Chapter 7 Blaze
BLAZE
I finish the tour of the campus grounds in front of the burned remains of the Kappa Alpha house.
Ezio and I stare at it silently for a few minutes, like we’re sending a prayer for this building.
I’d only been there for a bit over a year, but it had felt like a second home to me. Never mind how I felt about Zayden or the rest of the fuckers. Even though I didn’t get along with everyone, Kappa Alpha Omega Sigma is still my fraternity. These were my brothers. This was my house.
“They’re going to tear down the remaining structure next week,” I say to Ezio. “I know they’ll fix it up and make it better, but I’m gonna miss the old place.”
“It had history,” Ezio acknowledges. For a moment, his face is expressionless, but then he offers me a smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “But the new one will have history for you to build, completely your legacy.”
He means my father’s legacy.
I nod. “Yeah.” I rub the back of my head awkwardly. “So. You’ve seen the updated campus. Can I take you back to your hotel? Do you already have housing lined up?”
Ezio keeps staring at the building. “Was the room safe? It had fire protections in place.”
The room.
He means the secret office where we’d stored all of the information.
The one we’d caught Pandora in.
I shrug. “Probably not? Well, depending on how strong those protections were, but you can see that the fire got almost everything.”
“Let’s check anyway,” Ezio says. He steps around the caution tape and up the steps to the front door.
Shit.
I hurry after him. “Hey! It’s not safe. There could be structural damage. Do you want to get stuck down there?”
“We won’t,” he replies. He walks through the front door, and while he’s careful to pick around the debris and the parts of the floor that look less stable, he doesn’t seem concerned about the extent of the fire damage.
He heads straight for the basement, and without hesitation, he goes for the secret entrance to the basement. Selecting a key, he unlocks it and turns his phone’s flashlight on before stepping inside.
Everything’s exactly as we’d left it after Pandora escaped. After she’d cut me. I reach up to my chest and rub along the line of the cut she’d made. There’s a small sting still… and a small thrill.
I should be furious that she’d done that to me.
Why the fuck can’t I get mad at her?
I shake those thoughts away and go over to the drawers, testing them. Still locked, exactly like last time. I hadn’t had the time to come back to check the contents, distracted as I’d been by Franklin’s funeral and planning for Ezio’s arrival and the whole bullshit with Asch.
“All the stuff was in here,” I say, rattling the locked drawer.
Ezio has a key for that, too, though it takes him a moment of sorting through a keychain to find it. He pushes that into the lock and turns it, revealing the contents of the drawer.
Or rather, the lack of contents in the drawer.
The hard drive we’d kept in there is gone.
I try one of the other drawers, where we’d had paper files. Some are still there, but it’s noticeably more sparse than before.
Crap.
Pandora must have gotten to all the stuff. She’s been sitting on these files for over a week, not saying anything.
Maybe she can’t crack the encryption. There were three separate layers of protection on the hard drive alone. A simple password wouldn’t get anyone in there. There’s two factor authorization, randomized keys, and then even knowing where to find the hidden, separately password locked files.
The paper files are designed to look like generic paperwork. A lot of them have dummy information specifically to deflect away from the real information we’re hiding.
There are backups. Of course there are backups. The information is too valuable to have sitting in a single storage device, in a few flimsy papers. But it’s also information that can’t get out.
I stare at the empty drawer. Can I play it off as somebody else having taken it? Or should I pretend I have the files at my new place?
“Interesting,” Ezio says, his voice mild as he picks up one of the files of paperwork. “I thought we’d entered the new digital age, where documentation would be on a hard drive.” His eyes go to mine, boring into them.
I shake my head. “Zayden removed everything important, I think. Not that he’s been returning my calls. I haven’t seen him since the fire.”
Ezio falls silent, but he doesn’t look away from me. “He’s not answering calls, or his door, and no one has seen him,” he says calmly. “Meanwhile, important files are missing. What do you think that could mean, Blaze?”
I force myself to stay calm, despite how my heart is racing.
“Ask him,” I say. “Zayden was being a little bitch to me the entire time leading up to the fire.” I make an annoyed sound. “You know he had the balls to blame me for that other attack? Like I could somehow have predicted… well, and then poor Franklin died. It’s been a shit show around here.”
The other attack.
The one that had started this whole mess.
We still haven’t figured out why they attacked us, or who they even were beyond ‘masked fuckers.’
“Then, of course, there’s the girl,” Ezio says, as though he doesn’t know her name. “I understand she’s been thoroughly humiliated, but she is a Pavone, and they’re wild cards at best.”
Isn’t that an understatement.
“Yeah.” I close the drawer and rest against the edge of the desk. “Well, Pandora Pavone isn’t exactly my top priority right now. The logistics of rebuilding are eating into my precious free time as it is. I’ve got projects and essays due, and meanwhile nobody else is lifting a finger.”
The frustration in my voice is real.
If Zayden were around, he’d have jumped to get his fingers all over everything. But the other frat brothers? Even the other officers? None of them are eager to get their hands dirty now. They’re satisfied that everything is over and done with, now that Pandora has been punished.
Asch would help, a small voice whispers in my mind.
Asch can’t help. He’s not somebody who needs to know about secret rooms and shady deals and holding all the influence in the palm of your hand. He doesn’t know what it takes to lead in this world.
I don’t want him to know.
Yeah, Asch can get protective, and sure, he fucked Pandora up good that one time, but beyond that? He’s naive and soft.
This isn’t his place.
He’ll get his degree and find a real job and… and…
Fuck.
He can’t leave.
I won’t let him.
But I should. I need to.
All that’s happened lately is proof that he can’t be part of my world.
“Your father is aware of what your priorities are right now,” Ezio says. “But that’s why I’m here. I’ll get it sorted, Blaze.” He looks back at the filing cabinet. “Get in touch with Zayden. Find out where those files are.”
“Yeah,” I say. “If I can find him.” I pull out the remaining paper files. “Maybe he was more involved than we thought in the fire…”
Fuck, fuck. I need to get Pandora to hand over the stuff she stole. Without setting her off, without alerting Asch.
Without setting her off?
That shouldn’t matter. I should go over there and take everything from her by force.
That sounds like a better plan than asking her nicely.
“We done here?” I ask Ezio. I lift up the files. “I’ll get these sorted. That should be everything of value down here.”
Ezio takes the camera and tripod from the corner of the room. As far as I know, there’s no memory card in that camera, so I don’t worry about what he might find there.
Except I don’t need to worry, since Ezio already knows what we do here. He’d impressed my father so much with his work that my father had offered him steady “employment” as soon as he’d graduated.
“Would be a shame to lose this camera in the demo,” Ezio says. He folds up the tripod and nods to me. “All right. That’s everything.”
We head back outside, careful about where we step.
In a week, it really will all be gone.
Everything destroyed, thanks to one woman.
I growl to myself in frustration. “Hey, can you find your way back on your own?” I ask. “I just remembered I have a group study session. There’s this huge marketing project we’re working on, and—”
Ezio waves me away. “Yeah, go ahead. I’ll order a rideshare.”
“Thanks, man.” I take the files and jog off toward the parking lot. After I’ve stored them safely in the car, well hidden away, I pull out my phone.
Two new messages from River, another string from the frat brothers group chat, two from some of my classmates regarding the group projects, and one from Pandora.
No new messages from Asch.
Not that I was expecting any. He’s being a butthurt little bitch right now.
I open the Pandora message, and nearly recoil.
It’s a picture of her pet snake, coiled around her wrist. The timestamp says she sent it over an hour ago.
Pandora
Do you think they make jewelry shaped like blood pythons?
Blaze
No.
Where are you?
Pandora
Caf. I’m having your tofu salad!
Another picture pops up, this time with her dinner. It’s an entirely vegetarian spread: tofu salad, edamame, and a portobello mushroom burger.
Blaze
Don’t move.
Pandora
At all? I’m kind of hungry. I’m going to bite into this mushroom and pretend it’s your dick. Y’know, limp and sad.
I swallow a laugh, even though I’m supposed to be mad at her, even though I need to get her to hand over everything she stole.
I jog to the cafeteria, all the while reminding myself that I hate her, that she deserves everything she gets, that there’s no reason to want to see her smile.
Only she isn’t sitting alone when I spot her. She’s with that Carly girl from the first night I’d met Pandora, and a very tall guy. I don’t know his name, but I think he’s in the Nu Rho Kappa Upsilon fraternity. The NRKists.
My mood crashes.
Why the fuck was she flirting with me if she’s hanging out with another man?
I storm over to them and slam my hand on the table. “What are you playing at, Pandora?”
Carly flinches, but I ignore her. I don’t care about her.