Chapter Twenty-Eight Sam
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
SAM
“Whatever you’re up to,” Kane seethes, his fist balled tight around the photo of our mothers, “it ends now. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.” With that, he slams the door without so much as a fuck you.
One moment, we’re coming off a sex-induced high, and the next all that hatred returns as if he didn’t just have my pussy in his mouth. It figures. Kane’s picture has to be listed under asshole in the dictionary.
Before he showed up out of the blue, I’d spent the last three hours combing through articles and other resources to piece together any details about my mother and the Aurelian Circle.
But nothing.
It’s like it never existed—all traces of the club completely wiped from the school archives. We weren’t supposed to find that photo. Whoever deleted the records probably never realized that they missed it. But it’s quickly become my Roman Empire.
And now Kane knows it exists, too.
“Uggh,” I groan, opening my laptop again.
No sooner than the sound leaves my throat, the door to my dorm flies open and Gracie enters. It’s late, and I mentally note that she’s been doing that a lot recently. Coming home well into the night, always appearing more tired than when she left.
I never ask what that’s about since it’s not my business. My world is spiraling enough on its own to keep tabs on anyone else. Besides, I know that her kinesiology class has been kicking her butt.
“Uh-oh,” she says. “What’s that face for?”
I peer up at her, letting out an aggravated breath. “It’s—” I toss my hand in defeat, knowing I can’t tell her about my recent interaction with Kane. “I’ve been looking into the club, the one mentioned in that picture we found of our moms.”
Gracie hangs her keys on the hook near the door, and they rattle softly against the wall. “Yeah. Find anything?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She removes her jacket, tossing it on the back of her desk chair.
“I’ve searched every possible source on the school’s website but there’s nothing.”
Gracie removes her shoes and throws her socks in the hamper before slipping on her fuzzy slippers and sauntering toward me.
Gracie pushes my throw blanket to the side and settles in cross-legged at the foot of my bed. “Let me see.”
I hand her the laptop, then fall back against the cubby that serves as a headboard. Gracie studies the screen, her fingers moving along the trackpad.
“I’m telling you, Gracie.” I scooch farther into my bed, my hand finding its way to my hair, raking it out of my face. “Somebody’s gone through a lot to make sure there isn’t anything tangible.”
I pause as Gracie keeps her focus on her search.
“How can it be there one day, and gone with barely a trace the next?” I ramble, shaking my head while trying to make sense of it all.
Gracie stills, her brows furrowing, but I’m too busy ranting to truly notice.
“Wait,” she blurts, hovering closer to the computer.
I lean in as she shifts on the bed and turns the laptop so that we can both see it.
“I think I’ve found something.” She points, her eyes following as I pick up the device to get a closer look.
A web page stares back at me. It doesn’t belong to the school, but instead to the local newspaper.
My brows pinch tight almost instantly, the curiosity mounting now.
I skim the page until one headline stands out from the rest. The letters aren’t bolded, there’re no graphic details—only a subtle caption buried at the bottom of the page.
Student-led society disbands following a psych ward admittance.
I click the hyperlink, and the article loads painfully slowly. When it finally loads, we huddle together. The language is vague, almost sterile. But then there’s a string of specific sentences that cause us to pause.
A student suffered a psychotic break.
Another student died.
A tragic episode of mental instability.
Silence sweeps over us, the kind that’s bone-deep and can drown out even the loudest of noises.
“Does it say what happened?” I whisper.
Gracie’s shoulders brush against mine as she points again. “Right there.”
I scroll and highlight the block of text, as Gracie reads it aloud.
“‘Sources confirm that during an off-campus event for members of Sovereign King’s Aurelian Circle social club, a female student, age twenty-two, attacked another student in what officials are calling a “disassociated episode.” Witnesses described the student as “vacant” and “not herself” in the moments leading up to the incident. She allegedly came to only after the other student had succumbed to injuries sustained during the attack. The motive remains unclear, and no substances were reported in her system at the time of the incident.’”
My eyes skate over the next line, and something clenches in my chest.
The student was admitted to the Wyndmoor Psychiatric Facility.
“Wyndmoor,” I mutter, grabbing Gracie’s attention. “My mom was a patient there before she killed herself.”
Gracie gasps, and it dawns on me that I said that last part out loud.
Not that it was some kind of secret. I’ve shared with her that I lost my mom years ago, but how I lost her isn’t something I willingly divulge.
People get weird when they know the full story, that sympathy turning into what feels more like pity.
“O-oh,” she stammers. “Sam, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say, hoping to shift the conversation.
“It’s not. And finding out all of this right now, all the questions it’s stirred up… that can’t be easy.”
Tears prick the back of my eyes, but I blink them away and adjust myself so that I’m sitting upright. “Yeah, well, there’s not much I can do about that. She’s gone, and I miss her, but it is what it is.”
“Sam.”
“Gracie. Seriously. Thank you, but I don’t want to talk about that.”
“All right.” Reluctantly she nods, and sucks air into her lungs. “Do you think your mom was the student?”
All I can do is blink, my thoughts spinning on overdrive.
Truth is, I don’t know what I think anymore.
Nothing makes sense, and with each new piece of information, something bigger is uncovered.
Just bits and pieces, a blanket of words, and occasional images that somehow say everything and nothing all at once.
“I don’t know,” I mutter.
“We’ll keep looking,” she adds with a soft smile.
Gracie continues reading.
“‘Authorities do not believe she poses an ongoing threat to the community. However, due to the sensitive nature of the occurrence, the student-led society involved is being disbanded immediately while investigators complete their case.’”
I snap my gaze to hers. “Did you ask your mom about the picture? What did she say? Does she remember my mom?”
“Not much.” She shakes her head. “Just that she knew of her. They had a few classes together. Some of the same extracurriculars. That she was nice.” Gracie lets out a breath, a flicker of sadness brimming behind her eyes, almost as if she hates that there isn’t more she can tell me.
I huff. Yeah, me too.
“Said she wouldn’t call her a friend, though. Just a kind acquaintance.”
I frown. “Really?”
She nods.
“That picture of them looked a lot like they were more than acquaintances.”
My eyes flick to the pages I stole from my mother’s file, and I realize the photo is gone. He took it.
Before we left the library, I quickly printed it out.
I’m not sure why, maybe some part of me just wanted to have a keepsake of a time when she seemed happy.
Although Kane stole it, I can still remember it clearly.
Our mothers, shoulder to shoulder, laughing and familiar.
That’s not just some casual interaction.
There’s history in the way their bodies relax together.
But I don’t say that out loud; instead, I say, “Did she mention anything about the club, about a student dying?”
“No,” she says regretfully.
Maybe that’s a good thing. If the student who attacked the other was my mother, surely Gracie mentioning her to her mom would have triggered something. Right?
“It’s weird because I’ve never heard any stories about a death on campus before. Both of my parents attended this school, and I can’t recall them talking about it,” Gracie continues.
“Yeah.” I release a breath, my shoulders rattling. “I never heard my mom mention it before either. But of course, I didn’t know she went here.” I grunt. “Why is everything so much of a fucking secret around here? And what does any of this have to do with my scholarship?”
Gracie takes the computer. “Let me see. You know my father’s a state senator, so I’ve learned a trick or two about digging up stuff over the years.” She types away, her focus narrowing in on whatever she finds. “Here. I did a search of deaths around the date of that article. Found this obituary.”
“It’s her,” I say, pointing to the line with school’s name in it. “Emily Croswell, twenty-one, was an honor student at SKU, daughter of prominent businessman Edward Croswell.”
“She was pretty,” Gracie mutters.
She was, and was so young, and just like that her life was over.
Gracie types on the keyboard again, and I watch closely as she cross-references and reverse searches Emily’s name and death date. And then she freezes, her eyes going wide.
I follow her gaze. It’s another article, buried on the tenth page of the search engine. My chest pulls tight before I even finish reading the words, my heart racing with every line I take in.
Emily Croswell, 21-year-old student, pushed during an altercation where she slipped, fell, and hit her head on a boulder.
The student who pushed her was said to not know what they were doing, authorities report.
The student blacked out, had some sort of mental break and has been admitted to Wyndmoor.
The case has been labeled manslaughter, and due to the psychiatric and physical state of the suspect, the student will not spend time in prison, but will receive the help she needs at Wyndmoor.
“Physical state?” I question as if Gracie knows the answer.
“It says she was pregnant.”
My heart lurches. “Emily?”
She shakes her head. “The other student.”
“It wasn’t my mom,” I blurt, a weight immediately lifting off my shoulders with the realization.
“How do you know?”
“According to this, Emily died the winter of 2005. I wasn’t born until 2006, which means my mother wouldn’t have been pregnant with me at that time.”
Unless that’s something else she’s lied to me about. Could I have had another sibling?
“Okay. That’s good. Now we know it wasn’t her. But why hasn’t anyone talked about this? They just pretend it didn’t happen?”
Something feels off about all the secrets and hidden facts. Deep down, something tells me it’s all connected. Me being brought to this school, my mom, and theirs… Emily. It’s all a part of some web I can’t even begin to untangle.
There’s a brief pause while Gracie continues reading, and then she snaps her eyes back to me.
“There’s a name,” she says, barely above a whisper.
My stomach flips, because even after what I’ve just said, the truth is, I don’t really know. Please don’t be my mom. She was a member at that time and clearly suffered mentally.
Gracie turns the laptop toward me. Every muscle locks as my gaze fixes on the text, and my mouth goes dry.
La’Kia Kane.
“Kane’s mother,” we say in unison.
We stare at the screen, the room spinning a little slower.
I never questioned what put Kane’s mom in the facility.
I was too busy learning how to keep mine from jumping out of a window.
But now, it’s clear that they didn’t meet by chance.
They’ve all known one another—Alex’s mom, Christina’s, and even Gracie’s.
And for two girls from the same elite circle to land in the same locked ward, it’s not a coincidence—it’s a pattern.
And as I try to wrap my mind around that, my phone vibrates in my hoodie pocket. I peel my eyes away from Gracie’s long enough to retrieve the device and stare down at the screen. What’s staring back sucks all the air from my lungs.
Unknown Number: Watch your back bitch.