Chapter 14
Twenty minutes later, and he hadn’t left his room, yet I wanted to see him more for two reasons.
First, I found him intriguing and liked his company; the second reason only revealed itself thirty minutes ago, when he said he associated with the Warwicks.
I could use him to get to the Warwicks, but I had to do it sneakily, without his knowledge.
I made a plan in my head to ask the metalhead, Lev —yes, Lev, that’s his name —to show me around campus, then hopefully he might reveal more about his relationship with the Warwicks. Was it him in my room yesterday? Was it him who stole my gun?
I left my room and walked down the hall to Lev’s door, knocked, and listened.
I heard coughing, distant tinny music, and expected footsteps, and the door opened, but nothing happened.
I knocked again and got silence, so it seemed I was exploring Castlehill alone, and I was completely fine with that.
I stepped out into the sunshine and adjusted the visor on my baseball cap to block out the bright light, then walked for about ten minutes along the path to Ashthorn Castle and through the walkway under the creepy fawn statue, past the elaborate stained-glass windows, and glanced up at the treacle-colored staircase curving up the main library, remembering my father’s request to find information on my stepmother.
There was plenty of time before her birthday, so I’ll look for old school photos of her another day, when I'm in the mood.
The first café I entered on Dingle Street was crowded with police, working hard, drinking coffee, and looking at paper maps instead of being at the scene of the crime and ending this charade.
My initial reaction was to leave and try the next café, but I was tempted to eavesdrop on their conversations and snoop at the notes they were taking.
It was odd because I thought the alleged crime was confined to the train carriages, so why did they need to invade student spaces with their authority? There’s not a single student in here because they’ve been scared off, probably, so that made me stubbornly forced my way in.
One plain-clothed officer was talking on the phone while others were quietly chatting. When I approached the counter and ordered bottled water, a turkey sandwich, a packet of potato chips, and an apple.
The girl behind the counter looked the same age as me and possibly a student, and wore Jess on a name badge. As she added up my purchase on the register, I leaned in and quietly asked, “Why are they in here?”
She scanned the room of cops first before quietly answering, “They’re waiting for the Forensic team to finish inspecting the body in the carriages.”
“Oh, okay, thanks, Jess,” I smiled, then paid her with a twenty-dollar note, and left, stuffing my goods into my shoulder bag. I crossed the road on high alert as this was when the Warwick prick confronted me, but I managed to fight him off.
Unfortunately, my baseball cap and sunglasses were knocked off my head, which was another thing I had to retrieve from him along with my gun.
Luckily, I had a spare cap and an old pair of sunglasses that sat a little crooked on my nose.
Gosh, I really needed to place an order in an online hardware store.
With my class schedule in my hand, I walked to the Business School to map out where my classes were as other students were doing the same. It was much larger and spread out than I first thought, but I didn’t get the chance to explore last time I was here because of that Ezrah shithead.
Anyway, three of my classes are in the Elm Building, which is three stories tall, and I was eager to go to the top level to enjoy the view.
There was an elevator, but I chose to run up for exercise, avoiding students coming down in groups because, unlike me, they had friends here.
I could tell I wasn't in shape when I reached the second level, panting, and I had to stop to catch my breath.
As I held onto the side rail, a pair of shiny black shoes confidently trotted down to the landing, and I pretended to look at the student artwork on the walls so it didn’t seem like I was just catching my breath.
“Are you okay there?” a smooth, deep voice asked, and I glanced up to see a handsome, square-jawed older man with dark brown hair, going a little silver, which suited his distinguished features.
“Yes,” I smiled as my breath felt like lead in my chest. “Just admiring the art.”
His blue eyes glanced at them as if he hadn’t noticed them before, and then it occurred to me who this man was. The Finance tutor that Prick Warwick warned me to stay away from. I couldn’t quite remember the specifics because I was seething, focused on scratching his eyes out.
“Do you have classes here?” he asked in that simmering hot voice.
I swallowed over my nerves, dashing about in my chest, “Yes. Um, three classes. I think one is on the top floor.”
“Finance,” he pointed out, “is on the top floor.”
“Yes, that’s what my class schedule states,” I replied, pretending that I didn’t know he was a tutor as his cologne met my nose, and I had to turn away as my cheeks burned.
“That’s my class,” he smiled with perfect teeth, and I almost died at how beautiful he was. He held out his hand for me to shake, “Dean. Just call me Dean.”
“Hi,” I took his hand, trying hard to seem mature, but he’d know how old I was anyway if I was in his class. “Adina. Addie. People just call me Addie.”
“Okay, Addie,” he said cheerfully as he swept past me. “I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Hopefully,” I breathed, then patted my hot cheeks, before remembering something and calling down to him as he descended the stairs. “Ah, sir, Dean.”
He stopped to gaze up at me, looking like a scene from a movie. Pull your shit together, Addie. “Yes?” he asked in that friendly, but authoritarian tone to remind me that he was older and wiser.
“I don’t know where I could locate…um, like hardware supplies around here?” I asked hopefully.
“What sort of supplies?” he pressed curiously.
“Well, I have a mouse problem, so a mouse trap and fishing nylon, and maybe string and p,” I stopped myself at the word, ‘poison’. “Fish hooks.”
His eyebrows flicked up in surprise. “Do you fish?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “Isn’t there a lake around here somewhere that has good cod in it?”
He shook his head, frowning. “No cod in that lake, since they prefer saltwater and the lake is freshwater.”
“Oh,” Man, that’s so embarrassing. Doofus. “Sorry, I meant…um, trout. Yes, trout.”
“Have you got a rod?” he then asked as if he could see through my lie.
“Um, yes,” I answered, squirming. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Actually, I don’t want the supplies for fishing.”
“Really? You had me fooled,” he joked, flaring his nostrils, so damn handsome.
I wonder if he’s single. I mean… spending an entire school year on a mountain must be lonely.
Obviously, there were other staff of a similar age that he would live within the staff halls, but I found it hard to believe that a man as fine as him would be single anyway.
“Sorry, I um, need to set a trap in my room,” I told him straight, and he nodded slowly, then began climbing the stairs back up to my level.
“I might have something in my office,” he suggested smoothly. “Follow me.”
He didn’t ask me what sort of traps, and since I wanted mousetraps, he’d likely assume it began and ended with rodents. That was true, just masked rodents that stole my handgun.
“Unlike you,” he said, brushing past me and running up the stairs to the top level, and I followed, relieved that I had my breath back. “I do fish.”
“In the lake?” I enquired curiously.
“Lake. River. Wherever my mood takes me,” he explained, and I noticed he used the word my instead of our, as if he were very much alone.
We walked down the corridor, approaching a large window with a beautiful view of the mountains, and Dean suddenly stopped. Naturally, because I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, I bumped right into him. Hmm, my tutor felt and smelled very nice.
“Sorry,” I stated, embarrassed, and quickly gave him space.
“In here,” he said, looking down at me, then opened the door into an auditorium, and I followed him in as nerves flurried into my chest.
“Oh,” I just realized, “this is my class.” It was obviously a popular class as it could fit a good two hundred people, I reckon.
My feet stalled as he stepped into his office, as he was venturing into his private space, tucked behind the front wall of the auditorium. “Right,” I heard him say, “where did I put it?”
The distant sound of hurried footsteps going up the stairs echoed down the corridor, and I looked back, expecting to see someone walk past the door. But the footsteps stopped.
“Here,” Dean announced found them. “You can come in.”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat and stepped into his office, where he had a reel of fishing nylon, a small packet of fishing hooks on the desk, and a gutting knife. “Oh, that’s perfect.”
“How long?” he asked, pulling a long thread of nylon.
“Twice as long, please,” I asked politely, and he cut a long piece and handed it to me, and I stuffed it into my bag along with the packet of fish hooks that he gave me.
“Now,” he threw the reel of fishing nylon into his drawer, “Your hall monitor should have a supply of mousetraps.”
“We don’t have a hall monitor. In fact, we don’t seem to have anyone watching us, but I guess not everyone has arrived yet,” I tried to downplay the quirks of our hall.
There are three residents I know of living there.
Although I did see that one guy in an ugly, old man face mask.
I haven’t seen him since, and honestly, I wouldn’t recognize him even if I did.
“Which hall are you in?” he asked, moving out from behind the desk. Then, something caught his eye at the door. “Can I help you?”
I swiveled around to find, to my dismay, the Prick Warwick. “No,” he replied smugly, leaning against the doorframe as if he bought and paid for it.
“What do you want?” I hissed harshly to show Dean that we weren’t friends and never will be.
He shrugged casually, “I’m just joining the conversation. What were you discussing?”
“Nothing,” I shot him a black scowl, before thanking Dean and ramming past the hulking jock with a hulking ego to match. I waited until we were out in the corridor before I snarled, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Like I said,” he started, “I was just in the area and you know we share a class and I thought maybe he was doing something he shouldn’t.”
“That is none of your business,” I growled, dashing down the stairs. Luckily, I could run faster down than up. Unlucky, though, that he could keep up with me with those long legs and huge feet. You know what they say about big feet: small brain.
“What did he say to you?” he persisted, irritating me even more.
“Nothing,” I barked sharply, and my voice carried along the stair shaft.
“Did he touch you?” he pushed some more, but his voice softened, and it made me stop dead to read his face.
“No,” I screwed my face up. “Why would he touch me? He’s my tutor.” What the hell was the matter with this guy?
“Our tutor,” he corrected me.
“Whatever. Just stay away from me,” I demanded as we finally landed on the ground floor, and I could see the main doors. Damn, I didn’t get to stare at the view because this selfish prick wanted to make everything about him.
“Nope,” he snapped, surprising me with his infinite confidence. “Can’t do that. You’re the enemy.”
“That goes both ways, asshole,” I blurted in front of a small group of students who were heading inside Elm Building, and I noticed one of them was that blond girl friend of Mila’s.
What’s her name? The one that made it clear she didn’t like me.
I caught her eye and smiled because I needed to get this man away from me. "Hi..."
“Carrie,” she bit, but her attention was on Ezrah, and I could tell that she was in awe of him, like silly girls are of stupid jocks.
“Oh yes, like the Stephen King novel. Anyway, this is Ezrah; you two should get to know each other,” I suggested, then walked off toward the castle to catch a bus, relieved that I heard no heavy footsteps following.
When I looked behind me to see where he had gone, no one was there. Not only had he vanished, but Carrie and her friends had disappeared too. They might have gone into Elm Building, but I didn’t know where the jock went, and I didn’t want to find out.
Good. The last thing I needed was fake friends and nosy jocks in my face and in my life.