13 #2
Aleixandre exchanged a glance with Owen that I couldn’t quite interpret. They were saying something to each other, but I didn’t understand what. Then Aleixandre smiled at me.
“Of course. You can sleep in my room,” he offered graciously. “I’ll sleep in Aegan’s, because I don’t think he’ll be back tonight.”
“But don’t mess anything up,” Owen advised in a mocking tone, “or he’ll have a meltdown.”
Aleixandre was obsessed with cleanliness; I’d seen it with my own eyes. Maybe he had OCD?
Anyway, he flashed his middle finger at Owen.
Great, I’ll get to crash at the Cash apartment.
···
A few hours later, everybody had gone to bed.
Artie had fallen asleep really quickly. She was sleeping on the other side of the bed, already in REM, with her mouth half-open. I couldn’t sleep a wink. I’d been texting the unknown number for a while:
Me: Who are you?
Me: Why are you messaging me?
Me: What does your message mean?
Me: What do I do now?
I even called it, but nobody picked up. They didn’t even have WhatsApp. How strange.
Then, I got a message out of the blue.
Unknown: Go to the back room. Keep quiet.
I wondered if it was Aegan messing with me. Ready to confront him, I got out of bed, crept to the door, and cautiously opened it before peering into the small hallway. Nobody was there. There was a dead silence.
I crept barefoot down the hallway. I reached the mysterious door, the one at the very end of the hall. Cue the suspenseful music, because the door was half-open, as if inviting someone to come in.
I stared at it for a minute. The still of the night, the darkness of the living room on the other side, and the empty hallway made me uneasy. But I had to take the risk.
I walked in. It was dark, silent, gloomy, and empty. No sign of Aegan.
So, he wasn’t playing a joke on me with these texts?
I looked for a switch on the wall and turned on the light.
I could see a curtain covering the window and that the design was eerily similar to Aleixandre’s room.
The bed was made, and everything looked neat and tidy.
Nothing seemed out of place, but for some reason, a shiver ran down my spine, like the room wasn’t really part of the apartment.
It felt like it was hiding something creepy; there was an eerie chill, the type a person leaves behind when they vanish under tragic circumstances.
Well, strange message-sender, I’m here. Now what?
As if they’d heard me, a response to my question came.
Unknown: Search.
Oh, so I had to search for something. Okayyyyy, that’s creepy.
I started exploring the room, although there wasn’t much in it.
A dresser with a pair of shoes and socks tucked under it.
They were a guy’s pair, but I couldn’t tell which of the brothers they belonged to.
It could have been any of them. The fact that the socks were there probably meant whoever the owner was, came into this creepy room often.
Did they sleep there? Study there? What did they do?
There was also a wardrobe. I opened it and instinctively stepped back.
There were girls’ clothes inside.
Hung perfectly, looking like it hadn’t been touched for ages. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. Even though it was just women’s clothes, I felt an icy chill. Now I was scared.
What if they were Eli’s clothes? What if she had lived with Aegan? Dash had told me that the Cash brothers always lived together. Eli might have lived there last year with Aegan. I grabbed my phone to text the mysterious message-sender.
Me: I just saw girl’s clothes.
Unknown: Keep searching.
Jeez, could they be a bit more specific, please! I was no Sherlock Holmes. What the hell was I supposed to be looking for?
I kept searching and was getting increasingly nervous, afraid that I’d be caught. I opened drawers, looked under the bed, pulled clothes out, and even looked inside shoes.
There was something in the gap between the mattress and the bed frame. That narrow slit was hiding a knife and a small canister of pepper spray, both of which were tucked near the headboard.
I stared at them. Knife, pepper spray, hidden . . . Oh, fuck, what if Eli hid that under her bed for protection?
What if she was trying to protect herself from Aegan?
I sent a message back telling the mysterious message-sender what I’d found. I waited but got no reply. I thought I’d hit the bull’s-eye.
More frightened than ever, I put the items back in their place and ran out of the room. Everything was starting to make sense. Eli had been afraid of someone—possibly Aegan—and had rented a car to get out of there. Maybe he was violent? What if he had hurt her? She must’ve been hiding somewhere.
I placed a hand on my chest, on edge. It was all overwhelming, yet strangely fascinating.
As I was about to head back to Aleixandre’s room, I spotted another door ajar, yet heard nobody inside . . .
The idea lingered enticingly in my mind, begging me to peek inside; if I’d discovered something in the previous room, maybe I’d find something in this one too.
I figured out right away that it was Adrik’s room.
There was a wardrobe with sliding doors, a full bookshelf along one wall, and a desk.
Everything was intriguingly untidy: old, new, and crumpled papers scattered about; books, open and closed, stacked, arranged, and piled randomly .
. . There were also pencils, drawing instruments, magazines, exploration gadgets, a world map, a large poster of sea creatures, and horse-riding gear scattered all over the place.
It looked like somewhere a distressed hundred-year-old philosopher might hang out . . . and it smelled of farts.
Something in particular caught my eye as I rummaged around.
There was a photograph on top of a pile of books on the desk.
It had no frame; it was just lying there, like someone had just taken it out to look at it.
It showed a girl using a Hula-Hoop. She was really pretty.
She had long brown hair, deep brown eyes, and her smile made her look really happy.
There was something familiar about her face, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
I wondered if she was Adrik’s girlfriend. Was she also at Tagus? I’d never seen her before.
I suddenly heard footsteps and some murmuring.
Someone was coming down the hallway. I put the photo down and looked around desperately.
If I stepped out of the room, I’d be seen, and I could get into serious trouble for snooping around.
The wardrobe seemed like the only space big enough for me to hide, so I slid the door open and slipped inside just as I heard Adrik say, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Aleixandre.
Don’t be so annoying at this time of night. ”
From my spot among the hanging clothes and standing over a row of shoes, I could see what was going on outside through the narrow slits of the wardrobe.
Adrik shut the bedroom door and strode over to the bedside table. He picked up his phone and checked it. He looked like he was scrolling through Instagram, and then he started taking his shoes off, still glued to his phone. Then he tossed his shoes aside and pulled off his shirt.
All I could think was, “Fucking hell, he’s going to get naked. He’s going to get naked, and I’m hiding in his wardrobe like a real psycho.”
I pursed my lips tighter, but I couldn’t look away.
Unlike Aegan, he had no tattoos. He had clear skin, and he looked moderately ripped.
Yeah, yeah, he was hot, I couldn’t help but admit it.
And . . . to be quite honest, he was even hotter than Aegan.
Maybe it was that mixture of mystery and darkness, but all I was really doing was comparing one monster to another. There wasn’t much between them.
He unbuttoned his trousers while still looking at his phone. I wanted to close my eyes because I knew what was coming next. I knew he was going to end up in his underwear. I also knew that, no matter what, I’d still find that son of a bitch attractive.
Although . . . well, seeing him in his underwear didn’t mean I was going to change my opinion about him, did it? So, I clung to that idea and kept my eyes wide open.
Adrik put his phone back on the nightstand and then slipped out of his trousers. His gray boxers were tight on him. No, really, they looked amazing on him. He adjusted his package before heading over to the desk. He grabbed a bookmarked book and jumped onto the bed to read.
From where I was, the scene was oddly captivating. To cap it all off, he grabbed a cigarette from the bedside table, lit it, and leaned back to relax. He was reading and smoking at the same time.
I had to remind myself that he was a Cash brother, that he was obnoxious, that I couldn’t find him attractive . . .
Adrik read for an hour. At one point, he turned his head and I thought he was looking at me, but he was actually just staring at the wardrobe door.
Then it dawned on me that if I kept staring, he might feel my gaze, so I should probably look away; I had to stop.
When he went back to his book, I sank to the wardrobe floor and fiddled with some shoelaces to pass the time.
Long after, Adrik fell asleep with the book on his chest, by which point my tailbone was already aching from crouching in the wardrobe. I opened the wardrobe door and slipped out as quietly as I could. The room now smelled of cigarettes and farts. I tiptoed out of there, victorious.
At least he hadn’t seen me.
But I had gotten a good look at him.
And although it was hard to admit, I’d liked what I’d seen.