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Eileen doesn’t expect to see anyone in the library this early. Don’t college kids have hangovers to sleep off on Saturday mornings? And yet, she’s not alone in the stacks.
The kid in question is probably her age, maybe a year or two older, and he keeps staring at her when he thinks Eileen isn’t paying attention. It’s annoying because the back of her neck won’t stop pricking, even though she knows some snooty rich Stanford student is hardly a threat. Not for a seasoned hunter, anyway. And no matter what Lillian had to say on the subject, Eileen is plenty seasoned.
It’s getting really hard to concentrate with the kid’s eyes on the back of her head. It doesn’t help that he’s kind of cute in a floppy, puppy-ish sort of way. He’s probably never worked a day in his life. He has a stack of books next to him that’s nearly as tall as he is sitting down, which is really saying something. Surely he doesn’t need that many.
Eileen rolls her eyes and returns to her book. It’s in Greek, and she hates trying to read Greek. Latin, she can handle, but Greek drives her up a wall.
The kid wanders behind her, ostensibly to run his fingers over the books on the shelf next to her, but Eileen can feel his eyes on the back of her head and then on her notes. She fights back the urge to scoff.
“See something you like?” she snaps at last, whipping around to face him.
She very nearly smacks face-first into his chest because he’s standing almost directly behind her. The kid takes a half step back, his shoulders colliding with the bookshelf. He’s really a deer in the headlights, and for a second, Eileen almost feels bad.
“Um. Sorry.”
He puts his hand on his chest and moves it, counter-clockwise. Eileen can’t stop herself from smiling. He smiles, too, broad and dimpled.
“Actually, it’s the other way.”
He corrects it instantly. “Sorry. I took a class last semester, but I didn’t have room in my schedule for the follow-up.”
“Most people don’t know any,” Eileen says with a shrug.
It’s rare to find someone who bothers. There’s Lillian, obviously. But even she gets frustrated sometimes. A few months ago, she’d made Eileen lookout on a hunt, and the ghost—identifiable to Lillian through its moaning—had turned out to be invisible. Eileen had noticed it eventually, thanks to the dust on a bookshelf moving in a gust of wind, but it had been too late.
(Eileen forcibly shakes off the memory of Lillian screaming loudly enough to shake the floorboards as Eileen stitched up her arm with shaking hands.)
“They should,” he says, awkwardly.
A smile tugs on the corner of Eileen’s mouth. “Yeah. They should.”
The kid sticks out his hand. Eileen hesitates for a brief second before taking it. There’s a faint memory of calluses on his palms, which takes her by surprise. She schools her expression back into something neutral by the time he meets her eyes again.
“I’m Sam.”
“Eileen. Did nobody ever teach you staring is rude?”
He releases her hand so he can put both of his in the air defensively. “Sorry. That’s usually my spot. I’m not used to seeing other people up here, especially this early on a Saturday.”
She raises her eyebrows. “You usually sit in the mythology section?”
“It’s quiet. Besides, I’ve always sort of been interested in that sort of stuff,” Sam says with a shrug. “Classics major?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” It explains the Greek, anyway. “Big classics fan.”
It’s not like it’s against the rules for a member of the general public to be in this library. But it would definitely raise more questions if Sam discovered that she wasn’t a student. Stanford is a big enough school, even if Eileen’s too-big canvas jacket and mud-caked boots make her stick out like a sore thumb.
“I think I’m gonna be pre-law, but I’m a freshman, so I’m undecided so far. There are too many interesting classes to take to commit yet.”
He takes the opportunity to lean over her shoulder again. Eileen lets him. It’s not like he’s going to be able to understand much of it anyway. He smells like cheap shampoo, the kind that Lillian snags from the few motels they stay in that provide it.
“The word you’re missing there is ‘minotaur,’ I think,” he says, brow furrowed.
Eileen looks down at it again. “What makes you say that?”
Sam shrugs. “Sometimes these things can be really metaphorical. The more direct translation is labyrinth-dweller. The most famous thing I can think of that lived in a labyrinth was—”
“Minos’ minotaur,” Eileen finishes, jotting it down. “That makes a lot of sense, actually.”
The first vic had been stabbed in the stomach. They’d been thinking that it had been a weapon, but what if it had been a horn?
When she looks up, Sam is all dimples again. She smiles back. It feels like when she and Lillian reach a conclusion at the same time, but better, because Sam hasn’t snapped at her about finding the answer quicker.
“Wait. You can read Greek?”
Sam nods. “A little.”
Knowing the word ‘labyrinth’ in Greek is more than a little, but Eileen doesn’t say so. For the first time, she notices a certain thinness to his cheeks, and a certain nervousness to the way his eyes dart around the room.
He didn’t have enough to eat as a kid, he’s assessing exits like his life depends on it, and he knows Greek off the top of his head. Eileen wonders if he has a knife in the pocket of that big brown hoodie to match hers.
For a crazy, wild moment, she considers asking him. Then, she crashes back down to reality. If she and Lillian don’t get a move on, the Minotaur is going to strike again. She can’t let an innocent person die because she’s too busy flirting.
“Thanks,” she says, gathering her papers together. “That was the last piece I needed.”
The papers crumple together in her duffle bag. Eileen usually likes to keep her research tidy, but her last file folder ripped a week and a half ago, and they’ve been too busy to replace them. She shoves the book in, too. She’ll jog out of the library if the little alarm sounds. Lillian prefers it when she can see the research firsthand.
“Oh. You’re welcome.” Sam smiles. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
Another smile creeps up on her face before she catches it. “Why?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to talk Greek mythology with someone who knows their stuff,” Sam jokes. Then, “Plus, I just earned my first free coffee at the shop down the street.”
Eileen feels a ‘yes’ at the tip of her tongue, but she forces it back. She scrambles to think of a plausible excuse instead.
“Can’t. I’ve got a study session. I’d love to, though.”
His face falls, but he recovers pretty quickly. “Maybe another time. Here.”
Sam hurries back over to his own table and pulls a piece of paper out of his notebook. Eileen stands, hauling her duffle over her shoulder. He nearly knocks over his stack of books in his haste.
“My number. For when you’re free to talk about King Minos,” he says, holding it over.
Eileen folds it carefully and places it in her pocket. “Thanks, Sam. Really.”
He signs ‘thank you,’ back to her, even though it doesn’t really fit. Eileen hasn’t smiled this much in so long. Her cheeks hurt. She feels Sam’s eyes on the back of her head until she’s out of his sight, and she’s red to the tips of her ears.
Twelve hours later, once Lillian and Eileen have killed the Minotaur, Eileen takes the little scrap of paper and lets it flutter on to the floor next to its bloody corpse. If Sam has really gotten out of this life, she’s not going to be the one to drag him back in.
No matter how nice his smile is.