Anthony: how long do I have until you tell the leadership about this?
Liam: depends on how long it takes me to go through the last few months of footage to see how long this has been going on and what the fuck they’re doing
Liam: I’d say you have a few weeks unless I find something I can’t keep from them
Anthony: can you keep me updated while we do our own investigation and give me a heads up if you do have to report it early?
Liam: you got it
Liam: but remember - sharing is caring. I scratch your back, you scratch mine and all that jazz
Anthony: roger that
I check the time stamp on the video. It was taken last night, just before midnight.
Anthony: when did you find out about this?
Liam: About ten minutes ago. so far it’s the only one I’ve found
Anthony: thanks for passing it to us first
Liam: all good
Liam: just remember our deal
Anthony: I remember
He sends the emoji of the hand doing the peace sign, his usual sign-off, and my screen goes dark.
I flash it back up again and look up to find my friends staring at me expectantly.
“What’s that face for?” Connor asks.
Instead of answering, I text the video to their phones so they can see it for themselves. “Liam sent me this,” I tell them as their phones all go off at the same time. “The footage is from last night,” I explain as they pull their phones out of their pockets.
I wait while they all play the video.
Rath is the first to look up from his phone. “What the actual fuck did I just watch?”
“Is there any context for this?” Hazen asks. “Or do we have to worry about people living in our walls on top of everything else we’ve got going on?”
“Pretty sure we don’t have to worry about wall people,” I tell Hazen with a smirk. “All Liam said was he found the footage ten minutes before he texted it to me, and he has no idea who that is.”
“Is he passing it on to the leadership?” Rath asks.
“Not yet.”
“Are we sure this isn’t one of the brothers getting caught on cam using the passages?” Connor asks, still staring at his phone screen intently.
“You’d have to be pretty high up to even know about those ones,” I point out. “I had no idea they were there. Did any of you?”
They all shake their heads.
Our frat house is full of secret passages and ways to move around the house without being seen, a fact that’s one of the worst-kept secrets on campus. Everyone knows about them, but most underestimate just how extensive the network is, or how much of it is top secret.
There are a handful of passages, secret rooms, and doors that everyone who’s ever lived in the house knows about, but the only way to learn about most of them is to move up the house hierarchy.
The four of us all work for the current leadership, and we’re also the unspoken frontrunners to win the elections to take their places next year. We’re pretty fucking high in the hierarchy, but even our knowledge of the passageways is limited.
