“Yeah,” I said. “I figure that the admission ticket is pricey enough to warrant spending the whole day here and getting my money’s worth.”
“I agree,” the girl said. She looked like she was maybe eighteen, and this was probably her part-time job during her senior year of high school. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“The seahorse exhibit is my absolute favorite,” she smiled. “It’s right next to the coat check on the first floor.”
The coat check. Of course.
With as many fancy events that they hosted here at the aquarium, I wondered if there was any shot at there being more than coats in there.
“Cool, thanks, I’ll check it out,” I said casually. “Hey, I was thinking of having my engagement party here in the spring and was wondering if there was a place to store my cocktail dress until the end of the evening. I just don’t want to keep it on the whole night once the dancing starts, but it’s kind of pricey, so I don’t really feel comfortable leaving it in the car either.”
“Oh yeah, sure,” she smiled. “They can hold that for you right there in the coat check too. People do it all the time. It actually never ceases to amaze me how many people forget to pick up their stuff after an event ends. You’d be surprised how many people never come back to get their fancy dresses and coats. If only I could be rich enough someday to not care if I left a thousand dollar dress behind.” She laughed, and I pretended to laugh with her. I gathered up my snacks and thanked her.
“Oh, and congratulations,” she said.
“For what?”
“On your engagement.”
Ugh, I’m horrible at all this sneaking around.
“Thanks,” I said as I walked away.
Bingo. That was the answer to my wardrobe problem for the charity event. When the aquarium closed tonight, I would go down to the coat check and find a dress to wear.
I wandered around the aquarium for the rest of the afternoon. There wasn’t really much else for me to do. As the day progressed, it became more crowded, and it was easy for me to blend in with the crowd, not that anyone would think to look for me here anyway, but just in case. I took the advice of the check-out girl and visited the seahorse exhibit. She was right. It was super cool. It was kind of relaxing to watch the seahorses float around on the water, and it made me forget for a moment about everything else.
When it started to near closing time, I made a quick trip to the restroom and then went back up to the rooftop. It was actually a pretty amazing place here, and I was surprised at how easy it was to sneak around and hide out after closing hours. I made a mental note of another thing that I would do if I happened to survive past Friday; write the aquarium and suggest that they beef-up their security and install a few cameras.
I wadded up a piece of plastic wrapper from one of the snacks I had bought and jammed it into the inside of the lock on the stairwell door, hoping that it would be enough to keep the door from locking completely when they went to secure it for the night. Then I went back inside the greenhouse and waited. After an hour or so, someone came to do a quick sweeping glance of the roof and then closed and locked the door.
I stayed put for a while longer, just to be sure that the straggler employees had left. I checked my phone, which was still holding out with battery charge surprisingly, and then went to check the door. My trick had worked, and the door was easy enough to open after a bit of rattling with the handle.
The aquarium was stunning at night since all of the lights except for the emergency lighting was shut off. The tanks were dimly light, and some of the sea creatures seemed to have a sort of bioluminescence that glowed in the most brilliant colors. I couldn’t help but stop and watch them for a while. It made me a little sad to think of all these animals being trapped here behind glass for people to stare at. I sometimes felt like I could relate to that.
Julian had been right about getting away from Charleston, and in hindsight, I maybe should have listened to him. It would be nice to think about going somewhere else. But who would I take with me, him? I could take Adam. I enjoyed his presence and how safe he made me feel. Would I end up with Michael, though? Even if I went with Adam? I hadn’t had a chance to stop and think about what had happened with each of them. I hadn’t had a chance to think about really anything at all, aside from trying to stay alive over the past few hours.
It was probably a waste of time anyway. Surviving the charity event after exposing what was happening on live camera was likely not going to happen. They would kill me on the spot, but at least the truth would get out. At least my mother’s death wouldn’t be forgotten as some melancholy suicide instead of the murder that it actually was. Her death would bring down the entirety of a corrupt institution, and for that, I knew she would be proud of me.
Still, I couldn’t help but think about what I would do if the story were to end differently and who I would choose to be with if I could hope to be with one of the guys after this. Anytime I started to think about them, any of them; I was warm and happy and pained, all at the same time. I didn’t want to be without any of them. Julian and I had a history that I would never have with anyone else. We knew each other better than we knew ourselves at times. And ever since that night in my dorm room, I had imagined what it would be like to be with him in the intimate way we had both been thinking about for years.
Adam, on the other hand, was like those bad-boy heartthrobs that you read about in fiction books. He was mysterious and gorgeous enough to make me lose my breath every time I saw him with his shirt off with that sprawling tattoo over his ripped chest, but he was also the only one who seemed to want me so much that he was willing to wait for me, even if I had hurt him by sleeping with someone else.
And then there was Michael.
I couldn’t put that explanation into words at all, not even in my own head. But it was impossible for me to ignore the way I felt about him. Despite all the reasons I should have hated him, I didn’t. Michael was the one thing that made me afraid to go through with what I was about to do because the thought of how much I wanted to be with him again tortured me. The thought of it never happening made me feel like I would rather die.
I brushed away the tear that had silently started to roll over my cheek and refocused my thoughts toward going to the coat check room. When I got there, I flipped the light on and was amazed by how big the room was and how full to the brim of clothes and other random belongings it was. The girl at the food place was right; it was a virtual costuming room. I pushed hangars around and looked through several racks of clothes.
There were more than enough fancy dresses to choose from. I found a green one in my size that was small and tight and sparkled like a princess-cut emerald. There was even a mirror in the coat check room for me to have my own private little fashion show. The dress was stunning, and I would have loved to have worn it. But I wasn’t looking to be the center of attention at the charity event; I wanted to blend in. I took off the green dress and hung it back up on the rack, and I kept looking. When I found a deep garnet silk sheath dress, I knew it would be perfect. Simple, sophisticated, and nothing glittery that would catch someone’s eye.
It fit perfectly too, and I was thankful to be the size that I could pull most dresses off the rack and be able to walk out wearing them. I folded the dress over my arm, dug around some more until I found a pair of shoes (seriously, how do you forget shoes at a coat check?), and grabbed a few thick-looking coats to use to sleep on.
Then, I made my way back through the stairwell and up to the roof.
It was cold, so I wrapped one of the coats around the outside of my hoodie. I didn’t want to go back into the greenhouse yet. I wanted to stay outside in the biting air and try not to think about things too much. I looked out over the city and realized how insignificant a place Charleston was in the scope of the entire world.
What was going on here probably didn’t matter to almost anyone, but it mattered to me.
I looked
in the direction of Goldshire and thought about the guys who were likely fretting over me in Julian’s apartment. I had told them in my note to leave, but I knew that they wouldn’t do it. Michael and Adam would probably be allowed back into Lineage with a strict warning. Hopefully, Marta wouldn’t be too hard on them. And Julian? Well, he could eventually leave altogether.
I hoped for their sake they did, too. Because if there was one thing I knew, it was this:
Even if it cost me my own life, I’d figure out what was really going on. I’d figure out what the hell really happened to my mother.
And after I did—if they hadn’t already killed me—I’d kill them myself.
20
The next evening was the private party, which lasted until after hours. I needed a new place to hide out until everything was over, and then I could sneak back up to the roof. I had already familiarized myself with the coat check room. It seemed like the most obvious choice.
I waited until the employee hung the “Be Right Back” sign to use the restroom and then slid inside and hid behind a particularly full rack of coats. I had wrapped the dress inside one of the jackets so that it wouldn’t get dirty and hid it inside a large potted plant inside the greenhouse.
I didn’t even know if anyone would go inside the greenhouse during the party but wasn’t going to take the chance of having to find something else to wear all over again. I waited until the last of the staff had cleaned up and left for the night and then headed back up the stairs. There was only one day left to go. The charity event was tomorrow night, and then this would all be over one way or another. I knew that I should probably get rest tonight, but there was no way that was going to happen. Not with feeling like someone had set my nerves on fire.
When I got to the rooftop, I noticed that someone had pulled the piece of plastic wrap out of the lock. It didn’t matter. It was almost the end. I walked straight over to the railing and stared out at the city for one more night, pulling my hoodie around me and thinking about the terrifying, exhilarating night that Michael dangled me here over the city.
“Nice view, huh?” a voice called from behind me.
“Adam!” I whirled around to see him sitting on the ground next to the greenhouse. He looked different, not in his usual clothes but in a wait staff outfit instead.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in shock.
He can’t try to stop me now. I’m too close.
“I knew you’d be here,” he said as he stood up and walked toward me.
I tilted my head. “How?”
“Because we think a lot alike,” he said with a smirk. “If it were me and I wanted to hide somewhere that no one would think to look, and that would also put me right in the exact spot where I needed to be. I’d come here.”
I shook my head. “How did you stay up here during that party without anyone seeing you?”
Adam lifted his eyebrow at me. “Come on, you’ve seen me get on and off Goldshire campus with ease. This is my kind of game,” he chuckled. “Also, it helps when you’re able to snatch a uniform.” He pulled at the collar of his white dress shirt. He had walked straight in, pretending to be a server, and then just ducked out of sight while they were packing things up after the party…smart.
“Did you tell the others I was here?” I asked.
“No. Not yet, anyway.”
“You can’t tell them,” I pleaded. “You know I need to do this on my own.”
Adam didn’t say anything. He just took my hand and sat down with me on the roof.
“Do you even know what you’re going to do tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I have a dress hidden in the greenhouse, and my phone is in my pocket. I’m going to sneak into the event with live camera rolling, and I’m going expose everything they say along with whoever their secret new Headmaster is. It’ll go viral, and they’ll all go to jail.”
“And if somehow you miraculously manage to do all that without getting killed in the process, are you going to be satisfied that you’ve avenged your mother then?”
“Of course, I will be. I’m surprised you even need to ask that.”
“No, you’re not,” he said. He paused and squeezed my hand. “I get you, Lisette, in a way that the other two guys sometimes don’t. Getting those people put behind bars isn’t going to be enough. You and I both know that. They’re filthy rich. How long do you think it’ll take before they buy their way out of prison and right back into their seats of power?”
He was right. I hadn’t really given that much thought, but in the back of my mind, I think I had already known that.
“Then what are you suggesting I do?” I asked. “Kill them?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
I laughed. “You can’t be serious. You guys didn’t even think I was capable of fighting off a few Lineage goons alongside you at Julian’s apartment, and now you suddenly think I can assassinate a room full of people?”
He snickered. “Not a room full, just one: the Headmaster.”
I looked at him, thinking he would start to bust out laughing at the joke he was making, but he wasn’t joking. He was dead serious.
“I don’t know who this guy is,” Adam said. “I tried to get Michael to tell me, but he wouldn’t.”
The sound of Michael’s name caused a twinge of pain behind my ribcage.
“But,” Adam continued, “there’s something about the way Michael talks about him that makes me think it wouldn’t be impossible for you to get close enough to kill him. You kill this guy; the whole thing is going to crumble down around them. He’s been running the scene for years, and without him, the rest of them will scatter like roaches.”
I sighed. “But how would I even—”
Adam pulled a large steak knife out from out of his sleeve. “I stole this off one of the tables.”
He handed me the knife, and I took it from his hand with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Why are you helping me?” I asked. “Why aren’t you trying to find me and bring me back like I’m sure Julian and Michael would do?”
“I did find you,” he said.
However, as soon as the words came out of his mouth, the stairwell door swung open, and Michael and Julian stood in the doorway. I looked back over at Adam, who was wearing a mischievous smile as he dangled a set of aquarium keys in the air along with his cell phone that showed he had texted the guys where I was.
“Ugh,” I groaned.
“Sorry,” Adam said. “But you didn’t actually think we were going to let you do this alone, did you?”
Julian ran up to me and gave me a hug as I was getting to my feet.
“I’m sorry for being so mad at you,” he said. “I’m not mad at you anymore, I promise. We can work all of this out together once this is over. We can get out of here after tomorrow, even all of us if that’s what you want, and we’ll get away from here and then figure it all out.”
I could tell by how fast he was talking that I had scared him and that he felt like my leaving was his fault. It wasn’t. All of this was my fault, all of it since the very beginning when I didn’t go check on my mother in time to save her, has been my fault. I looked over Julian’s shoulder as he squeezed me so hard that my shoulders hurt, and saw Michael standing in the same spot at the doorway. I couldn’t read his expression, but from what I could tell, it was stoic and emotionless. He was mad, and I didn’t blame him. When Julian let go of me, I gave him a kiss on the cheek and apologized.
“None of this was your fault, Julian. I should have told you what happened. I should have been honest with you right away instead of being scared that I would lose you if I told you.”
“You’ll never lose me, Lisette. No matter what happens, we’re in this together always.”
I smiled and squeezed his arm. Then I let go and walked past him over toward Michael.
“Thank you,” I heard Julian say to Adam. “You’re a much cooler guy than I gave you credit for at first.”
I heard Adam laugh behind me as I walked away. It was good to see them getting along, even if it wasn’t going to matter anymore after tomorrow.
I stopped walking when I reached Michael. His hands were halfway tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, and he was looking up at me through half-lidded eyes. I expected outrage to come out of him at any moment.
“I’m sorry I left without saying goodbye,” I said as I braced for whatever awful thing he was going to say to me. “I know you were probably really mad when you saw that I had gone.”
He made a face as if I had said something devastating.
“You think I felt mad?” Michael said as he gently shook his head to the side.
Here it comes, I thought. At least the other two guys were here to keep him from trying to throw me off the rooftop again.
“I didn’t feel mad, Lisette. I felt like I had died.”
And in that moment, as I gazed into his eyes, I didn’t give any shits as to whether or not Julian and Adam could hear him. All I cared about was the selflessness behind his words. That tender look wafting behind his eyes.
And the way he said my name that made me feel as if I were an angel sent from heaven.
Yeah, an angel with a death wish.
21
The two of us stood there facing each other, and it felt like time was standing still. My eyes welled with tears, and I wanted to reach out and hold Michael, to have him hold me, and to forget about everything else. But there was something else in his eyes besides pain, there was anger and a sense of betrayal.
I knew that if I ran into his arms right now that he might forgive me. He might wrap his arms around me and tell me that everything would be okay and make me promise not to leave again. I knew that if I did that, I would never have the courage to go through with it tomorrow night. So instead, I pulled on every last bit of strength that I had and acted as though I was unaffected, even though I felt like it was killing me inside.
I sniffed one quick time to stop myself from getting ready to cry. “I’m sorry that you felt that way,” I said. “But none of you should have come here.”
Ruined: A Dark Bully Reverse Harem Romance (Beautiful Tyrants Book 1) Page 13