came out. Did it bother you?” Suzy looked into Madison’s eyes, seeing the welling in them. Concern etched upon her very lightly freckled face.

  “No, no, it just surprised me…no one has called me that in about seven years.” Madison answered with a tender smile.

  Suzy banished the concern from her face with a brilliant grin, “Great! I’m gonna call you that from now on!”

  “OK, but not in public, OK? It’s special and I don’t want others to use it.” Madison agreed cautiously.

  Suzy pulled her in tighter for a moment and kissed her neck lightly, “Of course my Tink.” she agreed warmth filling her as she recognized the trust she was being given.

  Slowly letting Madison out of her embrace, “Now…where is your phone?” she asked.

  Madison wriggled up a bit, trying to recall where she might have dropped it…then felt something under her…reaching she pulled the smooth, slim bck device out and held it up in triumph.

  “Got it!” She smiled briefly, until the reason for needing it came to mind.

  Suzy looked at her expectantly with a slender eyebrow raised.

  Madison nodded and opened the contacts to find Agent Balerd’s number.

  Like most of her generation, she preferred to text people before calling. It was just polite.

  Opening the messaging app she typed ‘Agent Balerd, this is Madison Read. I need to talk with you soon please. Something has happened and I think I’m going to need some help.’

  “OK, let’s see if he’s checking his messages. Let’s get under the covers…I’m cold” Madison said with a warm smile.

  Suzy smiled back at the invitation. Soon they were snuggled under the quilt Suzy spooning Madison as they waited to see if the agent would respond quickly.

  “So, umm you said some light came from under the bandage?” Madison asked as she realized there was no pain in her arm.

  “Yeah, it was really, really bright. Obviously, it freaked me out. You didn’t notice it?” Suzy asked.

  “Well…no I was in the middle of a fucking amazing cum, if you recall.” Madison replied with some pyful snark in her voice.

  “Oh, yeah, I do recall that…someone must have some amazing skills to make you make such cute animal noises like that.” Suzy replied smugly.

  “What! I don’t…” Madisons reply was cut short by a ‘Ding!’ from her phone.

  “Good afternoon Ms. Read. I can be there in about thirty minutes. I would rather speak to you in person if that were acceptable?” Agent Balerd sent in reply.

  Madison instantly replied, ‘Sure, meet me in the lobby of Bessie Coleman Hall.”

  Suzy seeing the message asked, “Why there? Why not have him come here?”

  “I don’t know, I mean, I guess I still don’t a hundred percent trust him?” Madison’s reply illustrating she was still navigating the new reality she found herself in.

  “Yeah, that makes sense…but he’s like an FBI agent, he probably already knows what dorm you are in, I bet.” Suzy replied as she got up and started putting herself together.

  “Hey, you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want.” Madison said, giving Suzy an out if she wanted it.

  Suzy stopped and looked at Madison as if she had sprouted another head, “If you think I’m letting you go anywhere without me until we figure something out to keep you safe, well you are as crazy as anyone who heard this story without seeing what I’ve seen would think we are!”. There was no real heat in Suzy’s voice, just dismissing the idea out of hand. Suzy’s instant response warmed Madison as she left the warm bed to get dressed herself.

  It was a short and uneventful walk to the other dorm. There were a few students trickling in as they returned getting ready for css the next day. It was still warm and the smell of trees and flowers on the campus made for a pleasant walk for the women.

  Looking inside at the lobby, there were a number of women studying or quietly chatting.

  Madison looked at Suzy, “I think it’s better to meet him here. If he shows up in a suit like the other day it will really get a lot of attention.”

  “Yeah, that’s smart.” Suzy agreed.

  As they waited, Madison said, “I really want to look under the bandage. But I’m kind of scared to…”

  Suzy gnced at her arm, “I think you should, you know he’s gonna want to see it.”

  “Yeah, better to know before he gets here so I’m not surprised or whatever by what we see.” Madison agreed.

  Suzy came moved to shield Madison from any prying eyes. Not that anyone was really looking at the two. Just two normal students rexing on a bench outside in the pleasant te summer evening.

  Slowly, Madison peeled back the top edge of the bandage with her index fingernail. The tape sticking and pulling at the light downy hairs on her arm.

  She noticed again, surprised that the only pain she felt was from the pulled hairs.

  As she pulled back the white gauze the women were surprised to see there wasn’t any sign of the bite.

  “Wow…well you can just call me Dr. Hotlips from now on!” Suzy said, covering her astonishment with her wit.

  Madison still astonished, met Suzy’s eyes but before she could say anything she heard, “Ms. Read, good afternoon.”

  Turning, Madison saw Agent Balerd approaching. He was in shorts and a t-shirt, looking like he had just come from the gym.

  Noticing Suzy and the bandage on Madison’s arm asked, “How were you injured Ms. Read?” he paused, gncing significantly at Suzy, “are you sure you want to have others present for this conversation?”

  Madison put her hand on Suzy’s thigh and replied, “She absolutely needs to be in the conversation.” emphasizing it to Suzy with a quick squeeze of her hand.

  “And I think we should go out into the parking lot away from other people. I definitely don’t want anyone else hearing this.” She finished.