Chapter 5 #2
The other methods I’ve found are decidedly unhelpful, like drinking until I can’t feel feelings or doing copious amounts of drugs to dull my senses until I can just exist without having to think about anything other than feeling good and having fun.
And of course there are my go-to methods like disassociating and compartmentalizing and hoping to fuck that my issues stay where I put them so I can keep ignoring them.
Going to the gym or playing sports only works for so long, but it’s better than nothing. And it’s made me a pretty well-rounded athlete.
One of the only accomplishments I have over my brothers is that, even with all their older-sibling perfection, neither of them played sports in school.
They worked out and kept in shape for vanity reasons, but they were always so focused on making connections and networking and building the frameworks for their ten-year plans that they didn’t have time for organized sports.
That gave me an outlet that I not only enjoy, but one that was also only mine.
In my family, athletic achievements aren’t really seen as anything special unless you’re the best of the best, but no one can take away the trophies and other awards I’ve gotten over the years, and they matter to me, even if no one else in my life cares.
But none of those awards or any of the years I spent playing elite-level soccer matter now that I’m here at Silvercrest.
Unlike other colleges, Silvercrest doesn’t participate in any sort of sports or academic competitions with other schools. We have house leagues that people play in for fun and bragging rights, but it’s not the same when you’re used to playing competitively.
I look between the door to my room and my dresser, where I keep my athletic clothes.
Working out would probably help, but I’m not in the mood to make small talk and chat about what we got up to on our breaks with anyone right now.
What I really need is to talk to someone about the crazy texts I just got and what the fuck they could mean, but who?
I can’t tell McKenna about any of this, not until I know what’s going on and who’s behind it. Damon is literally my only other friend, but he’s got his own stuff going on.
He’s not only in a new relationship, but he’s also dealing with the fallout of being with a member of a rival frat, and one of the most notoriously unhinged people on campus.
He’s got his plate full, so to speak, and I can’t just dump all this on him, especially when there’s nothing he can do.
He’s not a hacker, and he knows even less about phones than I do.
And I know he’s not the biggest fan of my engagement, even if he’s done his best to be supportive and encouraging like the amazing friend he’s always been.
My other go-to when I’m feeling cooped up like this and need alone time is to go for a walk, but with it being the last day before school starts up again, the campus is crawling with people coming back from their vacations, and the odds of being able to walk around without being surrounded by people are slim.
My eyes land on my desk drawer, the same drawer I tossed the flash drive I “found” at The Crypt in when I got home from my walk that night.
I completely forgot about it with all the craziness of last few weeks, but that’s not unusual for me.
I have a habit of forgetting things exist if they’re not right in my face, which is great when I want to ignore something or hide from a problem, but it makes me look like a scatterbrained dumbass with the memory of a goldfish because I’m always forgetting important things along with the stuff I want to ignore.
I should probably just trash the damn thing, or hand it over to Liam and let him deal with it, but my curiosity won’t let me.
Something on that drive is important enough that those two guys made the effort to meet in the dark at The Crypt and exchange what I’m assuming is an envelope of cash for it. And now that I’m part of the secret, I need to know more.
Resolutely, I stride over to my desk and tug open the drawer. The drive is sitting exactly where I left it.
I dig my laptop out of my backpack, then sit down on my bed with the drive in one hand and my laptop on my thighs.
When my computer is on and running, I fit the drive into the USB slot and wait to see what happens.
A little box appears on my screen asking me if I want to scan the drive for viruses and threats, and once that’s done and comes back clear, another box pops up asking if I want to open the drive.
I click on yes, and a folder opens up on my screen.
“What the hell?” I mutter.
It’s full of more folders, but the names on them look like a random mix of letters, numbers, and symbols.
Curious, I open the first folder and find about a dozen MP3 files with the same nonsensical labels.
Instead of opening any of the files, I exit out of that folder and check the others. They’re all filled with MP3 files. Some of the folders only have one or two files in them, but others have dozens of them, and none of the labeling makes any sense.
Opening the first folder again, I click on the first file.
The quality isn’t great, and there’s a bunch of background noise that’s making it hard to hear what the speakers are saying, almost like the scrape of something moving over the microphone.
I pause the file and dig my earbuds out of my pocket. Once they’re connected to my laptop, I play the file again.
The headphones cut down some of the background noise, making it easier to hear their voices, and from what I can tell, the recording is of two guys discussing something to do with a cabin.
The clip is only about twenty seconds long, and there’s no context for it, but it sounds like one of the guys is using a cabin for something and the other guy is telling him to not get caught.
When the recording ends, I play the next one. The quality is a bit better, and there’s no scraping sounds on this one, but there’s way more background noise, like they’re in the middle of a party or something.
One of the voices sounds like it could be the same guy as the last recording, but he’s talking to someone different, and this time they’re discussing a job of some sort and how one of them is in too deep or something like that.
The recording stops, and I open the next one. But instead of listening to it all the way through, I only play enough to see if one of the voices is the same as the others, then move on to the next one.
I can’t be sure because of the quality of the recordings, but it sounds like all the files have the same person in them; he’s just talking to different people.
I chew on my lip as I try to make sense of what I’m hearing.
There’s an entire folder of recorded conversations of the same person, and I have zero context for any of them, and they’re under a labeling system that looks like gibberish. Is the entire drive like that?
It takes almost thirty minutes to go through the rest of the folders, and when I’m finally done, I’m even more confused than I was before I started.
Every folder on it is exactly like the first one, so the drive is essentially filled with snippets of conversations that, from the sound of it, were taken when people had no idea they were being recorded.
But who are the targets? And why were these particular conversations recorded?
It sounded like these recordings were pulled from longer ones and cropped down to these particular soundbites, but why?
None of the files I listened to all the way through had anything crazy or earth-shattering in them, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s nothing interesting in the others.
Toeing off my shoes, I slide up the bed and settle against my pillows.
Dinner service at the dining hall doesn’t start for another hour.
I might as well listen to more of the files and see if I can figure out what the hell they are and why they’re important enough for someone to not only record them, but keep them.