Chapter 14 Gabi
GABI
Present Day
“This is an exceptionally bad idea, Gabi. In fact, this might be the worst idea you’ve ever had,” Ele barks as I swing open the door to our apartment.
“Oh my God, can you keep it down?” Viv groans from the couch where she lies with a washcloth and cold compress over her eyes.
“Sorry,” Ele says in a hushed shout.
“Let’s go to my room,” I say to Ele, rolling my eyes and grabbing her hand.
“No, I want to hear,” Viv groans again like she’s dying, although I can’t imagine the pain of a migraine is pleasant. “Just stop screaming,” Viv adds.
“I wasn’t screaming,” Ele protests. “I was simply talking with emphasis because Gabi wants to break into fucking Sigma and get herself killed.”
“Okay, that’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” I scoff. “Besides, they won’t catch me. I’ll be in and out like a thief in the night.”
“Right. Until they do catch you and throw you in their basement with the other girls you claim to be down there.”
“Sigma’s keeping girls in their basement?” Viv croaks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But the cops made an appearance at chapter tonight looking for Kasey, because apparently, Kasey is missing now, too. Although the cops could not give two shits. They only came because they got a call from Kasey’s parents.”
“Whoa, slow down,” Viv says. “Kasey is missing, and the cops are looking for her?”
“Kasey didn’t answer the phone this weekend when her parents tried to call her, so they called the police, who came to DG tonight looking for her.
No one has seen her since the Sigma party on Friday.
But when I told the cops this, and they realized she was at a frat party with a guy two days ago, they immediately brushed aside any concern.
In fact, they basically implied Kasey is just whoring it up at Sigma and ignoring her parents, you know, ‘like girls do,’” I say, using air quotes.
“Literally, this country does not give a shit about women,” Ele grumbles from the chair at the base of the couch.
“It’s not just this country,” Viv pipes in, her corpse-like position unfaltering.
“Side note, did we ever get this couch cleaned after the exchange students moved out?” Ele asks.
I huff a clipped laugh. “What do you think?”
“My hair co-mingling with random bodily fluids is not what I want to think about right now,” Viv groans. “Can you stick with the story and go back to the part where Gabi thinks it’s a good idea to break into Sigma?”
“I never said it was a good idea! I said we should go there to see if Kasey is indeed still inside. I mean, who knows? What if they are keeping girls in their basement? Would it be that much of a stretch given the psychopath who currently resides as Sigma’s president?
What if Monroe is in there? What if she’s been in there the entire time, held captive?
What if the other girls who went missing are still in there?
We have to see! We know they are doing some shady shit, and we have to see with our own eyes what the fuck is going on! ”
“No, see, this is where you lose me, because I never agreed to this, and you keep saying ‘we’ as if stress testing your conspiracy theory is some group project,” Ele complains.
“I’m not setting foot inside that place.
Not after what happened to you. Are you crazy?
Do you not remember getting thrown out by your ex-boyfriend a mere two days ago? ”
“Didn’t you also say Jace warned you not to come back?” Viv mumbles.
“I don’t give a fuck what that roid-head said. Since when do we take orders from men, especially shitty men who are known to be liars?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Okay, let’s say we do agree to go along with this insanity. What’s the plan?” Ele asks.
“Sneak in through a window,” I say as if that part of the plan should be obvious.
Ele grunts a frustrated sigh. “Great plan, Sherlock. Foolproof. And then what?”
I press my lips together and squeeze my eyes closed, because I don’t fucking know. I’m not a goddamn burglar.
“Okay,” I say with resolve, resetting the tone of the conversation. “We find an unlocked window on the first floor.”
“But what if there isn’t one?”
“That place has like a bazillion windows. One of them will be unlocked. I sneak in around three or four in the morning during a weeknight, right? Because chances are, everyone is asleep at that time.”
“You’re forgetting thirty-some people live there,” Viv croaks.
“Sure. Maybe some of them keep odd hours, but they probably are up in their rooms, not on the first floor. I sneak in and make my way down to the basement. All I need to confirm is whether or not their basement has been turned into a freak petting zoo of missing girls, and then I’ll get out.”
“Even if Kasey and Monroe are still at Sigma, why do you assume they’d be in the basement? What are you expecting to find, like a pod farm from a sci-fi movie?” Ele challenges.
“I… I don’t know!” I stammer in frustration.
“Do either of you have any better ideas? We can’t just sit around and do nothing!
The cops obviously aren’t going to do shit.
Come on, we saw Kasey there on Friday night, and she looked loopy as fuck!
She told us she was scared! We all saw Mad Max Kieren basically strong-arm Kasey away while losing his shit over the two-minute conversation we managed to have with her.
It was like he was worried she’d tell us something he didn’t want us to know. Shit is not okay!”
I take a breath to steady myself. “Two women, well, four if you count Kasey and Monroe, have gone missing at Dornell this year alone. And I know this is a very stressful university, and I know the statistics are bad for incidents where students take their own lives, but I can’t shake this gut feeling that these disappearances are connected.
This ties back to Sigma in some way. I know it does.
These young girls, they remind me of my sisters.
If one of them went missing, and the University and law enforcement ruled it a suicide without proof of a body, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
I would chase every lead or crazy conspiracy theory I could find.
Call me insane, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. ”
Silence permeates our apartment. I slump down into my chair and fight back tears of hopelessness.
Ele exhales a long sigh. “Fuck, well, I can’t believe I’m asking this but, when do we do this?”
My eyes flick up to hers with disbelief.
“I’ll go too. Ele can be the getaway driver. I’ll be the lookout,” Viv agrees.
My wide smile bounces between them, and I open my mouth to speak, but the words catch in my throat. I suck my bottom lip between my teeth and swallow down the emotional lump threatening to undo my conviction.
“Thank you,” I manage, but it’s not what I wanted to say.
It’s not what I would have said if it were her.
Because I would never have to convince Monroe.
Never would I feel the need to plead my case.
She would already be downstairs, heading for her car, going to fill up the gas tank, and telling me, ‘Ride or die, Gabi. Ride or fucking die.’