6. Myles
MYLES
A strange sensation hits me the moment I step into my room.
Everything looks exactly like it did when I left this morning, but it feels different. Like there’s the lingering ghost of someone else’s presence.
It’s the same feeling I get after the cleaning staff comes through the dorms or someone drops off my laundry, but it’s not my day on the cleaning roster, and I haven’t done laundry in over a week. There’s no conceivable reason any of the staff would come into my room today.
My gaze is drawn to my computer, and that uneasy feeling intensifies.
Like the rest of my room, everything is exactly where I left it, and there are no signs that anything has been messed with, but I can’t shake the feeling that someone was here.
Turning away from my desk, I walk to the window and scan the line of trees.
It’s strange, but that feeling of being watched isn’t coming from outside this time. It feels like whoever was out there is somehow in my room with me. But that’s crazy, unless they’re hiding under my bed or in my closet.
My heart speeds up as my brain conjures up an image of that hooded figure I’ve spent way too much time thinking about hiding under my bed, then another of that same figure pressed against the back of my closet and hiding among my clothes.
The thought of some random guy in my room should terrify me, but that’s not why my heart is racing, or why my gaze flicks to my bed and a little pulse of heat radiates from my chest.
I’d be completely helpless if there were someone in here.
The room next to mine is empty, and so are the ones next to and across from it.
I do have an across-the-hall neighbor, but he’s almost never home.
And when he is, he blasts music until all hours of the morning and wouldn’t hear a bomb go off.
Shaking off those thoughts, I crouch down and peer under my bed. Naturally, there’s nothing there, and even though I know I’ll find more of the same, I still hurry over to my closet and look inside.
It’s empty, but I don’t feel any better as I close the door and head back over to my desk.
I’ve never been the type who has good instincts or has a sixth sense about bad things that are happening or about to happen. I’m also not great when I’m under pressure and have a tendency to flail and freak out when shit goes sideways.
My lack of instincts has gotten me in trouble before, and it’s the reason I had to come to this damn school and why my parents freak out when they can’t immediately track me down and get a hold of me.
Is this feeling real and I’m actually picking up a disturbance in the force? Or am I still freaking out about what happened when I was on my run and now I’m seeing boogeymen at every turn?
I practically collapse onto my desk chair, shoulders sagging, and let my head fall against the plush headrest.
I haven’t slept well the past few nights, or really at all. I already have a pretty fucked-up sleep schedule, staying up way too late and getting up way too early, so the lack of sleep is getting to me.
Wearily, I lift my head and flash my computer up.
I don’t know why, but I’ve been putting off looking into those guys who attacked me while I was on my run. The school has its own LEOs, and they do basic investigations and write reports on all the hinky stuff that goes down on campus. They just don’t do anything about it unless they’re told to.
I’ve never had to deal with the aftermath of beating up three guys and stabbing one of them, but I imagine it’s not something that would go unnoticed.
The school doctor and the rest of the medical staff would have to report it, but that doesn’t mean they actually have to do anything about it.
At Silvercrest, that depends on who’s involved and why it happened.
I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours waiting for campus LEOs to show up and drag me down to the station or their headquarters or wherever they take people to question me about what happened. I’ve also spent the last two days deciding what I’d tell them.
I have no issues lying to the police or anyone else in a position of authority, and I’m not so naive to believe that they’re here for us and that I can trust them to do anything to help me. I was taught that respect is earned and no one should ever have your blind allegiance.
It kinda sucks that my “Eat the Rich” and “Fuck Capitalism” parents did a complete about-face when they got rich and now worship at the altar of capitalism and wealth hoarding, but that doesn’t mean I’ve changed my opinions on any of the stuff they taught me.
The part that really sucks is that my brother and sister were too young when our dad sold his software company to really internalize the messaging we heard growing up. Now they’re just as bad as every other rich kid asshole who thinks the world owes them just for existing.
That’s another reason I feel so disconnected from my family, and why being around them isn’t all that great anymore.
Instead of making jokes about bringing back guillotines and talking about the dangers of overconsumption and end-stage capitalism, my family isn’t just trying to keep up with the Joneses; they’re doing everything they can to be the Joneses.
I may have only been part of this world for a few years now, but I’ve seen enough to know that not only is it a world I don’t want any part of, I can’t trust anyone who’s in it because there’s no such thing as loyalty or honor if it doesn’t serve a selfish purpose.
Which is another reason my hooded savior is so damn confusing.
He stopped those guys from hurting and possibly killing me. But why? That’s the part I can’t wrap my head around, and maybe looking through the reports will help me figure that out.
Thanks to the time differences between where we live, both Echo and Cipher are offline, and a pang of guilt mixes with my relief.
It’s not that I don’t want to talk to them about this; I just don’t know how to without putting them in danger.
I have no idea how far the people after me will go to hurt me or try to manipulate me, and my friends don’t have any of the same protections my family and I do.
I also have no idea how I’m supposed to tell them that instead of being terrified when I watched a guy who’s probably been stalking me effortlessly beat the shit out of three guys, I was almost awestruck by him.
Or that I popped wood when he threw a knife to disarm that guy with the gun like some sort of secret agent.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, I got even more happy in the pants when he helped me up and told me to get out of there.
How the fuck am I supposed to explain that to my friends without them thinking I’ve gone completely off the rails? I can’t, and it’s easier to just avoid them than it is to lie or pretend everything is fine. They know me, and they’d see through me in an instant.
It doesn’t take long to get into the school’s security system, and even less time to find the file about the attack.
My heart rate speeds up as I open it but relaxes when I see that the three guys who attacked me aren’t dead. It’s counterintuitive to be glad that they’re still alive and could theoretically come after me again, but the thought of them being killed doesn’t sit right with me.
Not because I don’t think they deserve it, but because I don’t like the idea of my hooded friend being responsible for their deaths.
My concern isn’t for any moral or altruistic reasons, like I don’t want that on his conscious or I don’t like the idea of someone killing for me.
It’s because I don’t want that hanging over his head.
A lot of fucked-up shit happens at this school, and theft, destruction of property, drug and weapons offenses, and beatings are routinely swept under the rug. And even more serious things like murder, torture, and extortion happen, and no one bats an eye.
My hooded friend wouldn’t necessarily get in trouble if he had killed those guys, but depending on who they are and who he is, there’s a chance he could, and as messed up as it is, I don’t want that.
Pushing those thoughts out of my head, I focus on the report.
My chest tightens when I see that all three assailants are junior members of the Kings, but some of my tension eases when I read that they all told campus LEO that they were attacked while dealing with some house business.
They didn’t say what the business was, and based on the rest of the report, it doesn’t seem like anyone is all that eager to get answers.
And I don’t have to worry about them until the new semester starts since the school sent them home to recover.
There’s almost no mention of my hooded friend other than he was there and beat the shit out of them, and there’s a note at the end of the file that says unless another victim comes forward, the case is considered dealt with.
That’s good news, sort of. It doesn’t give me any real answers because I already assumed they were Kings, but at least I don’t have to worry about being ambushed by campus law enforcement.
Making sure to cover any tracks I might have left, I leave the school’s system and lean back in my chair.
I’m really no closer to figuring out what’s going on now than I was before I looked at the report. The only thing I know for sure is that the Kings are involved in it, but I already suspected they were. I’m tempted to break into their system and poke around, but there’s no point.
The Kings’ cybersecurity is good, but it’s not nearly as good as it could be, and that’s part of what got me into this mess in the first place.
I’ve been in it dozens of times, both before and after Jacob started blackmailing me, and I’ve mapped out every inch of it. I know where they store their most secret documents and files, and pretty much everything else I felt like looking up.