The Lies That Bind

by Lisa Roecker

  The heavy wood door to the Sisterhood’s old headquarters was wide open. No key, no secret pass code to protect the nerve center of the society. Taylor stood in the opening looking like she was going to cry. All of their work protecting the secrets buried beneath Pemberly Brown, and the boys were too lazy to even install new locks.

  I was shocked no one had made the breach up until this point. But then I remembered Maddie expertly punching numbers into a new keypad the night of her humiliation. Sure, the Brotherhood had altered the access points when they took control, but apparently they didn’t monitor much else. I couldn’t imagine how angry Taylor must feel. After months of being locked out of the tunnels, access to the headquarters was right beneath her perfectly manicured fingertips.

  Taylor reached to the wall and flipped the light, illuminating the source of my posttraumatic stress disorder.

  “What the…” The words escaped in one breath as she took a huge step back, knocking into me. The headquarters had looked like a professionally designed family room, but now it was completely empty. No flat-screen TV. No antique leather sofas. No shelves lined with books, and no information dating back hundreds of years. Most importantly, no files holding Pemberly Brown’s most sought-after secrets. The Sisterhood knew everything from what questions would appear on this year’s SAT to which teacher had had an affair with our vile headmaster.

  “Is this a joke?” Taylor grabbed Ben’s shoulders roughly, her face so close she could kiss him. The room was entirely empty. Every file drawer hung open. Empty.

  “Um…no?” Ben stuttered, which wasn’t going to end well. “We moved.”

  “Worthless!” Taylor screamed, slamming an empty file drawer closed. Seth gave Liam a knowing look and approached her as she hung over the drawer. But before he even laid a finger on her, she whipped around, ignoring him completely and zeroing in on Ben again. “Where is it? Where is all of our stuff?”

  Ben’s glassy eyes trailed upward toward the ceiling. One by one, we all did the same.

  The Sisterhood buried their secrets underground. But unsurprisingly the Brotherhood had loftier ambitions. Apparently they’d decided to take everything to the top.

  “Why is everyone looking up? There is absolutely no way you guys could have moved everything. That is absolutely ridiculous.” Taylor pronounced each word with careful, cutting restraint.

  “Actually, they built a new headquarters. On top of the school. And now that they have these new secret passageways built behind the walls, they don’t really use the tunnels anymore.” Ben was rambling. “Headmaster Sinclair has had crews working late at night, weekends, holidays, whenever he can get them here without anyone noticing. All those new rules to keep students off campus are really just a way to cover all this up. Cool, right?” Clearly he was one of those people who felt it necessary to fill dead silences. His orange face lit up when he talked about the Brotherhood’s latest endeavor.

  Taylor just stood there watching him, letting him hang himself with his words. She would make a great investigative reporter someday.

  When he finally stopped detailing the state-of-the-art security and the way they’d nested the new headquarters in between the four gables of the main building’s roof, he looked at all of us. “I’m sorry, really.”

  Taylor turned and started walking toward the nearest exit. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Where is the best place for us to access the new headquarters?”

  Ben looked like he was going to choke. He gasped a little and started coughing. His face turned red and his hands clutched at his throat. Actually, scratch that. Ben didn’t look like he was going to choke. Ben was actually choking. The first thing I thought of was Seth’s stupid peanuts.

  Taylor just stood there watching him, her gaze never wavering. Clearly, she had no intention of helping.

  Seth came barreling out from the empty room and embraced Ben from behind.

  “Hang in there, buddy. I know the Heimlich. I am CPR certified after that babysitting…er…lifeguarding class my mom made me take.” Seth folded his hands together under Ben’s six-pack abs, which we’d all seen much more of than we cared to, and jerked him upward.

  Something flew out of Ben’s mouth and landed on the floor near Liam’s feet. He leaned down to examine the object that had almost taken Ben’s life. “Invisalign retainer. A cautionary tale for us all,” he said, moving it lightly with his foot.

  Ben coughed and sputtered, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” Taylor was already halfway down the hall. “Once I get in, I will find Bethany or at least figure out where they have her. If we can get her out tonight…”

  “I can’t.” Ben’s words still sounded like a cough. “I’m not a real member yet. You don’t get to go into the headquarters until you’re initiated.” Ben’s voice cracked, and I would have bet Grace’s pearls that he was dangerously close to wetting himself. Not that I blamed him. Taylor was ten kinds of scary when she was pissed off, and I’d never in my life seen her this angry.

  She took a step forward as Ben took a giant step back. “You are wasting my time.” Taylor had literally backed him into a corner and he was shaking. It was kind of like watching a snake get ready to eat a baby rabbit. I had to step in.

  “Look, he was just trying to help, Taylor. We ambushed him. He’s not even thinking straight.”

  But Ben was shaking his head. “There is something…something you should see.” His voice was raspy from choking, and watching him cower in the corner like some kind of kicked animal brought the words “man up” to mind.

  “Well, what are you waiting for?” I inserted myself between Taylor and Ben and yanked him back toward the exit near Farrow’s Arches where we’d entered.

  “Wrong way,” he rasped and started off in a different direction.

  The tunnels down this way were damper and felt older than the rest of the system. I felt something brush past my boot and let out a little squeal.

  “Do not tell me you are afraid of rats.” Taylor laughed behind me.

  My throat started to close up. “That was a rat?”

  “Of course it was a rat. They love the tunnels. Some of the girls used to feed them. Like cats.”

  My stomach heaved, but I forced myself to keep walking. Liam pulled me a little bit closer. “You can’t be afraid of rats, Kate. You’re way bigger than they are.”

  “You know what else is smaller than me? Bombs.”

  Liam snorted and Taylor sighed disdainfully at what I’m assuming was yet another demonstration of our complete lack of maturity.

  The tunnels grew darker and colder the farther we walked. I pulled my jacket up under my chin.

  “We’re under the cemetery now.” Seth gestured up. “Bet that’s why you’re cold.”

  My heart began beating faster in my chest. I thought about the catacombs lined with bones we’d learned about in French class. Coffins were buried beneath our feet; people were rotting away around us. Or maybe we were so far underground that they were actually above us. Just as I began imagining bones raining down on top of us, Ben gestured toward a stone staircase to our right and motioned that we should follow him up.

  I heard the low moaning of chanting coming from the top of the staircase.

  “It’s the heart of Brown.” He gestured at the door. The heart of Brown was one of the oldest buildings on campus. It had been part of Brown’s original campus before the boys joined with the girls, but it was too far away and too old to be used anymore. So the Brotherhood had claimed it for their own.

  “Please be quiet.” Ben’s watery eyes looked desperate. “I know you guys don’t care if I get my ass kicked or not, but I’m trying to help you, and I can’t help you with Alistair Reynolds’s fist in my throat.” I let out a little snort and Ben smiled at me gratefully. “Besides, you’re not going to want to miss this. It’s important.”

  We all huddled behind Ben as he cracked open one of the doors. I was worri
ed they would hear us or see us, but the chanting was so loud and the room was so dark that we might as well have been invisible. The names of all the members of the Brotherhood shone on the wall like stars, and about twenty feet from where five heads peered out of a trapdoor built into the floor stood the Brotherhood.

  Their togas were so bright in the black light that they appeared more purple than anything else. They moved in a circle, chanting.

  “Imperator. Conventus. Imperator. Conventus. Imperator.”

  Emperor. Unity. The Brotherhood had a new leader. The circle widened and a spotlight lit the face of the person sitting in the center on an elaborate throne. His teeth gleamed white and sharp in the strange light, and I felt a quick stab in my stomach. A stab that felt dangerously close to lust. Or maybe hate. I couldn’t be sure which.

  Bradley Farrow.

  Chapter 27

  Walking into school the next day, I realized it probably would have been more efficient to just sleep in one of the classrooms. The chants of the Brotherhood still echoed in my ears. Watching Bradley take the reins of the Brotherhood had created more questions than it answered. Was Alistair telling the truth? If he had nothing to do with Bethany’s disappearance, maybe we needed to be talking to Bradley.

  Either way, we were all exhausted, confused, and, with each passing hour, more freaked out. Every time I passed a boy in the halls I felt his eyes on me and wondered—is he a Brother? Did he send me the text of Bethany? Am I next?

  When I saw Seth rushing down the hall toward me between classes, I was so excited to see a friendly face that I barely noticed the thick booklet of printed pages he had clasped in a death-like grip to his bony chest. But I should have seen the collision coming. Any time Seth so much as speed-walked, he either tripped or ran into something or someone. It was like he was walking on Bambi legs.

  This time Seth looked left and a varsity football player veered in from the right after doing one of those shoulder-jerk fake-out moves meatheads are so fond of. Seth immediately tucked himself into the fetal position with the mysterious pages tucked beneath his chin. Jock Strap lifted his leg like he was either going to kick Seth while he was down or pee on him like a dog, but before he could make his move I slid between them.

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re not supposed to hit girls?”

  “He’s not a girl,” Jock Strap growled.

  “Wow, athletic and quick on the uptake. You must be a real catch.” I gave him my sweetest smile.

  “Yeah, right.” Jock Strap laughed and then abruptly stopped laughing after he realized what he’d said. “I mean, the ladies love me and I’m smart and…God, Lowry, you’re such a…a…” He turned and walked away.

  “Well played, Jacques…Strap.” I whispered the last word so only Seth could hear it.

  “His name is Jeremy, Kate.” Seth rasped from his tiny-man cocoon before sitting up and handing me the papers. “It’s all here.” His breath smelled faintly of sour-cream-and-onion potato chips. It was 9:54 a.m.

  After we witnessed Bradley’s little crowning ceremony last night, Seth had promised to approach his online buddy ConspiracyLuvR to determine exactly what was going down within the Brotherhood. Judging from the weight of the pages, Seth had gotten a ton of information, and I could have kissed him, sour-cream-and-onion breath and all. As hard a time as I gave Seth for trolling conspiracy blogs, facilitating chats, and theorizing with creepers who had screen names like AgntDbleOHvn and SkrtPlotMan, at moments like this I understood how lucky I was to have him.

  Let’s be honest, those geeks weren’t about to give up their inside information to just anyone (especially a girl with bright blue hair), and because of Seth, we were all one step closer to finding Bethany before it was too late. I flashed him my first genuine smile of the day and tucked the pages into my bag.

  “Thank you, Seth. Seriously. What would I do without you?”

  He blushed, as usual, and nodded toward the clock, which offered us about one more minute before third period. “No biggie. You really should thank Mar…er…ConspiracyLuvR. I swear he was a member of the Brotherhood during his glory days.”

  I raised one eyebrow. Hard to believe anyone who maintained an online identity as ConspiracyLuvR had ever experienced “glory days,” but I didn’t have time to argue. McAdams was a stickler for the bell, so I’d have to run if I wanted to make it to class on time, and I hated running.

  In addition to monitoring detention, McAdams was one of those old-school teachers who “taught” using transparencies of lecture notes created in the mid-’70s, showed occasional film strips (I’m not kidding) of war documentaries, and forced us to answer every question at the end of each textbook chapter, including the dreaded “Take It to the Field!” ones that required us to interview grandparents about the Great Depression or keep a journal from the perspective of a Native American.

  The only thing that made him semi-popular was the fact that he hadn’t updated his exams since his first year of teaching, which, judging from his sagging jowls, was sometime immediately following the Revolutionary War. So everyone knew exactly what was going to be on his tests before he gave them. The downside was that he always reported tardies to the office and timed all trips to the bathroom.

  Sadly, it took me more than three minutes to pee (excuse me for actually washing my hands), and I’d already been given five demerits for being late to his class, so McAdams and I weren’t going to be splitting a best-friend necklace anytime soon.

  A fresh transparency of notes was already being projected and the bell was ringing as I slipped into my seat. The bulk of the class was already hunched over notebooks copying like mad, but I couldn’t remember the date for the life of me and could barely read the words. Seth’s notes were calling to me from the pocket of my bag. No matter how riveting the fifteen bullet points beneath “The Two Big Powers and Their Cold War” were, today it just wasn’t happening.

  I raised my hand. “Mr. McAdams?” He lowered the newspaper he was reading and scowled at me. My hair never went over well with the sixty-and-over set. “Can I use the bathroom?” I pulled the strap of my bag over my shoulder and patted it for good measure, implying that this was the time of the month a girl would need to bring a bag to the bathroom.

  “Ms. Lowry, I am confident that you can use the restroom,” he said, raising the paper again, the lumbar support of his computer chair squeaking beneath his weight.

  I rolled my eyes. I hated when teachers made a big show out of “can” and “may.” It was such a waste of time.

  “Oh…er…may I go to the bathroom?” I adjusted the bag again in case he hadn’t seen it. I thought about flashing him a tampon but figured that might be overkill.

  Heavy sigh. “Three minutes. And take the pass.”

  McAdams was famous for his hall pass. It was a stuffed gray squirrel. Not a stuffed animal, but an actual live squirrel that had died and was subsequently stuffed. To call it disgusting was the understatement of the year. The thing’s fur was matted and greasy at the same time, and its beady glass eyes always seemed to be begging me to set it free.

  I gingerly picked up the squirrel between the tips of my two fingers, trying to make as little finger-to-squirrel contact as humanly possible. As soon as I set foot in the hallway, I tucked little Nutty (that’s what I liked to call him) under my arm and booked it down the hall in an effort to both maximize my three minutes and put an end to my relationship with the scuzzy, STD-infested rodent.

  I’d barely locked the stall door before whipping out Seth’s pages.

  ConspiracyLuvR: Hi.

  SethaSaurus: Hi.

  Oh my God, it was like a bad first date. I scanned down to where the conversation picked up a little and Seth asked questions other than “How are you?”

  ConspiracyLuvR: Sources indicate that the Brotherhood was first modeled off of the Republic of Rome.

  Okay, based upon our viewing of their little toga party last night, this was not new information.

  Consp
iracyLuvR: In the beginning, there was no set leadership, granting all members equal power. But back in the ’70s, the society was gaining little traction while the Sisterhood maintained absolute political control over the school and much of the surrounding community.

  Apparently the Sisterhood had some glory days of its own. I wondered what it had been like for them sneaking around below the school without any concerns of the Brotherhood invading their territory.

  ConspiracyLuvR: They needed leaders. As a result, three of the bigwigs decided to form a triumvirate and things slowly began to turn around. Many of the original leaders went off to serve in Congress and one made it all the way to the Oval Office.

  I let the notes rest in my lap as I recalled the previous night, the Brothers circling their new emperor, chanting, honoring. Bradley was obviously selected as the Brotherhood’s new leader. They had spoken about coming together, Conventus, joining as one. Apparently the Brotherhood was doing a bit of in-house restructuring. Perhaps that was why he ruled alone. Who needed three douche bags when you had one Bradley Farrow?

  But I couldn’t help but wonder how the other Brothers felt about Bradley assuming absolute power. I wondered if potential Brotherhood turmoil might in some way be connected to Bethany’s disappearance. It seemed too big a coincidence for the two not to be connected.

  The remaining notes from ConspiracyLuvR theorized about the new headquarters after Seth requested information about access to their rooftop lair. Nada. Apparently we were on our own if we wanted to get up close and personal. And we needed to get all up in their business if we were going to find Bethany.

  Speaking of getting all up in business, my three minutes had come and gone.

  When I slunk back into my desk, page three of the class notes was being projected and my last exam sat face up on my desk, a huge, red 63 percent scarlet letter mocking me at the top. Apparently having the old test only helped if you actually took the time to study it. Crap.