by Lisa Roecker
“We have five minutes to get back to Main,” I said, checking the time on my phone. “But I’ll meet you by the arches after school.”
Bradley tucked the files into his blazer and raised an eyebrow. “What? Oh yeah…the arches.”
His golden eyes were dull and blank again. It was almost like he didn’t see me, and I couldn’t blame him. In fact, I knew the feeling. I imagined all he could see was his best friend’s name, reduced to nothing but highlighted black letters on a piece of paper.
Chapter 15
I had to admit that there was a vague sense of disappointment when Bradley didn’t grab my hand after school. So much for the romance of the arches. I did, however, manage to get some type of bug stuck in my eye. I tried to tell myself that it had nothing at all to do with my furiously batting eyelashes. Surely that was just a natural, feminine response to the hotness that is Bradley Farrow.
“You have the address?”
“5067 Longacre Lane,” I said, trying to fish the bug out without smudging my mascara or causing permanent damage to my cornea.
Longacre Lane ran parallel to the main drive leading to PB and was still officially considered campus, so we walked through the gardens toward the road. Neat houses were tucked on the street, many inhabited by the families of teachers and administrators who worked at Pemberly Brown.
I didn’t want to think about what we’d actually do when we found the house. Sinclair was dangerous. He’d had a hand in covering up Grace’s death, snuffing out every piece of evidence to protect the school at all costs. And now that Ms. D. had demoted him to head of campus security, he’d stopped shaving and started wearing sweat suits to school. He looked like Forrest Gump after he ran across America, only with crazy eyes.
“I’ll ring the doorbell and distract Sinclair at the door, tell him I have to interview him for a project or something.” Bradley rubbed his eyes. “Go around back and see if you can enter through a back door or window. Take anything that looks interesting.”
Clearly, Bradley didn’t have any qualms about putting my personal safety at risk to further our little investigation. Liam would have flipped his shit if he was there to see me sneak around the back of the house to do Bradley’s dirty work. I tried really hard to convince myself that it was empowering, that Bradley and I were on the same page, both of us willing to sacrifice anything for justice. But mostly I just felt disposable. And a little scared. Breaking and entering into Sinclair’s house freaked me out.
I remembered reading an article in one of my mom’s boring home-decorating magazines that claimed a person’s home represented its owner’s inner psyche. If there was any truth to that BS, Sinclair’s house was the spitting image of his identity. It was smaller than the rest on the lane, sitting on a large corner lot, all smug and proud. But the grass was wild and the flowerbeds overgrown, and tall bushes covered most of the windows. It looked like a house that had given up, a house that didn’t have anything left to lose. It looked ominous.
I did my best to ignore my shaky legs and moved toward the back door, listening carefully for the ring of the doorbell, my cue.
Ding dong.
The back porch of the house was screened, and I held my breath when I tried the door.
Open. Open. God, Grace, whoever is listening, please let this door open.
Someone must have been listening, because the door slid quietly on its track and I slipped through like a whisper. The doorbell chimed a second time and my heart thundered in response to the sound, but I couldn’t hear footsteps approaching the door, couldn’t hear Sinclair’s voice or Bradley requesting a fake interview. Maybe he was out and we could both hunt for information.
But as I slid closer to the window, I noticed something red along the glass, a gross swipe of jelly or some sort of candy. Ew. I hoped I wouldn’t have to touch it as I crawled through the window.
“Ohhhhh.” I spun around at the moan, expecting Bradley behind me in the yard, but no one was there. The sound had come from inside. There was someone inside. There was someone close to the window.
More jelly on the floor. Why was there so much jelly on the floor? Where was the broken bottle? I stepped closer. And closer. And saw him. The pools of red on the floor weren’t jelly. Not jelly. Not jelly. Not jelly. I screamed as loud as my voice would let me.
Bradley sprinted to the backyard, the door slamming as he entered the back porch. His eyes were wide as he pressed his hands onto my shoulders asking if I was all right, surveying me from top to bottom.
“The window…”
Bradley pulled the screen free and opened the window farther, sticking his head in and gasping himself. “Oh my God.”
Sinclair was sprawled on the kitchen floor, surrounded by blood. My eyes blurred at the sight of him, either with tears or as some sort of automatic coping mechanism to protect me from further trauma. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t deal with another death.
But then I heard it again. The moan.
“Oh my God, Kate, he’s still alive! Call 911!”
Sinclair’s eyes bulged as we came closer and he shook his head, trying to move closer and closer to the door. His arms were completely covered in blood, and half of his face appeared severely disfigured. “Wooolf.” He said the word as I dialed 911 and tried to explain what we’d found.
Bradley gently pressed towels over Sinclair’s wounds and he moaned in response. “What happened?” he asked, searching the room.
“Wooolf,” was all Sinclair was able to say.
“Five minutes,” I said, placing the phone on the counter. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look down. And then I remembered why we’d come here, how we’d thought Sinclair was involved. Maybe he was as much a victim as anyone else. Five minutes. I rushed into the family room where a TV screen glowed, odd shadows cast along the walls and ceiling. Nothing but a broken lamp and some dirt knocked out of a planter. I searched the rest of the first floor and found nothing but tipped furniture, evidence of a break-in.
Distant sirens rang out. The second floor. I had to check the second floor. I ran toward the front of the house, toward the stairs that would lead me up. And there, perched in the middle of a step was a note on the same creamy card stock as Alistair’s message.
Part of an old yearbook page had been pasted to the card, bold words scripted in red over the faces of students.
Specta lupos. It’s your turn now. Anni 1964. Page 17.
Faciem Lupis. Wolf. “Face the wolves.” Save the Brothers. Year 1964. Page 17. This must have been what Sinclair had been mumbling about. I shoved the note under my uniform shirt just as the foyer was bathed in red and blue lights, and then I heard it. A sound so quiet, so menacing that I felt it in my bones instead of hearing it in my ears. The sirens began to wail, and for a moment, I thought I must have imagined it, but in the split second of silence, I heard it again. From the shadows. A low, menacing growl.
Chapter 16
Before my brain had even processed the fact that there was an actual wolf in Sinclair’s house, I saw a flash of gray and white fur leap from the steps. My arms flew over my face, and I braced myself for the impact of claws and teeth on the tender skin of my forearms. Can you die from a wolf attack if you aren’t a vampire? Based on Sinclair’s blood-stained kitchen floor, I thought yes.
A sharp yelp pierced the air, followed by the dull thump of a body.
“Kate! Are you okay?” Seth stood in the doorway, a stun gun pointed in the space above my head.
“There’s a wolf.” Clearly the shock of my near wolf attack had left me with a new superpower for stating obvious facts long after they were relevant. Awesome.
“We’ve been listening to police radio all night. I just knew something like this was going to happen. Glad I had my taser with me.”
I should have been hugging Seth or at the very least thanking him for saving my life, but the only
thing I really took away from his little explanation was the term “we.” Because “we” could only really mean one thing. Or one person specifically.
“Jesus, what the hell is going on in here?” Liam pushed Seth aside and only hesitated a second before pulling me to my feet and away from the stairs in one swift movement. He stared at me a second too long, taking in my new hair with sad eyes. His mouth opened to say something, but then closed again as though he’d abruptly remembered that we weren’t on good enough terms for him to make a sly comment on my new look. A wave of sadness washed over me when I realized I wanted him to.
“There was a wolf. But I saved her. It’s cool.” Seth’s face was bright red and he was practically bursting with pride.
Liam looked from the lump of wolf on the ground to me, and I nodded slowly. “He saved my life.” And it was like hearing the words out loud suddenly made them sink in. “You saved my life. Oh my God, Seth.” I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed so tight that I heard his spine crack.
He mumbled something that sounded like “I love you” but could have been “I saved you.” I chose to assume the latter.
“The police want to ask you some questions, Kate.” Bradley entered the foyer and must have caught sight of the unconscious wolf passed out at the bottom of the stairs. “Holy shit, is that the…”
“School mascot? Yeah, pretty sure it is. The markings all match up.” Seth held up a picture of Bondi on his phone that he’d pulled from Pemberly Brown’s website as though other random wolves roamed our town just waiting for the opportunity to attack unsuspecting ex-headmasters.
“What the hell? Why would Sinclair do this? I mean, I know he wasn’t exactly in a good place after everything that happened, but this is unreal.” Bradley shook his head.
“Right. Well, good luck figuring that out, but do you mind if we squeeze past you real quick? I’d like to get my girlfriend away from the passed-out predator if that’s cool.”
“I’m not…” I started.
“…Your girlfriend.” Bradley finished and held out his hand to me. I looked from Bradley’s outstretched hand to Liam’s face and stuffed my hands into my pockets. Bradley looked disappointed, and Liam looked triumphant. I did my best to ignore them both.
“Let’s just talk to the police. Tell them what’s going on…”
“No!” Bradley’s voice was sharp. “You know who’s in charge now, and believe me, they aren’t going to give a crap about some ex-Brotherhood members getting hurt.”
Unfortunately, Bradley had a point. Once the Brotherhood had gone under, they lost their foothold not only in our school, but in our entire town. I remembered the moment I’d shown a police detective all of the evidence I’d gathered about Grace’s death. I remembered begging him to reopen the case, to put a stop to the societies. But he’d done nothing except to make sure all of the proof I’d gathered was lost forever.
“Look, you guys do whatever you need to do, but I’m not leaving Kate’s side until she’s back home.” Liam looked at me, eyes cold. “I’ll call your parents if I have to.” His eyebrows flicked in challenge. He knew he had me with my parents. They would not be happy to hear that their daughter was in the middle of yet another crime scene.
“Whatever.” I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the smirk on Liam’s face. He’d won this round and he knew it.
“What the hell were you doing in there anyway?” Bradley hissed as we walked back to the family room where the police were waiting.
“Looking for information. And I found it too.” I pulled Bradley out the garage door and showed him the card.
“This is a blatant dare. Another freaking dare. What the hell?” Bradley narrowed his eyes at the new clue.
I shrugged my shoulders and took the card back. “Anni. 1964. Page 17. That’s got to refer to the PB Anni, right? The yearbook?”
“Yeah, whoever sent this must have something on Sinclair. That was the year he graduated.” Bradley shook his head.
The yearbook was a clue, and it was pretty much the only one we had at this point. “Listen, you have to take care of the police, okay?” I nodded back toward the house. “Give them a statement. Get them off our backs. Liam’s right. If my parents find out I’m here, I’ll be grounded until graduation.”
“But I already told them…” Bradley started.
“Well, untell them. You’re Bradley-freaking-Farrow.”
Bradley smiled a little at that.
“I’m going to go track down that yearbook.” I looked over my shoulder at Liam and Seth loitering in front of Sinclair’s open garage, doing their best to eavesdrop.
“But it will be archived. You won’t be able to get to it unless you know someone on staff.”
“Lucky for us, I’ve got connections.” I jerked my head toward Liam.
“Seriously?” Bradley’s mouth straightened into a thin line.
“Just manage things here. I’ll text you as soon as I find that yearbook page.” I squeezed Bradley’s hand and turned back toward Liam and Seth, my original knights in shining armor.
But Bradley didn’t let go. Instead, he spun me back around, pulling my body into his chest where I seemed to click into place. I lifted my chin in surprise, and before I could even consider how I’d landed in his arms, he kissed me. With Seth and Liam as two of the worst witnesses on the planet, Bradley Farrow’s warm lips were claiming my own. My hands were on his chest and I meant to push him away, really I did. But it took me a second too long. I guess maybe there was a part of me that still had a thing for him. The last remnants of first-year Kate who couldn’t quite let go of her fantasy boyfriend.
When I finally jerked away, I kept my eyes trained on the ground. It seemed like the only safe place to look at the moment.
“Well.” It was the best I could do.
“Some girlfriend,” Bradley whispered and walked back into the house.
I really didn’t want to turn around and face Liam and Seth, so instead I just barreled out of the garage toward Liam’s Jeep parked in the street.
“I need to see an archived edition of Anni,” I yelled back toward them while I walked. “It’s important, and you’re the only one I know on staff.” I pulled on the door handle on the passenger side. Locked. Shit.
I finally turned back toward Liam, and he was just a step behind me. A breath away.
He stared at me for what felt like forever. His eyes searched mine, assessing, looking for answers, and then finally he sighed and unlocked his car.
“Fine.”
Seth started to climb in the back of the car, but Liam stopped him.
“Kate will get in back.”
“But…” I always rode shotgun. Seth always rode in the back. Changing the seating arrangements in Liam’s car was like trying to change the law of gravity. Impossible.
“You’re not my girlfriend anymore. Remember?” He raised his eyebrow at me, and I wanted to sink into the seat and die right then and there.
“Right.” I tried to climb to the back of the car as gracefully as possible under these humiliating circumstances, so naturally the edge of my shirt got caught on the gear shift and I ended up flashing Liam and Seth my gray cotton bra. Icing on the cake.
I heard Seth coughing up front, and I knew he was covering up a laugh. Seth Allen was laughing at me. This was either a whole new low or the end of an era. Probably both.
Chapter 17
A loose thread dangled from the middle seat in the back of Liam’s jeep, and I pulled on it to spite him. I imagined the whole car splitting down the middle, falling to pieces. But the Jeep lumbered onward to Pemberly Brown, the backs of Liam and Seth’s heads preventing me from indulging in a little backseat driving.
“Red, huh?” Liam asked, raising an eyebrow in the rearview mirror.
I twisted a strand around my finger, flipping it up at the end to check
on the color. Yup. Still red.
“Uh, yeah. You know what they say,” I muttered absently, attacking a split end.
“No, actually, I don’t.” Liam’s voice was clipped. “What do they say?”
Ridiculous stereotypes poured through my brain—blonds have more fun, brunettes are smarter, redheads are bad tempered.
I settled on, “Just that redheads kick ass,” and hid my smile. Seth beamed as we all climbed out of the car and headed up the brick path back toward school.
“Subject has connection to Pemberly Brown, Sinclair, the societies, yearbook, the list goes on. It might take a while to locate the appropriate yearbook. Let’s not get discouraged.” Seth spoke softly and evenly, his head turned a bit to the side as we walked. “Subject should have wolf knowledge—food, habitat, a great love of the animal, and perhaps an unhealthy obsession with Mr. Sinclair.” Seth continued speaking, and I noticed he held a Dictaphone that looked like a prop from one of the old-school episodes of Law & Order my grandpa watched as reruns.
Liam patted Seth hard on the back, which caused him to stumble on his feet and press pause on the machine. I dropped a step behind, overwhelmed suddenly by how much I missed them. It caught me off guard and took my breath away a little, this hole that I didn’t even realize was there. Going to the archives with the two of them just felt right, and my fingers ran the length of the bronze plaque proclaiming, Scientia est potentia. Knowledge is power. Wasn’t that the truth? I smiled and forgot that Liam and I weren’t dating. I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to tell Seth anything about the Sisterhood. I forgot that this wasn’t supposed to be fun.
The yearbook archives were housed in the stacks in the basement of the Pemberly Brown Library. Despite the fact that books lined the walls and the area was well-lit and, for the most part, not creepy-basement-like, no one really ventured down there alone. Perhaps it was the blue emergency button on the wall or the bookshelves that nearly touched the ceiling and blocked any view between rows that kept girls on their toes, but either way, you told someone if you were going into the stacks and that if you didn’t reappear within a few minutes, they should be worried.