Chatoyant College Book 7: Upon What Soil

Chapter 19: Painting

Corrie could only stare at her friend for a moment. Based on Corrie's limited experience, Dawn looked stoned. Just her face was enough to say that, let alone the fact that she was actually allowing her back to be painted when she had brought up people painting on each other as one of the reasons she didn't want to go to the party. Hell, Corrie didn't think she'd ever even seen Dawn showing this much skin before. Her shirt was pushed up over her shoulders and her bra was unhooked.

"Dawn, are you high?" she finally managed to exclaim. To her relief, she didn't sound angry and judgmental (at least not to herself)—there were probably plenty of people here who were high, and she had lots of friends who liked to get high. It was just so weird for Dawn to be one of them. And Corrie hadn't even left her alone for that long!

Dawn laughed and shook her head. "Of course not. I'm just having a good time. I'm glad Naomi invited us."

Corrie frowned. She wasn't buying it. She touched the girl doing the painting—gently and careful not to jar the arm holding the paintbrush, since she knew how upset artists could get if their work was messed up. "Hey."

The girl looked up. She had very curly brown hair that was tied back tightly in a ponytail. Her light brown eyes were red-rimmed and the pupils were blown wide. "Hey. I'm not done yet but you can be next if you want." The design on Dawn's back was all in red, black, and purple, and it didn't seem to be representative of anything, but there were lovely, delicate curves of color.

Corrie shook her head. "No thanks. There's not anything weird in that paint, is there?"

The painter shook her head. "Just regular body paint. Opened a new package today."

She nodded and bent closer, lowering her voice. "You didn't see my friend take anything, did you?"

"Hey," said Dawn, turning her head around. "Why'd you stop?" She was blinking rapidly and didn't seem to have heard anything Corrie had said.

"Sorry," said the painter. She bent her head again and painted a thin V-shaped line down the middle of Dawn's spine. Dawn smiled and her eyes drifted shut.

Corrie waited for a response to her question, then, after a minute had passed and the girl just kept painting, repeated, "Did you?"

"Hmm? Oh, no, definitely not. She was eating some candy before."

Corrie glanced over at the candy table. It was still piled high. Somebody could have spiked some candy, but how would she know? There probably weren't very many people here who would be upset to accidentally ingest some spiked candy. She looked around for Tom, but didn't see him—and for that matter, didn't trust him to help Dawn if she needed it.

She touched Dawn's shoulder. "I'll be right back. You stick around here, okay?"

Dawn lifted her head, still smiling widely, and opened her eyes a slit. "Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay. Cool." Corrie ran for the other end of the room, dodging people, then took the stairs two at a time. She probably didn't need to be so worried, she reminded herself. If there was pot or ecstasy or something in one of those candies, Dawn would be fine.

But what if it wasn't just a conventional drug?

The first room she looked into was empty. The second room was, too. The third had two guys making out in it, and she closed the door quietly; they didn't seem to have heard her. The fourth room was the one she was looking for. There were a few people sitting and standing around a pottery wheel, where Naomi's friend Jerry was making what looked like a very tall vase. They were laughing.

"Naomi," Corrie hissed quietly. Naomi didn't turn. She walked into the room and called more loudly, but she actually had to walk all the way up to her and nudge her with a toe to get her attention.

"Hey, you decided to join us!" Naomi grinned, holding a hand up to Corrie.

Corrie shook her head and took Naomi's hand, but used it to haul her up. "Actually, I need to talk to you alone for a second."

"Okay. I'll be back, Jerry." Naomi followed Corrie out into the hallway. "What's up? Edie didn't disappear again, did she? Where's Dawn?"

Corrie took a close look at Naomi. She looked just like she usually did—which was to say, kind of out of it, but not high. "Dawn's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. I think someone spiked her with something."

"What?" Naomi gasped. "Are you sure?"

"No. But she looks weird and she's letting her back get painted. And she keeps saying how much fun she's having."

"Well, I knew she'd have fun, but I did not expect her to let her back get painted. She says she didn't take anything?"

"Yeah, and so does the girl painting her back. Just candy."

"That's really weird." Naomi shook her head. "Well, let's go talk to her."