I asked around a bit at school. I knew that Michael got to stay in one of the lavish on-campus apartments that was next to the administration’s private quarters since his mother basically ran the entire school. I figured that if Adam was important enough for Michael to have convinced his mom to let Adam come to Lineage, then the two guys probably shared a place together, or at least had accommodations that were close to each other.
I still wasn’t sure what kind of relationship those two could possibly have, though. Michael was a complete, womanizing asshole who thought of himself as a god and bent the rules to serve to his greater good for himself. Girls dropped at his feet, and every picture I’d ever seen of him looked like it had been photo-shopped to accentuate his athletic build, golden blonde hair, and blue eyes. But in fact, those perfect features really did belong to him. There was one thing that tended to give away a hint of his inner self, though, and that was the wicked smile he would get while he was doing something particularly cruel.
The kind of smile a killer might wear.
I couldn’t imagine him taking pity on Adam simply because he was homeless, and Michael definitely wasn’t gay. So, what was it that made him bring Adam into Lineage? If he needed a friend that badly, it would have been easier to just have his Headmistress mother force someone to befriend him.
The whole thing was very strange.
The campus was deserted for much of the day as we made our way around to find Michael’s apartment. Sneaking on here during an exam day was a brilliant idea because the security was slim, too, which made walking around that much easier. Many of the guards were repurposed during exam days to be proctors, and we utilized that to the fullest.
Once we got inside, thanks to Julian’s excellent lockpicking skills which I avoided asking about, it wasn’t long before I was able to confirm that it was definitely Michael’s apartment. His Lineage jackets were all monogrammed with his name and hanging neatly in a row inside his bedroom closet like massive I.D. cards he proudly wore on his back.
The second bedroom was a little harder to figure out, though. There were no monogrammed jackets and only a few ragged-edged photos of people that I didn’t recognize sitting inside one of the dresser drawers. But after some more searching around, I was able to find a textbook with a name in it.
Adam.
Julian and I had just started digging deeper into the contents of the apartment when we heard a key turn in the lock. It froze us in our tracks before we heard the click again, and it shocked me out of my trance. My eyes locked with Julian. I watched panic spread across his face. And as we shoved the book back into the drawer before closing it, I could’ve sworn I heard the creaky hinges of the front door opening.
“Shit,” Julian said as he grabbed me and pulled me into one of the closets with him. “Be quiet. Don’t say a word.”
He pushed a bunch of hanging clothes in front of us, which probably wouldn’t work to conceal us that well, considering our legs were still exposed. I reached out and slowly pulled the closet door shut, careful not to make any creaking sounds as it moved.
I even held my breath as footsteps bounded down the hallway.
“Are you sure it’s okay to blow off the rest of the exams?” Adam said.
“Absolutely. My mom will write scores in for us that will probably be better than what we could have gotten anyway. Being seen taking the first exam is all that was necessary,” a voice belonging to Michael answered. “And when I take over Lineage, there won’t be exams at all. They’re a complete waste of time, in my opinion.”
“Doesn’t every student,” Julian whispered.
I elbowed him in the ribs and glared at him, daring him to make another noise. And when he curled his lips over his teeth to mute his sounds and shut his mouth, I turned my attention to the voices in the hallway that kept growing closer.
“Isn’t that kind of putting the cart before the horse a bit?” Adam asked.
“Careful.” Michael’s voice oozed with malicious intent. “Don’t forget, I’m the one who brought you here.”
“How could I,” Adam said.
There was just enough defiance in his voice to make it sound as though their “friendship” might have a few threads of rivalry running through it as well.
Michael snickered. “So, how come you keep going to Goldshire? You know my mother will be highly pissed off if you end up getting spotted over there.”
“I’m not going to get caught,” Adam said.
I heard him pop the top off a beer. Or, possibly a soda? I don’t know, he seemed like more of a ‘beer in the middle of the day’ kind of guy instead of a ‘Mountain Dew on the go’ kind of guy. And while it seemed a little early in the day, I’d probably turn into a raging alcoholic if I had to share an apartment with Michael too.
Or carried the burdening secret of a murderer still at large.
Michael’s voice took on a fluttering tone. “Is it for Lisette?”
Adam didn’t answer him and my ears perked up at the question.
Then, Michael chuckled. “You can’t have her anyway. Besides, if she were to find out about anything that happened, she’d hate you.”
“Pretty sure she already does hate me,” Adam murmured.
“Good. Then, you need to stay away from her. It’s too risky. And if you ever betray us for some stupid girl, you know that’s going to end badly for all of us, right?”
Adam growled. “Is that a threat?”
“She’s not worth it, Adam, you know that. Be smart.”
I heard the sound of footsteps coming closer as Adam left Michael out in the living room and walked toward his bedroom. There wasn’t much that Julian and I could do besides hope that we weren’t seen and wait for the guys to fall asleep so that we could sneak out. If we could just make it out of the apartment, the chances of us sneaking off campus under the cloak of night were fairly good.
But it only took a second for that entire plan to be shot down, because the first thing Adam did when he came into his room was open the closet.
I almost screamed out of sheer reaction, but I managed to keep it in. It was a ridiculous hope to think that Adam wouldn’t see two sets of legs hanging out from beneath his clothes. If he was startled too, he also did a good job of keeping quiet about it. Perhaps he was more afraid of Michael than he was of whoever could possibly be in his closet. He pushed away the hangers to either side of us and stared at us dead in the face.
To say the look on his face was one of shock would have been a complete understatement.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a hushed whisper.
“Umm.” I didn’t think that the honest answer was the best thing to say.
“Look,” Julian said to him. “I know you’d probably like nothing better than to rat me out. Hell, I’d do the same thing if someone was in my closet. But from what Lisette has told me, it seems like you care about her, and she could get in a lot of trouble for this.”
“Trouble isn’t the word for it,” Adam said before he looked back at me. “What were you thinking? Didn’t I tell you not to do anything stupid?”
