There was no way he’d forgotten again that soon after I had just told him. Something was definitely off with this guy. I ignored the fact that David was still standing right there and went after the more blatant lie that I could see being played.

“How was your girlfriend?” I asked.

“Great,” the guy said with a casual smile. “Thanks for asking.”

I feigned a polite smile back at him. “What’s her name?”

“My girlfriend?” he asked as though he were trying to buy himself a couple seconds of time. “Uh, it’s Marie. Why?”

My eyes ran down his lying little body. “No reason, I was just curious.”

I looked at David before I backtracked away from his disgusting form. “Guess I’d better go tell the guys to spread the word about the changed date for the gala,” I said.

Then I turned and went back up the stairs, leaving both David and the guy with the odd behavior on the third floor together. But instead of going back up to our dorm room, I went to the fourth floor to talk to Adam.

“What’s up?” he asked when he saw me there.

I rushed up to him. “Hey, I need you to check your student resident roster for a name.”

“Sure,” Adam said as we walked into the little office room and he dug out his list. “What’s the name?”

“I only have the first name,” I answered. “Marie.”

I waited for a minute while Adam looked through his list of names. “Nope, no Marie here on the fourth floor. Why?”

“No reason,” I said.

Now I was sure that my suspicions about that guy were definitely not my imagination. Something was up with him, and I was betting that it had something to do with David.

“Come on, Lisette, you know you can’t hide anything from me,” Adam said.

I immediately felt a wave of guilt rush over me for not being able to tell him about the dangerous game David and I were playing. “There’s just this guy on my floor and I caught him using the stairwell, which they all know is off-limits. He said he was afraid of elevators and that he was just coming up to the fourth floor to visit his girlfriend, whose name is Marie. But I got a weird feeling about him, and now I’m pretty sure I was right to trust my gut. Something’s off about him.”

“Do you know what it could be?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Not a clue.”

“Hmm. Well then, I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye out. And speaking of keeping an eye out, have you heard about the Winter Gala?” Adam asked.

“Wow, word travels fast,” I murmured before I cleared my throat. “David literally just moved the date for that like five seconds ago.”

He blinked. “He moved the date?”

“Yeah,” I said begrudgingly. “He moved it up by two weeks. Isn’t that what you were about to tell me?”

He paused. “Uh, no. I was going to tell you that they decided on a theme for the gala.”

I furrowed my brow. “A theme?”

“Yeah, every year there’s some new and elaborate theme for the party. I know you don’t care about it, but since we all are required to go and we have to look the part, I thought you’d at least be interested in knowing what the theme is going to be.”

“Oh, yeah sure,” I said.

I didn’t really care one way or another. I didn’t even want to go that night and have to deal with David and the result of his cruel game that I still needed to figure out. “What is it?”

“Masquerade,” he answered. “Apparently David put out an email stating that the only part of you that shouldn’t be disguised in makeup or costume, is your eyes. Everyone will be essentially unrecognizable behind masks and such.”

“That does sound very elaborate,” I said.

“Yeah but think about it for a minute. It sounds like the perfect scenario for something else too.”

I tried to think about what Adam could be referring to and then it dawned on me. “You think he’s going to use the party as an experiment?” I asked.

And when Adam nodded, I puffed my cheeks out with a rough sigh. It was genius actually. Everyone would be costumed and unrecognizable. There was no better theme to use as a cover up for any mishaps during his epic drug kick-off than people being able to disappear without it even being noticed.

“Yep,” Adam said. “And I think that we all need to be ready for it.”

“Agreed. I’ll tell the others about the changed date and you let them know about the theme,” I said. “Maybe there’s a way that we can use this giant party to our advantage too.”

And maybe, just maybe, the masquerade party could be used to save my boys instead of harm them.

8

The prospect of the Winter Gala was starting to grow on me the more that I thought about it.

Instead of it being the end of a deadly game between David and I, maybe there was a way to use it as a cover for us to escape. After all, everyone would be so distracted by the festivities, even David himself.

If only I could talk to the guys about it, but I was too afraid that all the walls here had ears and that I would be jeopardizing their safety after David warned me to keep it a secret. It sure would have helped to be able to talk to them though. Between the four of us I felt like we could figure out a way to win at David’s game and possibly gain freedom for all four of us.

I spent a lot of time the following week in the dorm room at the end of the hall, staring out at the cemetery and pushing my brain to come up with a viable solution. The guys seemed worried about the fact that I was spending so much time alone, but I assured them that I just had a lot on my mind that I needed to think about and that everything was fine. I was a horrible liar though, and I think they could tell.

The more withdrawn I became, the more all three of the guys tried to pull me closer. Julian literally tried to pull me closer and wrapped himself around me tighter at night while we slept. Michael tried to sneak in questions during dinner or while we were having wine, to figure out what was going on with me and hoping that I wouldn’t notice his attempts at prying for information. And Adam seemed to be stalking me protectively and showing up either on the third floor while I was there checking on the students or standing in the open doorway at the dorm room at the end of the hall when I would go in there to think.

I tried repeatedly to tell them that I was fine, but I really wasn’t, and they could tell. They all became exceedingly protective of me and much more careful to watch what was going on around us.

But when someone unexpected arrived on the Lineage campus, that set things off even more.

His name was Rob, and although he was supposedly a “transfer student”, I knew how unlikely that actually was. One of the few things that hadn’t changed about Lineage, was the way that the school blocked outside admissions from random people who weren’t already either related or in some way invited into the school by its current members or administration. The thing that really gave away how odd it was, was when I went to deliver a maintenance request from my floor to David and he seemed completely unraveled by the new student’s presence.

He grabbed the request paper out of my hand when I handed it to him and threw it on top of his desk. Then he sent his security guards out of the room to speak with me alone. I was worried that it had something to do with our little game, but it didn’t.

It had to do with Rob.

“You’ve seen the new student on campus by now, I’m sure?” David asked with an inflected ending that made it sound like a question.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I’ve seen him around. Why? Is he a friend of yours?”