Chapter 27 Shane
SHANE
“Hey, I was just looking for you,” Dan says as I close the door to my room.
“What’s up?” I ask, trying to look chill and calm and not like I’m about to piss my pants from fear.
“I’ve been trying to figure out if I should say something about this.” He glances around nervously.
“What?” I really don’t have the bandwidth to deal with this right now, but I can’t exactly tell him to fuck off without raising suspicions.
“Is there something going on between you and Jace?”
My heart skips a few beats for entirely new reasons, and quickly I look around the empty hall as I shove my door back open and usher him inside.
“What do you mean?” I ask when my door is closed and we’re away from prying eyes and ears.
“I saw him coming out of your room the morning after he brought you home when you got fucked up at The Crypt,” he says hesitantly.
“I wouldn’t have said anything if it was just that, but I also saw him coming out of your room later that day when you were hanging out with Paxton, and you guys aren’t exactly friends, so that seemed weird to me. ” He bites his lip nervously.
“You saw him leave my room when I wasn’t here?” I ask, just to be sure I heard him correctly.
He nods. “It’s not my business what you guys are doing or not doing, but with your history and all, it just seemed weird. And I know I probably should have said something sooner, but I wasn’t sure how. But then I overheard him and Jax talking earlier and…”
“And?” I press when he falls silent.
“And I heard him say some stuff about you that wasn’t exactly flattering.”
“Like what?” I ask, my voice as cold as the rest of me suddenly feels.
“Like how easy it was to get you to hand your ass over to him—his words,” he adds quickly. “And something about how gullible you are and how easy it was for him to get his hands on the thumb drive.”
I blink at him as that bombshell hits like a grenade to the face. “Are those the exact words he used?” I manage to scrape out.
“Yeah. I take it that means something to you?”
I nod, still trying to process everything he just dropped on me.
Not only was I right about Jace manipulating me so he could fuck me, he was also the one who broke into my room and stole my shit, including the flash drive he gave me.
“So you guys aren’t a thing?” he asks tentatively. “I don’t care if you’re… if you’re into that, but it just seems really weird that he’d say that stuff to his brother if it wasn’t true.”
“It’s true,” I tell him distractedly. “The hooking up with him part, not the us being a thing part. It was…convenient. That’s all.”
Dan nods slowly. “Do any of the other guys know?”
I shake my head. “I’m going to tell them at some point, but I just… I’ve got other stuff I need to deal with and—”
“It’s cool, man,” he says quickly. “Like I said, it’s your business, and I totally get not telling people. I won’t say a word to anyone. I promise.”
“Thanks.” I scrub my hand through my hair. “This whole thing is…complicated.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I get it. And your secret is safe with me. I just hope I didn’t make things harder for you. I know you’ve been struggling since the fire, and it probably brought back all sorts of shit for you.”
I give him a sharp look, but before I can go on the defensive, I remember that KJ and Dan’s older brother are the same age, and they started at Silvercrest at the same time, so of course he’d know about the fire and what happened.
“And it’s probably been even worse finding out you’re going through the same thing KJ did,” he adds sympathetically.
I stare at him for a few beats. What the fuck is he talking about?
“The getting outed thing,” he clarifies.
“Outed?” I blink at him like a moron.
He gives me a weird look. “You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That he got caught hooking up with a guy right before Christmas break.”
“He what?” I ask stupidly.
“Yeah, it was a whole thing.” He gives me another strange look, like he can’t believe I don’t know this about my own brother. “Apparently someone recorded him and the guy he was messing around with and was trying to blackmail him with the videos. Then school went on break and he…”
“He died,” I finish for him.
Dan nods, looking as uncomfortable as I feel. “I thought you knew about all that. He didn’t tell you?”
KJ and I were super close, but he was also almost five years older than me. He didn’t talk to me about his dating life or his sexuality, and he never would have told me if he was being blackmailed, not when I was only thirteen.
“And now it kinda sounds like Jace is going to do the same thing to you,” Dan says. “It’s just really fucked up, and I figured you should know.”
“Thanks,” I say woodenly, my mind spinning with a crush of disjointed thoughts.
“Are you okay?”
I nod. “Fine. I was just on my way out.”
“Yeah, of course.” He steps back so I can pull open my door.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks again as we step out of my room.
“Fine,” I repeat. “Just have something I need to do.”
He gives me a little wave, and I wait for him to start walking back toward his room before I go down the hall in the opposite direction and head toward the side stairwell.
I’ve spent the past week on pins and needles waiting for the chance to put my plan into action, and now I have no choice but to do it so I can figure out what the fuck is going on and answer the million questions spinning around in my head.
My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it’s trying to beat its way right out of my chest as I pull open the stairwell door and hurry to the top floor.
The hall is empty, but that does nothing to calm my heart, or my nerves, as I make my way to Jace’s room.
Taking one last quick look around, I tap the dummy card I lifted out of Jace’s pocket when I bumped into him after the meeting earlier against the sensor.
There’s a soft click, then the little light at the bottom flashes green as it unlocks.
Scanning the hall to make sure I’m still alone, I gingerly grip the doorknob, then let out a soft sigh of relief when it turns in my hand. But my relief is short-lived, and a fresh wave of nerves washes over me as I slip inside the room and carefully close the door behind me.
My hands are shaking as I slip the dummy card into my pocket, and I wipe them on my pants as I lean against the door and wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark.
I’ve been waiting for a chance to sneak into Jace’s room so I can look for proof that he’s the one behind all the shit that’s been going on, and today’s meeting gave me the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action.
Not only did it give me the cover of being in a crowd so he wouldn’t suspect anything when I “bumped” into him to steal the card and replace it with a blank one, but I overheard him and Jax discussing their plans for tonight, and how neither of them was going to be home until late, if at all.
Then Axel mentioned the update issue that could mess with some of our cards, and I knew right then that it was now or never.
The biggest hurdle in my plan wasn’t swapping the cards or finding a time when both of the twins would be away from their room.
The part I was most worried about was getting the dummy card back to Jace before he realized something was wrong, but the update they’re pushing tonight solves that issue for me.
Even if he does try to use the blank card before I can swap them back, he’ll just assume it’s one of the ones that was affected by the update and will just make a new card.
My heart is still pounding wildly in my chest, and all of my senses are hyperaware and tuned into my surroundings like I’m expecting an alarm or something to go off, but the room is quiet outside of the rasp of my breath.
With still-shaking hands, I pull a small flashlight out of my pocket and click it on. The thin beam of light doesn’t offer much illumination, but it’s enough that I’ll be able to look around without having to turn on any of the lights in the room.
Carefully, I creep over to the sitting area we all have and look between both sides of the room.
The left side is spotless and devoid of any sort of personalization. The bed is neatly made, and there isn’t a stitch of clothing or anything else out. Even the desk is clean with only a closed laptop on it.
The right side is also spotless, with the bed made and everything put away, except for the desk.
On it is a keyboard, a set of three monitors, a mouse on a mouse pad, and a mess of pens, pieces of paper, what looks like gum wrappers, and other random things.
That side is Jace’s. And I didn’t even need the sophisticated computer setup to tell me so.
I never understood why the brothers would choose to live together.
I get that twins, especially identical twins, share a special bond that non-twins can’t understand, but it seems weird that two guys who are away at college would choose to share a room, especially with Jace’s reputation as a fuckboy.
I look between the two sides of the room again. The beds are directly across from each other, and while there’s a good amount of space between them, like the beds in all the rooms, they’re still within a direct line of sight with each other.
How does that even work? Does Jax just make himself scarce whenever his brother is getting his freak on? Or does Jace just keep his sexcapades to other people’s rooms?
Shaking that thought, and the accompanying mental pictures, out of my head, I carefully make my way over to the right side of the room and pause at the foot of the bed.
“Now, if I were a bunch of evidence tying me to a B I might as well start with one of them.
The dresser is closer, so I head over to it and carefully pull open the top drawer. Inside are neat rows of folded underwear and pairs of socks, and nothing else.