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He let out a frustrated sigh and unclenched his hand. “I guess so,” he said quietly, rubbing his tense jaw. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just so fucking angry. I seriously want to destroy every last one of thoseassholes.”
“I know. I want to hurt them too,” I whispered, reaching up to stroke his face. “But we need to be smart aboutit.”
“Yeah. You’reright.”
I tentatively wrapped my arms around his waist, leaning the side of my head against his chest. He responded by pulling me even closer and holding me flush against him, head resting on top ofmine.
Our embrace was warm and comforting, but even then, I couldn’t stop picturing the initials in the book and wondering exactly who they belongedto.
Were those evil men at home right now, having an afternoon snack with their kids or playing with them out in the yard? Kissing their wives or giving them flowers, smiling to themselves all the while as they thought about what they might do to the innocent young girls they’d forced into their darkscheme?
It was horrible to even thinkabout.
The school bell suddenly rang, disrupting my quiet moment with Hunter. I pulled away and took a deep breath. “What do you think we should we do next?” Iasked.
“We need to finish taking the photos and upload them to a cloud-based thing so we can’t lose them, even if our phones break,” he said. “And then I think we should go to myhouse.”
My stomach lurched at the thought of bumping into his father. “Why?” Iasked.
“I want to see if we can find anything in my dad’s study,” he explained. “I also want to get into that room you told me about—the secret one behind the bookshelf that I never even knew was there. There might be something in there that we could use as evidence. Something the society left behind after their lastparty.”
“Oh, right. That’s a good idea,” I said, noddingslowly.
He rubbed the side of my arm. “Don’t worry. My dad won’t behome.”
We returned to photographing the pages of the Network-Medusa record book. Just as Hunter snapped the last photo, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out to see a message from Adam in the group chat I shared with him andTrina.
I let out a groan as I read it. “Oh,shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Hunterasked.
“I was supposed to meet your brother and Trina after school today, because they were going to show me some sort of sunken garden in the middle of one of the abandoned buildings near the lake,” I said. “We’ve been planning it for ages, but I totally forgot it wastoday.”
“Go and meet them,” he replied. “I can look through Dad’s office and everything else on myown.”
“No, it’s okay. I can justcancel.”
He shook his head. “They might get suspicious if you do, and I don’t want them to know anything. I think we should keep all of this to ourselves right now,” he said, gesturing to the book. “Just incase.”
“Are yousure?”
“Yeah. Go and explore the old buildings with your friends. They’re really cool,” he said. “We can meet back at your dorm later and go overeverything.”
I smiled tightly. “Okay. I’llgo.”
“Where are you meeting them, anyway?” heasked.
“At the top of the path leading to thelake.”
“All right.” He slid the book back into its slot on the shelf. “I’ll walk you downthere.”
I shook my head. “It’s in the total opposite direction of your car, so I’ll just walk down there by myself, and you can head home to start searching. The more time you have, thebetter.”
“I don’t know,” he said reluctantly, brows furrowing. “I really don’t want you walking around aloneanymore.”
“It’ll only be for a few minutes, and there’ll be other students everywhere, because the bell only just rang a few minutes ago,” I said. “Trust me, I’ll befine.”
He finally relented. “Okay. But make sure you text me once you’re with Adam and Trina so I know you got theresafely.”
