Chapter 12
TWELVE
RUELLA
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Deena’s voice whispers as we make our way down the stairs in the main building.
We are covered in darkness but every now and then a shimmer of light from a lamp lights the path.
The walls down here are slightly lower than the grandeur of the upstairs, yet the same feel is throughout.
Hardwood floors, dark wooden walls with intricate detailing, antique side tables and lamps with green glass atop, line the corridors.
Patterned blood red rugs run from one end to the next, wooden doors leading to offices and cupboards sit opposite each other. All apart from the one at the very end.
The records room.
The door is the same dark mahogany as the other, yet this one is sealed with a scanner.
“It’s too late to turn back now,” Corden replies grabbing his small tablet from his bag as Deena shifts nervously.
“No, it’s not. We haven’t done anything illegal yet,” Deena’s words have Corden pausing.
“True,” He smiles. “But you said it yourself. There is something in there that you want to see. Plus, Rue and I are still going to go through with it, and if we get caught, we will still give them your name as an accomplice, so you might as well come,”
Deena’s face drops while I slap Corden on the shoulder.
“No, we won’t!”
“Okay. We won’t. But I will,” he grins showing teeth with a twinkle in his eye. I know he is only joking but his words have Deena changing her mind.
“Fine!” She grits out.
“Now stop chatting and get the cameras turned off,” My words have Corden raising an eyebrow at me.
“Please,” I add.
“That’s better,” He smirks. “You two are in moods tonight. After this were having a drink in the homeroom,”
I shake my head. He is never serious, and I don’t know if that’s annoying or charming. Even when we are breaking into a school office, he acts like it’s a bonding experience.
“Done,” He stands from where we are hiding behind a turn in the hallway. Corden’s device needs to be in range of the camera before he can access it, but thankfully, that was the last one we need to deactivate before he gets to work on the scanner.
“Here, hold this,” He hands me the tablet as he grabs other tools out of his bag. It all looks too complicated to me, and it has me wondering how Corden got into all of this.
“How come you know what to do?” I ask.
“Did the computer science and programming degree not give it away?” He asks as he pulls the cover off the scanner on the wall.
“I doubt the others in that class could do this?”
He fiddles on with wires and connects one from it to the device in my hand.
“You would be surprised at how many hackers and geniuses are in this academy. I know we are surrounded by pompous pricks who don’t really need to work, but if you search in the right places there are some good ones who, like me, enjoy what they do and work hard,”
“Noted,” I nod. “But how did you get into this?”
He takes the device from my hand and starts to type away, the letters and numbers on the screen making gobbledygook to me.
“My older brother,” he says as the scanner flashes green and the lock clicks to suggest its open.
He takes all the wires off the scanner and snaps the cover in place before standing.
“He runs one of the UK’s biggest security companies.
He taught me everything I know and when I graduate, I get to go work with him,” He smiles, and it is so genuine and excited for the future that I find myself smiling along with him.
“You first,” he nudges me, and I take a deep breath.
Here we go, there’s no going back now.
I push the door slightly and it creaks sending an echo through the otherwise silent building around us.
It sounds straight out of a horror movie.
I’m not usually a jumpy person, in fact I love scary movies and Halloween attractions made to terrify you.
But there is something about Marrowton Academy that has my senses tingling and I find myself walking the corridors scanning the darkest corners, waiting to see something unnatural.
I usually shake it off and remind myself that it is just the décor and how old the buildings are, other than a few modern luxuries, Marrowton academy seems to be untouched by time and sits like a relic amidst the foggy forest estate.
I once again shake off the feeling and stick my head through the gap to make sure this room is empty. When I see and hear no living person, I push open the door and pull Corden and Deena through the threshold, shutting the door with a quiet click and racing heart.
“That was really easy,” Deena whispers from beside me. I turn to see her with her phone torch on and scanning it around the windowless square box we have broken into.
“Yeah, I know right,” Corden snorts. “I just don’t get it though,” He murmurs on the way over to a wall lined with large filing cabinets.
I follow close behind them, my fingers itching to rummage through them.
“With the modern security on the door, unlike those on the others, you would think they would have digitized the records,” His brows furrow as he drops his bag on the floor.
“Like I said last week, they keep them on paper. I know there isn’t a limit to how much cash the Academy has, but I don’t suppose this is good for the environment,”
“I know, it is strange,” I say as I search the front of the filing cabinets, where it has the years scrawled in an almost unreadable font.
When I first suggested this little adventure, Corden thought I was crazy and said he would hack the security and find our files.
I said if I get a few moments alone without them both there, then go ahead.
We found out quickly that the records were never digitized and that we would have to get them the old-fashioned way.
“It’s not strange,” Deena chuckles. I turn my own phone torch to face her, she smiles with a shrug. “It’s Marrowton Academy. Strange is the norm,”
“Very true,” Corden pulls open one of the draws. “Here this is the past five years,”
“Find yours then Deena and then I will look for mine,” I whisper.
“What the hell is in your file, that the two people who you committed a crime with, can’t even see,” Corden jokes but there is curiosity in there to. One of his brows are lifted and his right elbow rests on the open drawer.
When I don’t answer he sighs and steps away from the drawer. “Here Deena, you can grab yours,” Deena rushes forward and starts to search the letters. “I don’t really care about my file; I just didn’t want to be left out of the fun,”
I smile as Deena takes a brown file from the drawer.
It isn’t thick, like it is nearly empty.
I guess being an orphan with straight A’s doesn’t give much to fill out a student file.
She takes it off to the desk on the other side of the room and sits down with slumped shoulders.
Corden busies himself looking through all the unnamed drawers as I start to search for Marlowe’s file.
Finding the file won’t prove anything, I already know she attended here, my father knows that too.
Mr. Carmichael the head teacher, also verified that she attended every day for the past three years, handed in assignments and was keeping on track.
What he couldn’t tell us, was who her friends were, who she spent her time with, her extracurricular activities other than gymnastics.
The prick told my father that he couldn’t keep track of all the students personally, that was what parents were for, it wasn’t his fault if their child wasn’t informing them of their whereabouts.
That’s why I want the file. It will have in her class schedule, her teachers, her friends. The groups she took part in, if there was any. Then I can really start my investigation.
I start to sift through the A’s at the very front, glancing behind me to make sure the others are still occupied.
I really don’t want to have to explain when I still need to keep it a secret.
Even though I have fun with Corden and Deena and seem to have bonded slightly over criminal offences, I still don’t trust them with this.
When I get to the first B surname, my brows furrow. I pause.
“What?” I whisper to myself, my arms dropping to my sides.
That can’t be. I look at the front of the drawer and double check I have the years right.
I quickly scan the whole drawer in case Marlowe’s has been put back in the wrong place.
There is nothing with the Astor surname.
But there is a Griffith. Ruella Griffith. I grab my own, which is a lot thicker than Deena’s. I don’t really need to open it to know what it will be filled with.
Bad grades. Bad attitude. Depression. Anxiety. Panic attacks. All around fuck up.
To be honest, I am not even sure how my father managed to get me enrolled in the school. He must have had to pay a hefty fee to make things disappear, and at that thought, I smirk to myself.
“You find yours?” Deena asks as she comes up beside me. I hold up my file as I shut the door, feeling my shoulders slump in defeat.
“Hey, guys. Look at this,” Corden whisper shouts from the other side of the room. When I glance over his shoulder, I see a much smaller and older filing cabinet, this one with only one drawer. Exactly like the old mahogany door, the modern scanner on the antique piece doesn’t fit.
“Did you break into this one as well?” Deena sounds exhausted.
“Of course. You can’t tell me, if you had my skills, you would see this very suspicious lock and not want to see what it is inside,” He grins over his shoulder. “The scanner on the door locked away every student file, so what would need to be double locked?”
I nod in agreement.
When he pulls open the drawer, I shine my light into the deep box.
I frown when I see a collection of files, some old, but others new like the ones in the other filing cabinets.
My eyes widen as I pull them out and place them on the table.
There are about twenty files. All girls ranging over the past ten years.
That’s not what has my brows meeting.
Three of the names call to me like a beacon.
Piper Vander
Bronwyn Bell
Marlowe Astor
“What the hell!” Corden asks as Deena backs away. “What is this?”
I shake my head. “I have no clue,” I spread the files out. “Do you know any of these people?” I ask, fishing for any information I can get.
“Well Piper Vander is Asher’s sister,” Then he grabs one of the older ones. “This girl,” He opens her file and scans the pages. “She was in my brother’s year when he came here,” I watch as he bites the side of his bottom lip.
“What?” I ask at his expression. It looks like he is desperately trying to put the pieces together.
“Guys!” Deena interrupts. “We need to go,” She turns her attention to the door. “It’s nearly 2:45am. The others will be coming back to the dorms. The grounds keepers will break up the party before 3,”
I nod but Corden still stares at the folder in his hands, then he opens the file on the desk and starts to take photos of each page on his phone.
I don’t question him when we are running out of time, but I plan too later.
When he is finished, I grab all the folders as Corden starts to pack his tools away into his backpack. Before I close the drawer, I fold Marlowe’s file into my own and then shove it down the back of my jeans, pulling my hoodie over it to hide it from site.
“Come on,” Corden rushes me. “The cameras are still down, but we need to be quick before they notice”.
He holds his hand out to me, and I grab it as we run from the room. My heart is trying to explode from my chest as I try to figure out what that was. I thought tonight would give some answers, but all it has done is create even more questions.
Marlowe is missing.
Bronwyn is missing.
There are 18 other girls’ names. Are they all missing. Why are those specific files locked away in a drawer, within the school.
Well, I know one person whose name was there but isn’t missing.
Piper Vander.
I need to somehow get her alone without her brother or one of his lap dogs seeing. Something happened to her last year. Something that had left her as a shell of a human compared to how she used to be, or so that’s what I have been told.
She knows something.
And I intend to find out.