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The chapel seems like a good place to have our clandestine meetings, but there isn’t anything holy about this situation.
“Anton was a senior last year, but he never graduated. From what I heard, the guy had a nervous breakdown a few weeks before the semester ended and had to drop his classes. I assumed he’d finish up this year, but he didn’t come back.”
She arches a blonde eyebrow. “Was that breakdown around the same time as Olivia’s attack?”
“It might have been.”
“Anton Bilik,” she repeats. “I can’t find any mention of him in here.”
Evangeline has a yearbook in her hands from last year, one that must have belonged to her sister. College yearbooks are weird at most schools, but even more so here. Those stupid things are basically an ode to Havoc House because pictures of us are on practically every page. The only people who buy those things are desperate fangirls, though I don’t tell Evangeline that.
I gesture for her to hand it to me. “Let me see.”
Confused, I flip through the pages. Dozens of photos of Havoc Boys are liberally sprinkled throughout. I hesitate at each one as I study the faces, searching for the one I’m trying to find.
But Anton is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t even have an entry among the individual photos that every student is supposed to get.
“This is weird,” I murmur. “It’s like he was never even here last year.”
“Or like somebody wanted him scrubbed from existence. You really never heard anything more about it?” Her tone is incredulous.
“Just rumors about him acting unstable, nothing else. You have to understand, if Havoc Boys are untouchable then the seniors are like gods among men. Nobody questions anything that we do.” I close the book and hand it back to her. “If Brady and the others wanted Anton gone for some reason then they could definitely make it happen and no one else would have known anything about it.”
When she meets my gaze, her eyes have gone cold. “He has to be the one who did it.”
“The only way that he would have gotten himself scrubbed like this is if he got kicked out of Havoc House entirely. It doesn’t make any sense that the alumni would try to protect him.
“Then we have to talk to him,” she argues. “If he wasn’t the one who did this, then he has to know who it was.”
“You’re probably right.”
She jumps to her feet. “Then let’s go. Right now.”
I grab her arm and pull her down. “Just wait a minute.”
The logistics of it are a nightmare. If I remember correctly, Anton’s family is from Pennsylvania, right outside Philly. It’s at least an eight-hour drive. There might be a flight that leaves in the morning, but it will still take at least a day to go there and get back.
No way can both of us disappear for most of the weekend without anybody noticing.
It’s gotten even harder for us to meet now that people are returning to campus. Her room is out of the question now that Anya is back. Classes start on Monday so this might be the last time that we manage to be alone together for a while.
I had to sneak out of the window of Havoc House just to make sure that nobody asked where I was going.
“I’ll talk to him,” I tell her. “Alone.”
Evangeline gives me an angry look. “No fucking way.”
“We can’t go together. If we both disappear, people will know that we’re together. Until we get the whole truth, we have to keep up the charade.”
“Who cares what your Havoc buddies think, or anyone else for that matter? I thought you cared about finding out the truth.”
“I do, but we don’t know for sure that Anton is involved at all. We might be wrong about this.”
“We’re not wrong about this. Anton is the guy.” She drums her fingers against the yearbook cover, annoyance twisting her features. “I want to be there when he realizes that I know what he did.”
Frustration momentarily overwhelms me, and I have to resist the urge to shake her. “Do you have any idea how dangerous things are for you? If Brady had figured out that you were drugging him, who knows what he would have done. Look what happened to Olivia. If Anton was willing to beat her nearly to death, what do you think he’s going to do when you show up wearing her face.”
I can tell from her expression that Evangeline hadn’t thought about what might happen when she showed up on Anton’s doorstep to throw a bunch of accusations in his face.
