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2- If The Gods Were Listening

Aisha snapped awake, panting hard, as she tumbled to the floor. Aiko was here! She was back. She was--

Looking at the empty bed, Aisha felt her stomach drop. No, it had only been a dream, a memory of the last time she'd seen her friend. Morning sunlight filtered in through the open window, showing the blood smears on her hands and pants, the scattered papers around the room. The clock showed it was quarter past eight.

Her body felt slimy, coated in a sheen of sweat and dried tears. Looking up at her desk, she saw the altar. Her fingers still burned from each pierce of the blade. Her back still ached from sitting in the desk chair all night, waiting. And yet no one ever came. Why did she expect anything else? If the gods were going to answer her, they'd have done it when she was a child. Their silence was nothing new. She forced the disappointment down again, where it couldn’t hurt.

She was so fucking stupid. Just a lousy, lonely, miserable girl screaming up to the stars and the gods, hoping for an answer, hoping for help. Aiko had been missing for exactly two weeks. She'd gone to a Kappa Nu Tau party two Fridays ago. She'd been seen there; Aisha had seen the Instagram stories she posted with a classmate from her Physics class. Based on the interviews she’d done, Aisha knew people had spoken to Aiko all night. But she never came home. And none of the frat brothers would say anything more about it, insisting she must have left sometime that night. Insisting they didn't know what happened.

Campus police weren't even searching, Aisha knew. She'd gone there almost daily and there were never any updates. No one had even bothered to post missing fliers on the bulletin boards around the school. No one had put out a missing person's report yet either; she had been checking every day on the police website. They wouldn't let her file one because she wasn't next of kin and Aiko's family swore they had already filed one on two different occasions.

At least three of the lead officers on campus had sons at Kappa Nu Tau. They likely had no desire to stir anything up. And Aiko's family was too busy grieving, heartbroken. They couldn't take off work to be present at the police station every day like Aisha. They kept telling her to trust the police, begging her not to cause problems for their daughter. Trust American justice, they said. And Aisha didn't have the heart or the patience to explain why they'd be waiting a while. Forever, probably justice could be a fickle thing. She felt the rage prickling her eyes and took a breath.

The best Aisha could manage on her own was spying on the boys as they came and went from their frat house. She'd heard enough to be suspicious for sure, heard enough to want something done. But her last hope fizzled out with the empty altar. No one answered. The summoning didn't work.

Some pathetic sound escaped her mouth as she lay against the floor. So this was stage four of her grief? Depression. Her stomach gutted. Forcing herself up on her feet took a lifetime but Aisha managed to make it to the bathroom before she emptied her guts in the toilet. She spit out the aftertaste, looking down to see it had only been bile. When was the last time she'd eaten? Yesterday at breakfast? Dinner two nights ago at work? The days blurred together. She stumbled to the sink.

Heat and itchiness prickled at the back of her neck as she wiped sink water across her mouth. She twisted her neck to the mirror to inspect the tattoo, studying the beautiful handiwork. The eye-of-Horus tattoo sat over the meeting point of her spine and shoulders. It glistened, standing out in stark black against her brown skin. It had almost fully healed with only a few small scabs still peeling off.

Her summons should have worked. If anything in the world was fair, it would have worked. She lifted her wrist to study the embroidered band tattooed around it: two As swirling around each other like an infinity sign. It was the spontaneous one they'd gotten together that day at the tattoo parlor. She wanted to dry heave again but Aisha swallowed it.

She thought back to the band of boys that used Kappa Nu Tau like a get out of jail free card: Evan, Josh, and Zach. All jocks. All gorgeous. All loaded. All 'going somewhere', or so everyone said. Somewhere she would never get to go, no matter how hard she worked or how smart she was. Those were just the cards she was dealt and she knew it.

The glue that held the frat to the top of the school's hierarchy, was the partying. They threw wild themed parties, and if you were anybody on campus, you went. Or you stayed home like a lame. Worthington University was way too isolated to do anything else. There wasn't even a movie theater in the nearest town. So the frat threw parties and everyone went. Normally Aisha did too, even when she was always looking like the odd one out. But she’s stopped.

Because at the end of last year, how many times did one of them slap her ass at the beer pong table? Or spill water on her shirt as they walked between rooms, so they could see her boobs as she passed? Touch her latex dress? Press against her with a hard-on? They cornered her outside the house, made sexual comments as she went to get a beer, ogled her as she passed their rooms to get to the bathroom. It all got to her so much she stopped going to the parties altogether. Aiko at least mingled. And because she wasn’t such a stiff when it came to sex, nobody bothered her. But Aisha the prude? The weird witch girl who didn’t let anyone into her bed? Teasing her was too much fun to stop, apparently.

And now, she regretted her decision to not go with Aiko. If she had just sucked it up, Aiko wouldn't be missing. She was a terrible friend. She trusted other people to care about her as much as Aisha did. A mistake she might never get the chance to amend.

She headed towards her dresser so she could get ready for her nine o’clock class. The guilt was part of her need for revenge. Penance. She adjusted her black ribbed shirt until it was fully off-the-shoulder so it wouldn't rub her tattoo. Then, Aisha took a wet brush to slick her puffy curls into a ponytail. Then pulled on some black jeans she wasn’t entirely sure were clean, and laced up her calf-high boots.

Grabbing her oversized purse, she slid her aged diary off the desk and tucked it in with her laptop. She'd just begun to work on several incantations for stopping the assaults at the frat, things she could mix in with her normal honoring rituals. Then Aiko went missing and it seemed too little, too late. She wanted bad things to happen to those beautiful boys. Especially now. But no one came when she called last night. So there was no point trying to work a hex.

Aisha didn't know magic and she didn't have powers but she believed wholeheartedly that with enough intention, sacrifice, and emotion, one could conjure anything. It was just a matter of sending out her intentions into the ether and seeing what came back. But if last night was any measure, it might have all been the wishful thinking of a depressed girl.

Eying the altar, Aisha sighed. As angry as she was that no one had come to her last night, she couldn't disrespect the gods. If she turned her back on this, she wouldn’t have anything left. Nothing. The word stung as she forced it away. She set her bag down and poured a new basin of water. Slowly, she cleaned the blood and oil off the statue until it was a pristine ratty relic once more. She gathered the rest of the materials into a pile, grabbed her jacket and purse, and headed into the kitchen. She left the altar materials on the side of the sink as Aisha fixed herself a bowl of cereal. Not knowing the last time she’d eaten was probably not okay. Between mouthfuls of cocoa puffs, she prepared a sandwich for lunch, eying the bread from all sides for mold. Satisfied, she slid it into a Ziplock bag. She paired it with an apple and filled her water bottle before closing her lunch bag.

She was going to remember to eat.

Two more bites and she emptied the cereal milk down the drain. Purse in hand, she snatched her keys off the hook and headed out into the dreary swell of morning commuters. Their modest third-floor walk-up was only a handful of blocks away from the school and she wasn’t the only one making the short trip to campus. As their landlady waved on Aisha’s way out, she was suddenly happy their rent was paid up until graduation. The summer before their senior year had been exceptionally hellish as she and Aiko worked from sun up to sun down in order to pay their rent upfront. Aiko promised it would leave them more time for fun during the year.

Aisha had thought it was a stupid idea at first but now, with the fact that she hadn't been to work consistently since Aiko went missing, and no longer having Aiko’s shared income, it turned out to be a blessing. Her healthcare and food were mostly folded into her college loans, thank the gods, but for clothes and spending money, she had to work an afterschool and weekend job at the casino two hours away. That had been the furthest thing from her mind but Aisha definitely had to go to work tonight. Her boss had already texted that she was on thin ice and she really couldn’t afford to lose the job altogether.

The fifteen-minute walk to campus had Aisha sliding into her first class without drawing any attention to herself. The room was mostly empty, with students still milling about in the halls so Aisha thrummed through her diary while she waited. It now detailed more than just her abuses, it listed her evidence against the boys. Suspicions. The testimony she gathered from interviewing people at the party. Inconsistencies. It was enough to give her anxiety though that wasn’t the only reason. Not only had last night been a failed summons, but one of her prime suspects, Evan, was in her morning class.

As the teacher stepped into the room, the hallway of students filtered in behind him. The professor unpacked his briefcase and Aisha wagered she had a few minutes to look over her recent discoveries. Just as she flipped to the right page, she felt a large splash of ice-cold water down her head and shirt. The involuntary squeal sounded like a strangled animal; she jumped out of her seat, effectively knocking her purse, and the book, to the ground.

"Oh gods, what the hell!" she hollered, turning her shivering body to the culprit, Evan Rogers who held an empty water canister. He sent a sparkling smile her way as if to say he enjoyed her soaking wet top immensely. And Zach backed him up, whistling at her. They both eyed her dripping body without reservation as other students began snickering. Aisha clenched her fist. Now, if she bashed in those perfect white teeth, she’d be wrong, right? She’d probably get a quick little visit from campus police. Probably end up with a probation letter from the school. But meanwhile, Aiko was literally missing and no one gave a flying fuck.

"Witchie's got a nice rack though, huh," the boy Zach cheered, jostling his friend's arm in amusement. Their beady little eyes still trained on her.

"Better than the other one's for sure," Evan whispered so only Aisha could hear it. Her face burned. Now they were antagonizing her.

"What's going on back there?!" The professor interrupted their fun and her fuming. Evan smiled because he knew there was no way he would be suspected of doing what he’d clearly just done. Aisha drew her ponytail into a death grip and squeezed the water out onto his shoes.

"Aisha just knocked Evan’s cup over, silly girl. Looks like she needed a bath," Zach said, receiving a mixed bag of laughter and scolding from the class. The student body wasn’t all bad. They didn’t actually bully her and most of them didn’t approve of her being bullied at all. This wasn’t high school. But still, there was always a line between what people felt, and what they were willing to do.

“Are you in this class, mister…?”

“No need to worry about me,” Zach offered, “I was just leaving.” He threw Aisha a salute and ducked back out in the hall.

Aisha mouthed fuck you and his smile grew as he rounded the corner. She returned her attention to Evan, who had taken a seat in the empty chair next to hers. She didn't want to make more of a scene than they already were but this was pushing her control to the max. Stay calm, she begged herself. Aisha fanned her shirt out a couple of times and huffed her damp body into her chair.

"You can be excused to clean up, Ms. Adel, if necessary," the professor dismissed with the flick of his hand, turning back to his briefcase.

"It's god by the way,” Evan whispered over her shoulder and immediately she stiffened, “As in singular, witchie. Not plural."

“You seem to know a lot about god for someone who’s going straight to hell,” she snapped, looking dead in his eyes. Though it wasn’t expressly said, they both knew who and what she was referring to. Evan sneered.

“So that’s it huh? The reason you fucked with my car? The reason you've been stalking us all over campus? Zach might be into that obsessive shit, but I’m sure as hell not. And here I was thinking you just needed to get laid…”

Aisha didn't respond, knowing it would only make things worse for herself if she did. And if they started that argument here, in the middle of class, it would definitely get ugly. She'd expected this retaliation eventually, with what she'd written on his car window: I know what you did! He was fucking lucky she didn't key the shit.

Instead, she bent down to gather her things.

"Whoa, what's the rush, baby?” Evan cooed, reaching down to beat her to the book, “What you got here? Ohhhh my stalker's been writing me little love notes huh?" He flipped the cover back and fixed his eyes to begin reading. He couldn't know what was in it. The case she was building against them was too important to risk. She shivered and without any regard for her own well-being, Aisha snatched it from his grasp, pushing him backward, sending him tumbling out of his seat. His shock bought her a few seconds enough to snatch up her things and dash for the door.

"You're gonna regret that little witch," he hissed.

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