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“Will you answer the door so some of us can get back to fucking sleep?” a voice shouts from down the hallway.
Axel and Charlotte burst into laughter and continue knocking. I grind my teeth. That’s the downside of an institution connected to the underworld.
Even though we students are technically equal, we’re not. Each of us are attached to families, and each family has its place within a hierarchy.
If you’re well-positioned enough, you can get away with shit like waking up an entire hallway of people at an ungodly hour because who’s going to be stupid enough to start a feud?
I heard that Axel has connections with the Bestlasson family, and he’s best friends with Veer, who is Odin’s nephew. Charlotte’s father is Kieran Bress, who is the first cousin of the man who runs the Irish mob, Declan Dagda.
Dad chose to enroll me anonymously but he used my mother’s maiden name, which is connected with a low-level family distantly associated with Odin.
In short, I’m a nobody.
“Coming,” I yell.
The knocking suddenly stops.
When I reach the door and crack it open, Charlotte shoves her way inside. “Sorry for the intrusion but the shit just hit the fan.”
I step back and rub my eyes. “What’s happened.?”
“Odin’s coming down for Sunday lunch.”
That has me blinking myself awake. “Why?”
“Your peptalk gave Veer the balls to tell his dad and brother that he wasn’t joining the firm.” Axel says with a smirk. “Cute nightshirt.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re knocking so early,” I mutter.
“We’ve got to sneak Veer out before Odin arrives.” Charlotte rifles through my wardrobe, which is better organized after using the campus laundry service.
“Okay.” I yawn. “Give me half an hour, and I’ll meet you outside.”
“Twenty minutes.”
Half an hour later, I’m sitting in the back seat of a Scooby Doo-style van with Tin Soldiers on Pluto’s keyboardist on my left, and their drummer on my right.
I don’t see Veer, but Axel already explained that he’s lying beneath a pile of equipment because the campus security only concern themselves with the movement of people, not objects or those hidden beneath them.
I lean into the band’s only female member. “Will Veer be alright?”
She raises a shoulder. “This won’t be the first time we’ve smuggled him off campus in the back of a vehicle.”
“Can’t he borrow someone’s ID?”
Axel turns around from the front seat. “We tried that, but every member of staff and security guard knows his face.”
“Shit,” I mutter. Veer’s dad and uncle are worse than mine. At least I was only a partial prisoner.
Axel drives into the outskirts of Marina Village, which is drenched in the morning sun. The buildings in this part of town are all densely packed, and five or six stories tall, with independent stores on the downstairs and apartments on the higher levels. At the very ends of the streets are distant glimpses of the sea.
He parks outside the Whirligig, which is not surprisingly shut, but then jumps out of the van and opens its back door. The keyboardist also steps out.
“Hey man, the venue is closed,” I hear him say from around the back.
There’s a loud scraping, accompanied by a slight swaying of the van as the band members move items apart to liberate their lead singer.
I pull out my phone. It’s 8:55 in the morning. I doubt that anything’s awake so early in a sleepy town like Marina Village.
