Hunted (House of Night #5)(26)

With an effort I put Erik out of my mind. "Sorry...sorry, I'm coming," I said and hurried into the locker room.

Chapter Nine

Okay, taking a group shower with girls who had affinities for water and fire was an experience thaZ! Th vityt went from awkward to interesting to pretty darn funny.

At first it was awkward because, well, even though we're all girls, we're not exactly used to communal showers. These weren't horribly barbaric. There were about half a dozen shower heads (which were all bright and shiny and new looking--I'm sure thanks to either Kramisha or Dallas or both, with help from Aphrodite's popular gold card). Each of them had a separate shower stall one right after another. No, there weren't any doors or shower curtains or anything. Actually, there was a rail at the top of each one, so my guess was that there used to be shower curtains back in the day, but they were long gone. Oh, the stalls for the toilets did have doors, even if they didn't want to stay latched. So it was awkward to be naked with my friends at first. But we are all girls, hetero girls at that, so we really weren't interested in each other's boobies and such, no matter how hard that is for guys to comprehend, so the awkward part didn't last long. Plus, the entire locker room was filled with dense steam, which gave the illusion of privacy.

Then, after I picked my shower stall, chose from the lovely assortment of bath and hair products, and started to soap up, it hit me that it was really steamy. As in unnaturally so. And that the "unnaturally so" was happening because all of the shower heads, even in the unoccupied stalls, were shooting jets of hot water from them, causing warm mist to rise and swirl, almost as thick as smoke.

Hmm...

"Hey!" I stuck my head over my stall trying to see the Twins in their showers. "Are you guys doing something to the water?"

"Huh?" Shaunee said, wiping shampoo bubbles out of her eyes. "What?"

"This," I flailed my arms causing the thick mist to billow around me dreamily. "All of this doesn't seem like it's happening without some help from certain someones who know how to manipulate fire and water."

"Us? Miss Fire and Miss Water?" Erin said. I could barely see the top of her bright blond head through the steam. "What ever could she mean, Twin?"

"I do believe our Z is implying we'd use our goddess-given affinities for something as selfish as making thick, warm, sweet-smelling mist to help relax all of us after we've just had a day that was ever so horrible," Shaunee said with mock Southern Belle innocence.

"Would we do that, Twin?" Erin asked.

"We absolutely would, Twin," Shaunee said.

"For shame, Twin. For shame," Erin said with mock severity. And then they dissolved into twin giggles.

I rolled my eyes at them, but realized Shaunee had been right. The mist was sweet-smelling. It reminded me of spring rain, filled with the fresh scents of flowers and grass, and it was warm--no, the water was hot, like a lazy summer day at the beach. The truth was even though the room was occasionally semi-illuminated by flashes of lightning from the storm that was raging outside, and even though booming thunder was uncomfortably loud, the atmosphere the Twins had created was utterly soothing.

So here's where the interesting part came in. I decided th4 t="0%">

"Hey, are you sending any of this over to the guys' locker room?" I asked as I scrubbed my hair.

"Nope," Shaunee said happily.

"Nada." Erin grinned.

I smiled back at them. "It's good to be a girl."

"Yeah, even if we do have to get butt-ass naked together and shower in what looks like a line of horse stalls," Erin said.

I giggled. "Horse stalls. I think that makes you guys nags."

"Nags! Us?" Erin said.

"Oh no, she did not just call us nags," Shaunee said.

"Get her!" Erin yelled, and she flung her hands at me, causing water to pelt me from all sides.

Of course it didn't really hurt, so it made me giggle even more.

"I'm heating her up, Twin!" Shaunee said, flicking her fingers at me, and my skin was suddenly very, very warm. So much so that the steam in my stall doubled.

In between giggles I whispered, "Wind, come to me," and instantly felt the brush of power surround me. Swirling my fingers in the steamy mist that engulfed me, I said, "Wind, send all this back to the Twins!" Then I pursed my lips and blew gently in their direction. With a mighty whoosh the mist and heat and water whirled around me once, twice, and then blew directly at the Twins, who screeched and laughed and tried to fight back. Of course they couldn't win. I mean, come on! I can call on all five elements, but it was a hilarious version of a pillow fight? water fight that left all of us drenched and breathless with laughter.

We finally called a truce. Okay, more accurately, I made the Twins yell, "We give! We give!" several times, and then I graciously accepted their surrender. It was wonderful to slip into soft terry-cloth robes and feel all squeaky clean and sleepy. We draped our clothes around the shower stalls and called water and mist once more to steam them, and then I commanded fire and air to blow them dry. Then the three of us drifted back down to the tunnels, ignoring the crack-and-boom show that was playing outside, secure in that fact that we were surrounded by the earth and protected by male vampyres who would no way let anyone sneak up on us.