That night I had another dream, except this time, my mother wasn’t in it. This time Julian was in it, and so was Adam. All three of us were sitting on separate branches of a tree. Neither of them was saying anything. They were both just staring at me and smiling. I heard the cracking sound of a branch and felt the tree start to shake. As the branch I was sitting on began to split and break, both of them reached out their hands to catch me. But instead of reaching back, I closed my eyes and let myself fall. It didn’t hurt when my back hit against the ground in my dream. The only thing I felt were the words that resonated in my head.

I know who killed your mother.

At classes the next day, I felt like I kept seeing Adam everywhere, which I knew was impossible. There was no way he could sneak around Goldshire all day without getting caught. But I started getting so freaked out and paranoid by it that Julian eventually picked up on me acting weird.

So, I had to tell him what had happened.

“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

I shrugged. “I had to think about it first.”

He threw his hands in the air, his voice a hushed whisper. “What was there to think about? Some strange guy sneaks into your bedroom, and you don’t think that’s important enough to tell anyone about?”

“I don’t know, I just couldn’t think straight for a bit.” I realized that sounded like a really lame excuse.

“You need to stay away from him,” Julian said. “That guy is bad news.”

“You don’t know that,” I said. “He didn’t try to hurt me. If anything, he put himself at risk by coming to see me.”

“Still, all those guys at Lineage are bad news. You should know that better than anyone.”

“I do,” I agreed. “This is why I need to get inside and see what goes on there.”

He scoffed. “There is no way you can pull that off. No chance that you can spy on that campus. Have you already forgotten about how poorly that went the last time?”

He was right. We were lucky that we hadn’t gotten caught. It would be asking for trouble to attempt it again, especially when I didn’t even know what I was going there to look for.

We sat down on one of the benches outside to get some fresh air between classes. I looked around at all the people walking across the campus, most of which didn’t have a care in the world considering that their families were all wealthy, and their college education was a completely unnecessary token since most of them would just end up inheriting old money and wasting their lives away with trivial pursuits.

“Look!” I said to Julian as I pointed to a guy standing next to the corner of one of the buildings. He was wearing all black, no academy jacket, and a black beanie on his head.

“What is it?” Julian asked as he strained to see what I was pointing at.

I kept pointing. “Look at that guy over there.”

He chuckled. “What about him? Lots of people don’t wear their Goldshire jackets on campus. I don’t think it’s an offense that they take too seriously in the Dean’s office.”

But the lack of the jacket had nothing to do with it. The sunlight hit the guys face at just the right angle for me to see the reflective glare shining off his nose ring.

It was him.

Trouble or not, if Adam can manage to slink around the Goldshire’s campus, then I could figure out a way to do the same at Lineage.

I turned to face Julian. “Remember when you said if I was going to do anything like that last stunt again, that you were coming with me?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure I do not like where this is going.”

“Suit up,” I said.

Then, I drew in a deep breath and started in on my plan.

5

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Julian asked as we stood at the edge of Lineage’s campus.

“Yes,” I said with confidence. “And now I know what we’re going to look for.”

If Adam knew who killed my mother, then maybe something or someone he talked to could lead me to an answer. I waited until an exam day. I knew that Adam would have to be on his own campus during exams, and I decided to follow him and see where it led me.

“I know you miss her,” Julian said as he held my hand down at his side and threaded his fingers in mine. “But even if we are able to find out who killed your mom, it’s not going to bring her back.”

God, why does everyone keep saying that?

I rolled my eyes. “I know it’s not going to bring her back, Julian, but my mother’s murder is more than just about her. My mother was a good woman, completely innocent and kind. No one had any reason to target her. Whoever did this is covering it up because it’s part of something bigger.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. And then I’m going to have the revenge that I’ve been thinking about every single day since her death.”

“That’s kind of dark, even for you,” he said.

If Julian knew the lengths I was willing to go to avenge my mother, dark didn’t even come close to the word he would choose to use.

I let go of his hand and the two of us, dressed in as much black as we owned with hoodies and sunglasses pulled down around our faces, crossed over to the Lineage campus for a second time.

Only this time, we stuck to the shadows and corners.

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.