The Cursed Series, Parts 3 & 4: Now We Know/What They Knew

by Rebecca Donovan

  Both screaming the same name.

  I walk Ashton back to the dorm and leave her in the shower while I go to French. But I don’t retain any of it. I think the teacher is lecturing about paying attention, except I can’t understand anything she’s saying.

  “You wanted this.” It replays in my head over and over. Accompanied by Brendan’s words the night I was in his room, “I would have killed him myself if someone hadn’t already.”

  “Maybe you did,” I murmur while walking back from class.

  Like Ashton said, I want to hate him, but I don’t. Maybe, just maybe, he’s beginning to make sense to me. And just as I think that, I know it’s not true. He knows so much. And he’s lying about almost all of it.

  When I consider everything that’s happened—from Allie, to the paternity tests, to the Harrisons and now Ashton—Brendan is at the center of all of it. Always the one with the information. How’s he getting it? And what’s he planning to do with it?

  I stop by Ashton’s, but there’s a sign on her door: Do not disturb. Sleeping. I leave her and decide to go for a walk to clear my head. Figure out what to do next. Or what not to. Because some of it … I shouldn’t know. Some secrets are meant to remain buried.

  While passing by the birch forest, I hear Dr. Kendall’s sugary voice. “How did the tour go?”

  “I think he’ll like it here,” Sophia responds.

  I sneak closer, wondering who the new student could be. But it’s only Sophia and Dr. Kendall.

  “Wonderful. What would I do without you?” Dr. Kendall pats Sophia on the head like she’s a pet.

  I cringe. So weird.

  “Oh, here’s the key card.” Sophia holds out a white electronic card attached to a black coiled bracelet.

  “I already locked the office, and I’m late for a dinner reservation. Why don’t you give it to Mrs. Seyer to return to the office in the morning?”

  I eye the small rectangle dangling from her fingers, and a plan begins to form. Maybe I can finally get some answers … while sinking to Brendan’s level.

  I wait until Dr. Kendall disappears inside before pretending to notice Sophia. I smile. “Hi, Sophia.” She jumps. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay,” she says, averting her eyes and moving to enter the Court.

  “What are you up to?” I walk beside her, trying to sound as cheerful as possible, but I kinda suck at it. Which is obvious when she eyes me warily.

  “Um, nothing. I was going back to the dorm.” She stops, concern suddenly widening her eyes. “Why? Did something happen? Is Ashton okay?”

  The reaction seems a little odd, but so is Sophia. “No. I mean, she’s still not feeling great. But she’s getting better. I was just asking because I wanted to talk to you about something. Except it needs to stay between us. You can keep a secret, right?”

  “Of course,” Sophia exclaims like I just asked her if the sky was blue. “Whatever I can do to help.”

  We enter a garden with a hidden daybed tucked into a shrubbery alcove.

  I direct Sophia to sit next to me and lower my voice conspiratorially. “You warned me about Brendan. That I shouldn’t trust him. I should’ve listened to you.”

  Sophia peeks around the hedge like someone could be lurking. “I thought you should know. To stay away from him. He’s not a good person, Lana.”

  “I know.” I take her hand, coaxing her gently, like pulling at a loose thread. “And I’m afraid he’s going to do something terrible unless we stop him.”

  “What do you mean?” Sophia’s smoky eyes round in alarm.

  “I think he’s planning something, but I need proof before I can say anything. Will you help me get it?”

  “What kind of proof?”

  “It’s in his dorm room.” I shift my eyes to glance at the key card still in her hand. “Can you get me in?”

  Sophia hides the card in the pleat of her yellow-and-turquoise striped skirt. “I’m not supposed to use the master key card for anything, except the tours.”

  “How would anyone know? I mean, would they even check? They trust you, right?”

  “Yes. I take my responsibilities very seriously.” She looks horrified by even the suggestion of breaking the rules.

  “As you should. But what about our responsibility to protect the students of Blackwood? Like … Ashton.”

  Despite their obvious differences, I know Sophia looks up to Ashton. Admires her for her brazen, outspoken demeanor. And Ashton looks out for Sophia, including her in our group whenever possible so she has a sense of belonging. I’ve seen it. It’s the craziest pairing but kinda endearing at the same time.

  “You know Ashton’s in love with him, don’t you?” I say this like it’s a sad admission and I pity Ashton.

  Sophia makes a disgusted face. “I have no idea what she sees in him.”

  “Me either.” I replicate her expression. “So, will you help me? For Ashton?”

  Sophia is quiet for a few seconds, battling with her inner morals. With a deep exhale, she concedes, “Okay. But we can’t get caught. My parents will disown me if I get kicked out of Blackwood.”

  “No matter what happens, I promise to take all the blame.”

  It wasn’t as difficult as I imagined, convincing her to break the rules, and all I had to do was tell the truth. Or twist my way around it.

  Convinced he was mine. But he never was. He belonged to no one but himself.

  Do you know where he is right now?” Sophia whispers, looking over her shoulder every other second like she’s expecting to be caught.

  “No.”

  “How are we going to get in?” I can practically hear her heart pounding out of her chest.

  “Through the back doors.”

  She wrings her hands while chewing her lip. “Is Mr. Walters awake?”

  I guess everyone knows that the guys’ dorm monitor sleeps during the day, oblivious to just how much trouble teen boys can get into when the sun’s out.

  “I don’t know.”

  Her breath comes in wheezes.

  “Sophia, you don’t have to do this. You can wait for me in our dorm’s yard, and I’ll return the key card when I’m done.”

  “I want to help,” she answers feebly.

  Just before I cross the wooden bridge that leads to the guys’ dorm, I turn to face her. “Try to relax. I won’t let anything happen to you. Okay?”

  She nods and gulps visibly. Her eyes are huge. I look into them, wondering if she really can handle this without having a panic attack. Last thing we need is for her to pass out in the middle of the stairwell.

  Sophia doesn’t blink, just stares back at me with a petrified expression, like she’s prepared to be the next victim of a slasher flick.

  I grip her shoulder. “We can do this. For Ashton.”

  “For Ashton,” she squeaks with a tight nod.

  We turn and march across the bridge and through the double doors like we’re taking over. At least I do. Figuring the bravado might give Sophia some confidence. But it doesn’t work. She cowers next to me, trying to hide in my shadow.

  A boy passes us in the foyer. He walks blindly toward the Court, wearing headphones, his attention absorbed by a game on his phone. Not sure how he has access to the gaming site. But I’m grateful his obsession keeps him ignorant of our presence.

  We fly up the stairs as quickly as we can, the navy-blue carpet absorbing our footfalls. A door shuts on a floor below us, but we keep moving without hesitating. Sophia is breathing heavily when we reach the fifth floor. My breath is even. Thank you, Mack, for torturing me; evidently, it’s paying off. Although I doubt he meant to train me to be a stealthy thief. Or whatever it is we’re doing. Still hate running—that’s not about to change.

  When we reach Brendan’s door, I step aside, so Sophia can swipe the card. She looks up at me, silently asking if we’re really doing this. I nod. He could be in his room right now. We have no idea.

  So as soon as the bee
p alerts us that the door’s unlocked, I strut in as if I belong there … just in case. That’s the only way to enter if he is here, like I’m looking for him. He’s done it to me a million times. Except the room is empty.

  I let out a tense breath.

  Sophia leans against the closed door, sagging like her legs are about to give out from under her.

  “You okay?” I ask her. “It’s not too late to change your mind and wait for me outside.”

  She shakes her head, unable to speak. Sophia may be at Blackwood because she popped a few too many pills, but she’s not a natural rule-breaker. Her neurosis probably makes going against the establishment feel like the ultimate betrayal. I hope I’m not doing more damage by asking her to participate in this break-in.

  “They won’t know it’s you,” I remind her again that I’m willing to go down for this if we’re discovered.

  She nods blankly.

  I inspect the bookcase with the rolltop desk and begin pulling books from the shelves, flipping through pages in hopes that something will fall out.

  “What should I do?” Sophia whispers.

  “Search the unlocked drawers. Look for anything … weird.”

  I don’t know what I’m hoping to find exactly. But I’m convinced I’ll recognize it when I see it.

  “Speaking of weird,” I murmur, sliding out a book of love poems by Rumi. There’s no way Brendan is the romantic type. As soon as I open it, I know … he’s not.

  The inside of the book has been hollowed out, and instead of pages, it houses pictures. I flip through them. Most of them are of his mother, as a teenager and in her twenties. There’s a small stack of the two of them together. Brendan as a baby, a toddler and … older. Much older than four, when he claims to have lost her to suicide. He appears to be twelve or thirteen in one of them.

  Is she still alive?

  The thought that he would lie about her death disturbs me more than any lie he could possibly tell. There has to be a reason … right?

  I freeze when I come across a picture of his mother, her light-brown hair laying softly on her shoulders, holding a young Brendan, around five or six, with his fine blinding-white hair floating around his small head. And next to them, as if posing for a family photo, is Kaden—Niall’s brother. The man my mother was madly in love with. The man who could be my father.

  I look between him and Brendan, searching for a resemblance. Kaden has medium-blond hair, sun-streaked with pale blond highlights. His skin is golden, and the creases around his eyes make him look like he’s spent most of his time outdoors. His smile is bright. He genuinely looks happy.

  They all do.

  Other than the hair, the resemblance isn’t obvious. Brendan’s face is shaped like his mother’s. And I can’t tell what color Kaden’s eyes are, but they’re not brown. They look more hazel-blue or even grey.

  Could he be Brendan’s father? My father? Maybe … but there’s no way he’s Vic’s. Unless …

  Joey can’t be the third sibling. My stomach roils at the thought.

  Brendan’s words echo in my head. “It’s obvious you’re a Harrison.”

  He’s right. And so is Kaden.

  I shiver.

  I stuff the picture in my back pocket and try to force my gnarled family tree out of my head.

  “We should go,” I tell Sophia, my voice a rasp.

  She’s flipping through a folder of photos, her eyes wide with shock. “How did he get these?”

  I come up beside her to examine the images. They’re black-and-white stills from security footage. Pictures of Ashton talking to a guy in a lobby, at lunch with Sophia, and in the birch forest, vaping. There are other images of Lance, a ton of me, and a couple of Sophia. And oddly … one of Mr. Garner talking with Parker.

  “What?” I take the photo from the file folder to inspect it.

  How does Parker even know Mr. Garner? Other than both being from Oaklawn … they lead polar opposite lives.

  In the image, they’re somewhere dark. It looks like a stairwell. The still is grainy and hard to decipher. Mr. Garner isn’t wearing his glasses. He looks normal, like a regular twenty-something guy out with friends. Except he’s pissed. I know those hand gestures and frown better than anyone.

  I direct my attention to Sophia when she begins wheezing. The color has drained from her face. “You okay?”

  “He knows.” Her eyes dart around frantically, like he’s recording us right now. Which he may be.

  “Knows what?”

  “How does he have these? He doesn’t have a key to the administration building. He couldn’t get them from the monitors in Dr. Kendall’s office.”

  “He has his own,” I tell her regretfully.

  I scan the corners of the room for cameras with a shiver. Brendan has pushed some disturbing boundaries on his mission to learn the truth.

  “Put these back where you found them.” I give her the picture of Parker and Mr. Garner.

  Examining the bookcase, I search for the section that opened for Brendan and push against it. Nothing. I try a different spot and feel the shelves give with an audible click. When I release it, the section pops out, and I pull it open the rest of the way.

  Sophia gasps. “How did you know this was here?”

  “He showed me once,” I tell her as I enter the dark, cramped space within the wall. My hands skate over the rough boards, getting tangled in cobwebs, until I find the string of lights and click them on. Miniature lightbulbs illuminate the ladder.

  My stomach twists from the nerves warring inside. I’ve always been suspicious of Brendan, sensed he wasn’t being honest. Most of the time, I’m only half-serious about him being a stalker, but to actually find proof makes every inch of me feel exposed, like I want to peel off my flesh and scrub it.

  With a flip of a light switch, the attic space fills with the hum of monitors coming to life, and another feeling takes over. Anger.

  This time, all the monitors light up. At first glance, they appear to be live feeds of campus—and not just the perimeter. I watch several students in the dining hall, eating dinner. A large monitor is cut into quadrants, flashing through different aerial views of the Court, positioned to capture every garden and passage. There are screens showing inside the library, including the hallway where the study rooms are located on the basement level. He can spy on the entire campus from here. I search for one inside the girls’ dorm but don’t find it.

  When I notice a computer screen tucked behind the others on the main desk, I collapse onto the rolling chair. My fingers brush the glowing screen where a girl is lying in a hospital bed, a tube down her throat, an IV in her arm and various wires attached to her body. She’s still. Almost peaceful-looking. A woman sits in a recliner next to her with a book on her lap and one hand holding the girl’s.

  “Allie,” I rasp, blinking back tears.

  The sound of Sophia tapping on a keyboard snaps me out of my sorrow. She’s typing like crazy on a laptop set on the corner of the desk. She’s hyperfocused on the blur of symbols threading down the screen. The letters look like an alien language. Or code—basically the same thing.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to figure out how he’s gained access to the security feed. What network the other cameras are connected to. I’ve never seen them before,” she explains, fixated on the screen, the string of code reflecting in her unblinking eyes.

  I inspect Sophia’s calm face, completely zoned in. It’s like I’m seeing her for the first time, aware of how much I don’t know about her. What she’s capable of. And how well she knows this school, like … where the cameras are located and how to access them.

  Something rattles in a drawer. I open it to find a phone, the screen lit with an incoming text.

  The bubble on the lock screen reads: How is she? The sender is coded as P.

  I tap on the bubble, but it asks for a password. I set the phone back in the drawer and stare at it like it might bite me.

 
“Are there any files on that laptop?” I ask, shutting the drawer.

  “Huh?” Sophia’s eyes remain glued to the screen while her fingers fly across the keyboard. They suddenly stop. “Bastard.”

  “Can you look for files? Videos on me or a girl named Allie?” I request a little louder to get her attention.

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” She types and clicks on a few things. “There’s files on all of us, even … me. What the …” She clears her throat. “Which one do you want to look at first? They’re protected, but I should be able to open them.”

  I point to the first file in the top-left corner. “Allison Pixley.” A fire blazes under my skin when I see the endless rows of file icons that fill the screen. Each with a different name. “Holy shit.”

  After what feels like an eternity of Sophia muttering under her breath while her fingers move in a blur, as if on their own, she declares, “Got it.”

  She slides the laptop over, so I can view the folder’s contents. At a glance, it appears to be a police report, hospital records and … a video.

  “Play the video for me.” I prepare myself, but I’m not truly ready for any of this.

  Sophia expands the video, so it fills the entire screen. It’s a still image of a stairwell. The camera is positioned in a corner, angled to focus on the stairs and a door with Exit above it. She presses play before I can change my mind. Or ask her not to watch.

  The door opens, and I step through. The image is grainy, but it’s evident I’m annoyed. I turn back toward the door to open it again. Before I can, a guy in a leather jacket grabs me from behind. His face isn’t visible, but the hideous tattoo of a dragon on his shaved head makes him easily identifiable. He proceeds to shove me against the wall, my head colliding with the concrete. I can almost feel the pain, just watching it.

  “Is that … you?” Sophia asks in shock.

  I don’t respond.

  I should shut it off. But I can’t.