Chapter 3 #2
By the time the lecture ends, laptops and notebooks are snapping shut all around me.
I wait until most of the class has filed out before making my way toward the front row.
Silas looks up first, and I almost forget why I walked over.
He really is that beautiful up close. Black hair falling across his forehead.
Those impossibly dark eyes fixed on mine.
A full, perfectly shaped mouth that looks entirely too soft for the rest of him.
He looks like someone carved out of marble and taught how to breathe.
“Silas Blackhollow?”
“Yes?” he answers with unhurried indifference.
“My name is Jack Mercer.” I swallow, suddenly aware of how dry my mouth is. “I think you know my brother, Josh.”
Something flickers in his eyes that looks like recognition, but it’s gone so quickly, I’m not sure if I imagined it.
“And?”
“He was a student here last year,” I say, my words tumbling out. “He was studying historical preservation and archival science on the Blackhollow Foundation Fellowship,” I continue. “He mentioned you a number of times.”
There’s a long beat.
“Josh?” he asks like it’s a foreign word he’s never heard before.
“Yes. Josh Mercer,” I repeat. “Same as my last name.”
“Sorry. I don’t remember a Josh Mercer.”
The words are calm and devoid of any emotion, as if he’s correcting a typo. Beside him, Rowan and Van watch with quiet interest.
“That’s not what he told me,” I say. “Josh respected you. He said you were friends.”
His face gives nothing away.
“I’m afraid your brother was mistaken,” he says.
Van suddenly snaps his fingers. “Mercer,” he says. “You remember, Silas. He was the weird skinny guy always arguing with the professor in econ class. Thought he was so smart.”
“Ah, yes.” Silas nods along. “Didn’t he drop out last fall?”
“He didn’t drop out,” I snap, my cheeks flushing. “Something happened to him last Halloween. He… disappeared.”
“That’s a shame,” Van says, shaking his head, though he doesn’t sound remotely sympathetic. “But then your brother always did have a problem keeping his mouth shut. Guess he finally ran it to the wrong person.”
“Van.” Rowan puts his hand on his friend’s elbow before turning to me, his warm blue eyes holding mine. “Sorry to hear about your brother. That must be hard.”
“Yes, it has been.” I turn quickly back to Silas, who is already standing and eyeing the exit. “I tried emailing you after it happened,” I say. “You never responded.”
“I receive a great many emails.”
“My brother is missing—”
“So you’ve said,” he says drolly.
My temper flares. What an unbelievable asshole!
“You couldn’t spare thirty seconds to return my emails? I’m trying to retrace his steps and figure out what happened to him,” I say. “I have questions.”
Van steps closer, looming over me. “You’re wasting your time—and ours,” he says, slipping his phone into his back pocket, his expression openly hostile now.
“If something had happened to your brother, someone would’ve found him.
Guys like him wash out every year. They realize they don’t belong here and disappear back to wherever they came from.
” His lip curls. “Have you checked your local community college?”
The contempt in his voice is so effortlessly brutal, it makes my stomach turn.
“Van, enough,” Rowan says.
“What?” Van shrugs. “She should know the truth, right?”
Rowan turns to me with an apologetic smile.
“Please forgive him. Van has never mistaken tact for one of his strengths,” he says.
“I’m Rowan Ashcroft.” He offers me his hand and I shake it.
Unlike his terrible friends, he seems genuinely nice.
“I wish we could help you, but like Silas said, we didn’t know your brother.
I do hope you find the answers you’re looking for. ”
“So do I.”
Silas swings his backpack over one shoulder. “I wouldn’t count on it.”
I step toward him, so close I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. They’re almost black from here, only the faintest hint of color visible around the pupils.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He hesitates like he’s deciding what to do with me, then shifts toward me instead of away. I catch the faint scent of cedar and smoke as he holds my gaze for a second that feels too long.
“You want help? Here it is,” he says, his voice flat and cutting. “Go home. You’re looking for answers that don’t exist. You don’t belong here, and neither did your brother.”
Rowan gives a small, almost amused shake of his head. “Jesus, Silas,” he says lightly, “must you scare off every pretty woman who dares to talk to you?”
Silas smirks. “I find it saves time.”
The three of them turn their backs on me, dismissing me as easily and thoroughly as everyone else at this damn school has been doing for months by phone, email, and now in person. It should piss me off. Instead, my pulse kicks up as Silas’s words replay in my head.
You don’t belong here, and neither did your brother.
He knew Josh. And he just lied to my face.
“I’m not giving up,” I call after them. “Not until I find out what happened to my brother.”
Silas turns back one last time, the cold indifference he wears so well briefly gone from his face, replaced by something else unmistakable. Not pity. Not regret.
A warning.
After my last class of the day, I make my way across campus to the Office of Residential Life.
I checked one item off my list today—albeit unsuccessfully—which was finding and talking to Silas Blackhollow.
The next is figuring out what happened to my roommate, who still hasn’t shown up despite today being the first day of classes.
The woman behind the front desk has an air of practiced efficiency, her dark hair twisted into a neat bun. She smiles politely as I approach.
“Can I help you, dear?”
“I hope so.” I set my phone on the counter and pull up the housing email I received over the summer. “I moved into Hallowell Hall over the weekend. I’m in Room 321. According to this, I was assigned a roommate named Eleanor, but she hasn’t shown up yet.”
“Hmmm. Let’s take a look.”
She begins typing, the quiet clatter of the keyboard filling the silence between us. After a few moments, she nods to herself.
“Yes, you’re right. I see it right here.” She taps at the computer screen. “Room 321 does appear to be assigned to two students.”
I wait for her to say something else, to give me some further explanation, but she offers nothing.
“So…” I prompt. “Where is she?”
She leans back in her chair with a small shrug. “I’m not sure.”
I stare at her. “You’re… not sure? Uh… shouldn’t someone try to reach her?”
The woman looks genuinely puzzled by the question. “Reach her?”
“You know—call her or call her parents? Make sure everything is okay.”
“Oh no, that’s not necessary. This sort of thing happens more than you’d think.” A pleasant smile spreads across her face. “Students arrive late. They change their minds. Sometimes they disappear for days before resurfacing.”
She says the last part so casually, it takes me a second to process it.
“They… disappear?”
“Quite often, actually.” She sighs. “College students these days. They’re so unpredictable.” She gives a dismissive little wave of her hand. “I’m sure she’ll turn up eventually.”
I look back down at the email on my phone. Eleanor Graves. A name. A real person. What if something horrible has happened to her? And why doesn’t this woman seem to care?
“But what if she doesn’t?” I ask.
“Oh, don’t you worry, dear. I’m sure everything will work itself out,” the woman says, already returning her attention to the stack of folders beside her keyboard.
“And look on the bright side. Maybe you’ll get a single.
” She looks up one last time and gives me a little wink. “Wouldn’t that be lucky?”
I thank her and head back toward the door, the uneasy feeling growing stronger with each step. Something is very, very wrong here in Salem’s Fall.
If a student failed to arrive on the first day of classes, most schools would be looking for them. And if another student disappeared over Halloween the year before, like my brother did, you’d think someone would at least be asking questions.
So why doesn’t anyone here seem to care?