“You see, Lisette,” David said as he turned to me and smiled a wide, toothy smile when we reached the opposite side of the gymnasium. “It’s perfect. And I know how obsessed you are with perfection sometimes. So, what do you think? Could you see yourself helping me with such a venture? Or, do you still believe you’re taking the moral high ground in all of this?”
4
The new school year season was just a few days away from beginning, and soon the giant and sprawling campus would be filled with unknowing students that were about to get addicted to a life on drugs. And through it all, David’s question kept hanging in my head.
Moral high ground? Why had he said it in such a mocking tone of voice? Surely, he couldn’t possibly think that what he was doing was moral. So, why call me out on something like that?
It gave me nightmares every night as my brain tried to splice through down to its real meaning.
David had let us go back to our dormitory floor, but not without first telling us about the deal we needed to make if we wanted to stay alive. He had no intention of killing either Michael or myself—at least, not yet anyway. In his twisted mind, we were the only family he had left. But he had no problem with the thought of killing Adam and Julian. That was the bargaining chip. If I wanted the two men to stay alive, we would all have to agree to David’s terms; with the guarantee that his cronies would be watching us at every turn, and if we stepped out of line even once, Adam and Julian would pay the price for it with their lives.
The deal was that the only way he would let us all out of our one secluded floor of the building, and keep us all alive, was if we agreed to remain on campus and act as student resident advisors to the incoming onslaught of students. Michael thought it was a stupid request, but I saw the logic in it right away. David didn’t want us to go running to the cops, so this was his solution, much like the offer he tried to give me of joining with him. Which I refused. If he didn’t want to kill us, and yet he couldn’t afford for us to escape and rat him out, then the only solution was exactly what I had predicted it to be.
He wanted us to work for him here on campus.
None of us wanted to do it, of course. None of us wanted to be responsible for the drug addiction of hundreds of innocent people. But there really wasn’t much of a choice. It was either Adam and Julian died while Michael and I got sent back to the stone room, or we agreed to be resident advisors that reported back to David and toed the line.
And since none of my beautiful boys could bring themselves to accept the bargain, I did it for all of us.
“Wonderful,” David said smugly as he stood in the dormitory with us before getting ready to leave. “You’ll all start tomorrow. This arrangement will work as long as you do what you need to do and don’t do anything stupid. Understood?”
After he left, the four of us stood in the common area looking at each other with bewilderment. Michael shook his head and went for the whiskey bottle, and Julian plopped down on the couch.
“How long are we going to do this for?” Adam asked as he started to pace the room while running his hand through his hair.
“As long as it takes until we can find a way to get out of here,” I answered. “Look, I know the situation isn’t ideal, but what choice do we have?”
And when no one answered me, I knew they saw things the way I did. That didn’t mean we were happy about it, though. Especially Michael. He was fucking pissed.
Which is why the common room of the dorm level we were on suddenly ended up with a hole in the far side of the outer wall that faced campus.
The next day, Lineage security guards unlocked all the entryways to our floor. One of them came in to talk to us and told us that they would be removing all of the guards from outside the doors.
“There’s no reason to keep you locked up in here now,” David’s henchman said. “You’re free to wander the entire dormitory building, as well as the campus. But the second you step foot outside the campus we will know, and you won’t make it a second step away alive.”
I wanted to ask him how they would know if we stepped off campus. Surely, there weren’t enough security guards and cameras to watch our every move all of the time. But I decided it was just best to take his word for it. So, I shrugged and didn’t bother giving the brutish man any sort of verbal agreement.
He wasn’t worth the energy to form the words in the first place.
So, the henchman continued. “David said that each of you are assigned to a floor in the building. You’re free to stay here on this floor together if you’d like, but you’ll be responsible for the upkeep of the students on your assigned floor. So, make sure you’re there at least enough to watch over them.”
He handed out papers to each of us that listed our assigned floor number and a student roster of names for those that would be inhabiting the floor we were in charge of. I pitied the students about to flood this place. How they were unknowingly getting themselves into something that would turn their worlds upside down and fuck their lives over for good.
Reading that list of names made me blood boil.
“What are we supposed to do with these people?” I asked as I looked at all the names on my ‘Third Floor list.’ I recognized some of the last names. Actually, several of the last names. They were all names of prominent and elite members of the community in Charlotte. The police chief’s daughter was on my list, as well as the son of the head medical director at the hospital. I even saw the name of the local district attorney’s nephew.
Now it made sense why we were all assigned to floors in the same building.
This dormitory was the hotspot for all of the most important people, the kids of all the highest and most connected people in the city. David’s plan was transparently obvious. He was going to get the kids of all the high officials hooked on his drug. Then he would not only be in control of them, but essentially in control of the city.
Smart. Devious and disgusting, but smart.
“You’re supposed to keep them alive and keep them supplied,” the guard answered. “Drugs will start coming in a day or two. Until then, make all the prissy little pieces of shit feel welcome.”
He smiled before he walked out of the room, and the sight of his yellowed and crooked teeth made me feel sick.
“This is a really, really bad idea,” Julian said nervously. “Getting all of these high-profile kids hooked on illegal drugs? Do you know how badly we’ll be implicated if this whole thing goes sideways?”
“We don’t have a choice,” I reminded him. “It’s either this or we end up like my father with a cake knife in his throat.”
“I could have done without the visual reminder,” Julian grimaced. “But thanks.”
I wrapped my arm around his back and gave him a hug on the side of his body. None of us wanted to do this, but none of us had a choice. It was either this, or death, and so long as we were alive I knew we could find a way out of this. I knew we could find a way to rat David out to the authorities, bring this entire operation down, and restore what once had been the former glory of two prestigious universities.
We simply had to play the game for a while.
“I think we should all continue to stay here on this floor together,” Michael said. “We can spend time on the other floors as needed, but we shouldn’t stay apart for long.”
“Of course,” I agreed. “I thought that was a given.”
“It is,” he said. “I just wanted to reiterate it.”
I could tell that even Michael was feeling nervous about this. We all were.
