29. Vani
29
VANI
I ’m still shaking when I reach the room my sister is staying in. I should postpone this because I’m already a mess from the encounter with Zane and I’m not sure I can take much more, but my curiosity can’t wait any longer.
My pulse patters, and my breath is short. Despite my earlier orgasm, I’m a knot of tension all over again. In my head, I run over all the things I’ll say to Reagan. I’ll tell her that, deep down, I always knew I had a sister, how somehow I missed her without ever knowing of her existence. I’ll tell her that it broke our mom’s heart to have to give her up.
I stop in front of her door.
The door is plain. Nothing embellished on it. The disappointment that hits surprises me. What kind of college girl has a plain door? No name. No star, or sparkly sticker, or band sticker. Nothing. Not one damn thing. If I thought this was going to be the way I could find out clues about her, I’m sorely disappointed.
Heart absolutely galloping, I knock.
I hadn’t planned on doing that. I’d meant to bide my time, but now I’m here, I couldn’t seem to hold myself back. I want to finally meet her, to see what she looks like, and pray she’s happy to find out I exist.
So nervous that I’m slightly nauseated, I wait. Is there any sense of her behind the wood?
But no answer comes. That’s hardly surprising. She’s most likely in class. Or maybe she’s with friends? What if she’s super popular and polished and perfect like the other girls here? Would she even want to speak to me? I might embarrass her.
On a whim, I take hold of the handle and press down. I’m just getting a feel for the lock and how stiff it is. Not that I’d pick her lock, but it’s almost instinctive for me when I come up against a locked door.
Except, with a click, the handle gives.
Shit, it’s not locked.
I let go immediately and step back. This is a huge violation of her privacy. I can’t do this. Then the sugar rush that is the desperate need to know about her wins over. I glance up and down the deserted corridor then push the handle down again.
The door creaks as it opens, as if it isn’t used often.
I step inside and stare in shock.
What the fuck? The place is empty.
There’s no furniture. No bed. No dresser.
Nothing at all. Except for a desk. A solitary, empty desk, against the window. Something about that desk gives me the chills.
What is this? Where is she?
Maybe she moved, but the records I stole definitely said this was her room. Why the hell isn’t there any sign of life?
There’s a strange atmosphere to the space. A sense of loneliness and melancholy. I shiver and wrap my arms around myself.
Stepping farther into the room, I glance around. There are marks where maybe there were posters on the walls. I head toward the desk, drawn to it somehow. It’s one of those old school ones that has a lid you lift to reveal storage space inside. The wooden surface of the desk isn’t smooth but marked with scratches. Most of them make no sense, but there is a drawing of an eye. Just a solitary eye scratched into the wood.
Farther to the left is a word, carved out meticulously.
Snakes .
Snakes…? It takes me a moment to make the link, but then it drops home. As in Vipers? Oh God, did my sister know the Vipers?
My nausea deepens. Did they have a thing with her? That would be so weird.
As I stare at the word, a siren rings out in my mind. This strikes me as a warning. I have no real reason to think that. It’s simply etched into the wood, but it seems stark to me. Why scratch it out this way into the desk? I trace it with my fingertips, trying to feel a connection with my sister.
I need to find her even more now, and the Vipers might be way more of my ticket to my sister than I originally believed.
This means I have to put up with their crap for sure. I need to keep them close and play their twisted games because I need them to talk, but I can’t make it obvious, and I can’t rush this. If I ask about her immediately, they’re going to be suspicious.
Maybe, I can get them drunk, stoned, and high on sex and then get them talking. How can I bring her up though without openly asking them about her?
I could ask after ex-girlfriends of theirs and see if they mention her, but that’s a longshot.
Letting my fingers trace the eye, I realize it seems familiar. I take my cell phone from my pocket and snap a picture. Then I do a reverse image search.
The second picture that matches is an etching, called the evil eye talisman.
Holy crap. Of course, it’s an evil eye.
My sister has scratched the word snakes on her desk, and then drawn an evil eye.
The charm or talisman that supposedly wards off evil.
The Vipers could be evil. I can sense it in them, a kind of darkness that sometimes comes horribly close to the forefront.
Shit, just how intertwined are they with my sister?
More to the point, how the hell can I find out?
Do they know she drew this?
I might not have found Reagan, but I’ve found something. I feel closer to her now more than ever, even if I’ve created more questions than answers.
I slip back out of the room and carefully shut the door behind me. I blow out a breath and give my head a slight shake. Is the reason she’s moved due to the Vipers, too? If they’ve been hassling her, she might have asked to move houses.
Movement catches my attention, and I glance up to find a young guy walking toward me. His head is down, and he has an AirPod in one ear. Maybe he lives on this floor? He might know where Reagan has moved to.
“Excuse me,” I call to him, “do you know where the girl has gone who used to stay in this room?”
The guy gives me a look I can’t quite decipher. His nose scrunches and his upper lip curls. He shakes his head at me, and doesn’t answer, but just keeps walking.
Rude.
That seems to be my experience of many of the students who attend Verona Falls, though.
People here know how to keep their mouths shut.