XXXXV
Syn
A ll morning, as I’ve been trying to collect my thoughts, I’ve always stopped short of allowing myself to come to that conclusion, never mind speak the admission out loud. I don’t like to admit I’m wrong, and thankfully, I don’t need to do so very often. But I don’t think the stunned silence I’m greeted to with my revelation is because of that.
“Wait a minute. Are you saying you believe Tori?” Royal asks.
Stopping, I glance up at the sky. Snowflakes are swirling around us, and the sky has a kind of orange hue to it, but I’m not really looking at the scenery. I suck in a deep breath and then turn back to Royal and Gemini. “I’m saying that I don’t think it’s a coincidence that not long after my father finds out that the girl who has always claimed her brother is innocent turned up here, her sex tape is released. That if I, who has the power to get her expelled just as easily as my father, would have done so without releasing the same sex tape with me in it, and that even though it’s not possible to identify me—or you—in it, doing this serves as much as a warning to me as it hurts her. And that, if I had the foresight to see that I could spin accepting her into the college as a goodwill gesture and positive publicity in the future, that surely my father should have been able to do the same.”
“Syn—” Royal starts.
I ignore him. “—And when you put all this together, suddenly, Cole Reynalds’ involvement in my brother’s murder seems a lot more like something orchestrated by the XXXVII.”
“Why, out of the three of us, am I always considered the crazy one?” Gemini asks, looking between me and Syn with wide eyes. “You’re basically accusing your father of, at a minimum, conspiracy to kill his own son.”
I don’t think Gemini is crazy, so much as he listens to his intrusive thoughts a little too often, but the rest of what he’s saying is right.
He and Royal are my best friends, but even now, there are still a few things I’ve kept secret from them. One being what my father is really like. Royal and Gemini are probably the only people in the world who might understand, but it’s too late now to tell them how I really got some of the scars on my body.
William Keyingham is as cruel as he is powerful, but conspiring to kill his eldest son?
Gemini might think I’m crazy, but as I lock eyes with Royal, I can see his hesitation. More than anything, I want him to agree with Gemini, but I can’t bring myself to ask him out loud.
“Fuck,” Royal mutters, running his hand through his hair as he glances away. “I don’t know if he’s capable of doing the deed himself, but if he got orders to let it go, he’d follow them.”
Gemini’s eyes are still wide, but he looks more skeptical now. “Before I start drinking the same Kool Aid, tell me this: why would anyone—why would the XXXVII—want JP dead? They’d already spent a fortune getting him into the White House.”
That question was one I’d asked myself a dozen times over. Each time, my mind goes back to the video Victoria used to blackmail me. The one of JP and another guy taking part in a sex act…
I’m not sure that’s enough of a reason—or even if it’s the right one. It doesn’t seem enough of a justification to kill anyone. But Cole Reynalds—the guy who admitted to killing JP—couldn’t give me anything.
“Does Tori know?” Royal asks.
Until now, I didn’t think she knew anything, but I was wrong about that. If everything does circle back to that video, then yes, she does know. I also feel confident that she’s not told anyone else about the video, and as I haven’t either, this is where my doubt comes creeping back in.
“I don’t know,” I say, slowly. “But if she does, and they know she does…”
Royal’s eyes narrow. “We need to find her.”
Gemini understands too. “Then let’s head back to the church and—”
“No,” I quickly cut him off. “Someone in that church has been reporting back to Preston.”
“Then why the fuck did you drag everyone in there and ask them who did it?” Gemini asks. “Did you really expect that person to own up?”
“Wouldn’t it have been helpful if they did,” I mutter before I start walking again. We’re not far from the house, and I want to get back so we can start looking for her. “What would you expect me to have done when I found that video had been uploaded?”
“Before you shared all that? Probably what you did,” Royal replies.
“Exactly.”
“So, you’re acting as normal, as expected, to throw off any suspicion,” Gemini says. “And maybe buying a little time before whoever Preston’s mole is goes reporting to him, by putting the fear of Synclair Keyingham into them. But then what?”
We reach the house, and I key in the door code, allowing us to enter before I respond. “We’ll deal with that once we find her.”
“She’s not here,” Royal tells me as he follows me and Gemini up the stairs. “She’s probably gone back to her mom’s. How often are the trains?”
Despite everything, the question has me stopping to give Royal an incredulous look. At what point does Royal think I’ve ever used public transportation? I hate taxis, much less trains.
“She spent the night with Penny Bergmann,” I say as I continue upstairs.
“The first place I went this morning was Penny’s room. She’s said she’s not been there.”
“Of course she did.”
“Penny even told me to check the cameras,” Royal adds.
Sometimes I wonder how Royal can be so clever, and also, so stupid at the same time.
“Then she was calling your bluff. She was definitely there this morning, and I’m willing to bet she was still there when the video was released. I got back on campus just after 11:30, so assuming Tori freaked out and had a good cry about it, if she decided to leave campus, I’d have passed her on the way in. I didn’t.”
“She could have left while we’ve been in the church.”
“In this weather? I doubt it,” Gemini says. He tilts his head. “But we can call campus security—”
“No,” I quickly tell him. “We’re not getting anyone else involved that I don’t trust. And the only people I trust right now are you two. She’s probably still with Bergmann.”
“I told you, I checked Penny’s room.”
I roll my eyes. “Did you check her old room?”
“Then why did we come here, and not go straight to the dorms?” Gemini asks as he turns, ready to head straight back downstairs.
Before he can move, I grab his arm. “Because you’re both still thinking she left, and I’ve already moved onto the next assumption.”
Royal folds his arms. “Which is?”
“That even if her reaction is to leave, she’s not going to do so before she’s confronted me.” I start moving towards the bedroom she’s been using for the past few nights.
Had things ended with our conversation last night, I’m sure she’d have run with her tail between her legs, but she’ll assume that the video was released by me, and there’s no way in hell that girl will leave quietly because of it.
I’ll actually be disappointed if she does.
Which is how I feel when I open the bedroom door and see her room is empty.
As I start to close the door, about to go to my own room in case she’s waiting in there, her laptop catches my attention. Last night, it had been on the desk, lid closed. Now, it’s on the bed, turned on, and there’s a document on the screen. But I can’t see the text from here, so I walk in, heading straight for it.
I came to James Keyingham University believing that my brother was innocent, but I was wrong.
Now I know the truth, and the guilt I feel is too much.
I’m sorry, Synclair.
Practically flinging the laptop back onto the bed, I turn to Royal and Gemini. Before Royal can ask what I was looking at, I speak. “They’re faking her death.”
My instinct is to check the bathroom—slit wrists in the bathtub—but Royal is moving in the opposite direction. I see the closet door ajar just before he reaches it, then I’m running after him, up into the attic. The lights turn on as we reach the top, but that doesn’t stop Royal.
“Tori!” he yells before charging off.
There’s a secret rooftop garden up here that I’d forgotten about as we’ve never used it, and there’s a strong, cold breeze blowing through the open door. I reach it seconds after Royal.
A foot or so of snow covers the ground, and lying on top of it partially covered, is Tori.
Royal slides to his knees in front of her, pulling her into his lap as he runs his hands over her. “Tori? Tori?” He scoops her up, her body hanging limply as he hurries to me, not stopping as he runs past.
Before I follow him and Gemini, my attention is caught by the strange black object that lies beside where Tori had been, but I don’t stop to find out what it is, instead running after Royal.
“We need to get her to a hospital,” I shout at Royal.
I’m sure that’s exactly what Royal is thinking as he runs to the door, but not Gemini. “Don’t,” he yells, making Royal slow down.
“Ignore him,” I snap at Royal before I turn on Gemini. “We are not going to let her die.”
“Is she breathing?” he asks.
“Barely,” Royal tells him.
“She won’t make it to a hospital. Even if we call 911, and they send a helicopter, she might not make it waiting for that.”
“Then we get in my car, and I’ll drive us.” I’m not sure what’s going through Gemini’s head right now, but I’m not about to let her die because of his craziness. She’s breathing, but Royal is right—her chest is barely moving. Her skin is also blue.
“Royal, stop,” Gemini yells, getting in front of him and blocking him at the top of the stairs. “I know I’m not a doctor, but you have to trust me on this. We need to get her warm. Get her in the shower.”
“Are you kidding?”
“She needs to get warm. The quickest way is going to be hot water.” Gemini points back to the bedroom. “If you get to the car, assuming you can even get off campus with all this snow, it’s going to take too long to get her to a hospital, and when you get there, if she’s still alive, they’ll warm her up. They’re going to put heating blankets over her, and they’re going to pump warm saline through her veins.”
I know there’s logic to what he’s saying but getting her to a hospital seems like the safer option. I need her to stay alive. “Then we take her to the college medical room.”
Royal’s moving, but he’s not listening to me. He’s heading straight back the way he came, into Tori’s bedroom. He doesn’t stop until he’s in the shower. Still holding onto Tori, he turns the water on, angling his body so it falls mainly on her.
“Don’t scald her,” Gemini says as steam starts to fill the room. He moves over, sticking his hand under the water and then adjusts the dial slightly. “Pass me some towels,” he says to me.
I do as he says, watching from the entrance of the large shower. Each bathroom in this house has a bathtub as well as a separate shower. Although they’re not as large as the one in the basement, there’s just enough room for the three of them.
“Come on, Tori,” Royal mutters over and over. “Open those eyes.”
Gemini’s using the towels to cover Tori’s bare arms and shoulders. I’m not sure if it’s to protect her skin from the heat of the water, or if the towels are to make sure the water stays there. Then he starts rubbing his hands over her.
As he does, I’m distracted by a metallic clanging. It takes a moment before I realize it’s caused by the metal collar, the chain dangling down below Tori swinging against the marble walls.
Pieces of a puzzle come together.
The black thing I saw in the snow was hooked shaped. I’d seen the box against the wall but not processed what it was at the time. Someone had staged the scene to make it look like she’d hung herself using my collar, only the hook hadn’t been able to take her weight.
Whoever did this hadn’t stuck around…
The chain smacks against the wall again, but I recoil like it hit me.
The chain… the collar… I put that around her neck.
Something inside me snaps, and I pull the key from my pocket, pushing my way around Royal.
“What are you doing?” he asks me.
I don’t answer, instead, finding the lock on the collar. My fingers fumble, but I manage to unlock it. The lock and key fall to the ground as I focus on pulling the collar off her.
Free of the thing that I’d once taken great pleasure in putting on her, a thin purple line remains around her throat.
“This isn’t working,” I snap at Gemini.
He ignores me.
Color slowly starts to return to Tori’s cheeks, and finally, Gemini turns the water off. He pulls back the soaked towel and takes her hand in one of his. With his other, he presses the back against her forehead, then to her cheek.
“Now what?” I ask.
“We dry her off, put her in warm clothes, and keep her warm.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Royal asks.
“I don’t know.” Gemini looks up, staring uncertainly at the both of us. “We’ll have to wait and see.”