VANISHED (#1 in the VANISHED series) #NaNoWriMo2019 ✔

t w e l v e ✔

To say Arielle was so petrified she wobbled back to Stella wouldn't be enough to fully encompass her feelings. Her tongue tied, her insides bubbled and made her nauseous, and her fingers fumbled to wrap around her coffee mug.

"Dude... you okay?" Stella sat up straight, on alert. "You were gone for a second... are you sick?"

Arielle gulped as she clasped the mug hard, breathing in and out to steady her heart-beat. She couldn't nod or shake or head, because she had no idea if she'd imagined the whole thing or not. "I... might have had an encounter in the bathroom."

Stella's perfectly tweezed eyebrows inched up. "An encounter?" She blinked and turned to glance towards the restroom doors, then returned to Arielle with a smirk. "I didn't know they were shared bathrooms. You naughty girl, I didn't see anyone go in there with you! And whoever it was with got you all hot and bothered, so spill!"

"Oh my God, Stella, not that kind of encounter," Arielle rolled her eyes, "a ghostly one. I didn't have sex with someone in the bathroom stalls of a Starbucks Coffee at a college I'm not even attending! Jeez!"

She winced, because though she'd never do such a thing, Jade would. And that didn't lessen her tension in any way; if anything, it caused her heart-rate to speed up and her emotions to intensify.

"Oh." Stella almost looked disappointed, her smirk evaporating. "What happened, then?"

If she got into details here, with several students, campus staff, and baristas in earshot, Arielle would seem more insane than she felt. And anyway... she didn't know it happened and still wasn't sure of it. "I... uh, it might have been the suicide girl. Maybe I saw her, too, but... my eyes probably played tricks on me."

Moments before she'd been dissatisfied by Arielle's lack of sexual activity in a public restroom, but now Stella shot up from her seat and knocked into the table, making their mugs waver and spill coffee over the rim. "Holy shit, for real? What did you hear? What did you see?"

Telling Stella the come clean part would rouse her suspicion. She'd already been gaping at Arielle all morning as if trying to read through her, and saying a specter haunted her with words that affected her more than she wanted them to would only worsen the situation. "I... uh... didn't understand it. Whispers. And I was definitely alone in there—I checked. Several times. Then it made the lights flicker..." That wasn't a lie. "And the faucets turned on by themselves." Also not technically a lie. "And then it... vanished."

Phew... well, it's not like she'll ever find out the truth, right?

"Fuck." Stella lowered into her chair and downed the rest of her drink as she wiped up her mess with a napkin. "I should go investigate it. Maybe I'll feel something with my developing abilities—"

Arielle stood up and jammed a fist to the table. "No!"

The entire room silenced and peeked at them, shocked by her outburst.

Shit... I didn't mean to shout that.

Only the clinking of cups and utensils cleaned by baristas echoed into the area, but otherwise, everyone and everything had gone quiet.

"I... uh..." Arielle gulped. "Sorry... don't mind me... having a mental breakdown—"

Stella tugged on her sleeve, forcing her to sit down. "Girl, chill. Why can't I go check it out?"

Because you'll know, you'll ask questions.

Arielle slumped against the plastic cushions of her seat. "Because they're... uh... cleaning." She glimpsed the contents of her drink and sneered; there was no way any caffeine would settle the unease in her stomach right now. "The janitor came in... threw me out..." She shoved her cup away and braced to get to her feet again. "Maybe we should get moving, yeah? Finish this up and hit the road? We have to be in Charleston to check-in at the hotel..."