Boys Club by Selena
sixteen
Harper Apple
I spend the first day back at Willow Heights looking over my shoulder, haunted by a ridiculous paranoia, as if I’m going to be stopped by cops for trespassing when I set foot inside the hallowed halls of the old stone building. As if Mr. D might show up in the flesh, walk into my class, and announce to the whole school that my scholarship is rescinded because my raunchy sex stories got boring. Royal would fucking kill me if he knew what I’d told Mr. D about our hookups, and I can’t help but wonder if Mr. D will expose me as punishment for failing him.
But I’m not leaving Willow Heights until they haul me out of there, and no one makes a move when I step into the familiar hallways full of bleary-eyed kids who stayed up too late on their last night of freedom. Still on edge, I head to my locker and then to class. No one bothers me. I’m a Dolce girl, after all. Nothing has changed.
Except that it has. Everything changed on Sunday.
I knew I was falling for Royal, but until that moment, I don’t know if I realized how truly fucked I already am. I haven’t exactly forgiven Royal for what he did to me—making me kneel naked on the floor and blow him in exchange for the promise of a video being erased, only to release the video to show me that he could. I don’t know if colleges will see it, if some will decide not to offer a scholarship to a girl like me.
But I know that I can’t hate Royal. Not anymore. Not for that, and not even for what he did to Colt.
Yeah, Colt was my friend. But I fucking love Royal.
There, I said it, if only to myself. I love this confusing, terrible, broken, vulnerable, monstrous boy. And it’s fucked up as hell that I think knowing about his little side hustle is what sealed it. How can I love him more, even knowing he’s fucking other women? It doesn’t make sense. But when I think about Gloria on those steps crying as she told me, I want to cry, too. I want to hug Royal and hold him and never let go. I want to tell him I love him, the same way Gloria does, and then some. That it doesn’t matter to me what he does. I love him, all of him, for exactly who he is.
But when I sit down next to him in class, I don’t know what to say. No words come, and he doesn’t seem especially chatty. I’m grateful for the silence, for the time to adjust to being in his presence while knowing what I know. Though I always felt that darkness in him calling to me, I didn’t realize how truly I’d answered, let my own darkness join him. His is so much bigger, though, more powerful, I can’t hold it off. It’s wearing on me, eating me alive, pulling me under. Eventually, I couldn’t hold my breath, and I had to breathe it in. Now it’s inside me, festering like a disease.
I knew he had some fucked up shit in his life that made him that way, but maybe I didn’t quite know what his darkness meant. I thought it meant we were the same, but the shadows my shitty life left on me like bruises on my skin can’t compare to the bone deep fucking trauma Royal’s been through. Comparing it is like comparing a stubbed toe to a train wreck.
I remember the very first time we met, at the tracks when he took that video, and how they laughed at me when I said some naïve shit about how they were rich, so they didn’t know hardship. What a dumb bitch thing to say. I always imagined rich people just threw money at their problems, and they disappeared.
Wife leaves you? Get a younger, hotter one. Feel shitty? Go to therapy and get some expensive pills. Get arrested? Find a fancy lawyer to get you out of it. All that may be true, but now that I actually know some rich people, I know it’s not so simple.
And whatever is between me and Royal isn’t simple, either. I can’t tell him I know, and I don’t want to act differently or see him differently, but something about what he’s doing just crushes my heart. I want to know why he would do that, but of course I can’t ask. If and when he wants to tell me, that has to be his decision.
After school, Royal saunters up to my locker, looking less moody than in class and more like his usual asshole self. Baron and Duke flank him on either side.
“Cherry Pie,” Duke says. “I’ve barely seen you in a month. You keeping that pussy wet for my boy here?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I say, closing my locker and giving him my sweetest smile.
“Cut it out,” Royal growls, glaring at Duke. “Harper’s cunt is my business and only my business.”
Duke flashes me a grin anyway. “I hear there’s a welcome back party coming up. Maybe you can get busy with my brother against the car the while I’m passed the fuck out inside again, like you did last time.”
I quirk a brow and glance at Royal. “You sure that was us?”
“I just gotta say, I need a repeat when I’m not wasted,” Duke says. “I can’t believe I missed the whole thing.”
“Where’d you hear all this?” I ask.
“From my boys,” Duke says. “And I don’t hear a denial in there anywhere.”
I grin and lean close to him, standing on tiptoes to whisper toward his ear. “It was hot thinking about you right there behind us, knowing you might wake up at any moment and see us.”
“Fuck,” he groans, grabbing his crotch like I kicked him and falling back against the lockers. “You’re killing me, Jailbird.”
“Don’t fuck with my brother,” Royal says, glowering at me.
“Pretty sure he’s the one fucking with me.”
“Come on,” Baron says. “We’ve got basketball.”
“You play all the sports?” I ask.
“Not all of them,” Royal says with a smirk. “But it’ll have to change our hookup schedule. I’ll text you later.”
I wave to them and head out, feeling as if I just lost something. I know it’s just me, that Royal doesn’t even know I found out his secret, but I need the closeness I feel when we’re together. Fuck. I don’t want to need him, to need anyone, but this school has broken me down. I have at least one real friend, three if I count the twins. What I don’t have is any damn sense, falling for a guy like Royal, needing him and the feeling of being part of something that settles into my chest when we’re at the river together. It’s something I don’t get from anyone else, that sense of belonging, not just with him but to him. I never in my life thought I’d want to feel that way about anyone. But Royal’s not just anyone.
I want to belong to him. It makes me feel special, almost proud. He makes me feel needed in a way I didn’t know was missing, a way I didn’t know I needed. His brothers make me feel like part of something. Gloria is icing on the cake. All of them together have accepted me, even when I didn’t notice it happening. And now I don’t want to lose that, to lose any of it. Somehow, I fit into it, the puzzle of the four of them. I’m the fifth element, the missing piece, the one that completes the whole somehow. I’ve never been a part of a whole, something necessary for the unit to function. It’s not just about missing them when I ride home alone that afternoon. It’s about feeling like they’d miss me if I was gone.
At home, I try to do homework and not worry about Mr. D. I still need to get something for him, since I can’t tell him what I know about Royal, even if it would ruin the Dolces. In a town like this, a small town in the Bible belt, a scandal like that would bring anyone down. Sure, laundering money is shady, but it’s the titillating sexual rumors that would do them in. That’s what the ladies who lunch will really blow up into a scandal.
I can’t focus on homework. Every time I try, I picture that woman he blew smoke into. I trust he used protection, but it still makes me shudder, knowing his cock was in her, that she paid him for his body. I go outside and meet Blue and share a cigarette. When she asks me what people like us could possibly have in common with people like the Dolces, I tell her I don’t know.
Eventually, I manage to finish my homework and make a box of hamburger noodles for dinner. Then, I sit down and plan. Mr. D wanted info on the Swans. I don’t have to tell him about Royal. I just need info on the secret society, starting with when they meet.
Royal and his friends all played football on Fridays, so it can’t be then. He does his side hustle on Sunday. He wanted to meet on Saturdays before I nixed that idea, which means he’s free that night—no Swans meeting. Monday and Wednesday we met at the river all last semester, and sometimes we stayed until well past midnight. Which leaves Tuesdays and Thursdays as the options for Swan meetings. Since New Years Eve was on a Thursday, and they had a meeting that night, I put my money on that night.
Unfortunately, that’s also the first night Royal wants to meet at the river since school started up again. Some part of me instantly draws back, wanting to refuse. I feel for him, but he’s also cheating on me… In my fucked up mind, anyway. He’s not actually cheating. He told me flat out from the start that he couldn’t have a girlfriend. I just never knew the reason why would be so fucking heartbreaking.
But I can’t very well refuse without him getting suspicious, so I climb in the Rover, and we head toward the bridge. It’s one of those warm days in January that make people forget Arkansas has winter at all. Royal pulls the car along the side of the road, and we head down the bank like we did that day a month ago. We do our thing, and then lie together on the blanket Royal keeps in his car. I wonder if he’s ever used it with one of his clients, but I push the thought away.
I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to act normal while we were having sex, but it was all too easy to forget. Which I suppose is a blessing, since I don’t want Royal to know I found out and then feel weird around me. I hold him tight afterwards, lying on his chest and pressing my ear to his heart, listening to the heavy beat. “Did your brother go back to New York?” I ask at last.
“Yeah,” Royal says, his voice sleepy as he lazily runs his fingers through my long hair. “A few days ago.”
“How often do you see him?” I ask, laying a palm on his chest and resting my chin on the back of my hand so I can see him while we talk.
“Not too often,” he says. “Holidays. He just came down to see Dad because Dad didn’t go to New York with us.”
“When will you go up there again?” I ask. “Spring break?”
“Nah,” he says, continuing to stroke my hair. “The guys want to go skiing this year.”
“You mean the twins?”
“Them, Cotton, DeShaun, Dawson,” he says. “A few other guys from school.”
My chest tightens, but I try to keep my voice light, so he won’t know it bothers me. “And the Walton sisters?”
“Them and their friends, too.” Royal tilts his head to look down at me, a knowing smirk on his lips. “Are you jealous?”
There’s no use hiding it. Royal’s knows me too well. “If there’s even a tiny chance your dick will end up in someone else, then I’m jealous as fuck.”
He squeezes his arms tight around me. “Then come.”
I stare at him, knowing that’s impossible and that there’s a reason I wasn’t invited even though I’m a Dolce girl. They knew I couldn’t afford it. I’ve already talked to Royal about traveling after a few of our hookups. It blew his mind when I told him I’d never been out of the state. And I know he doesn’t mean it, that the invitation is a spontaneous, impulsive one. We both know we can’t last. We might not even be together by then. But still. For one moment, I let myself dream like an innocent, like someone who still believes her fantasies can come true.
And then I protect whatever pieces of my heart I haven’t already given him by laughing it off like I’m not interested in all that.
“Isn’t that kinda… Boyfriend-ish?” I ask. “We’re just fucking, remember?”
“Come on, I’ll pay for you. And you can make sure my dick doesn’t end up anywhere you don’t want it,” he offers, sliding his hands down and squeezing my ass. “Except maybe here.”
“Wow, my ass is worth a trip to Aspen now? I thought it was only worth dinner at Cliff’s.”
“Maybe not Aspen,” he says. “But lucky for you, we’re going to Park City this year.”
“This year?” I ask. “So you just flit off to go skiing any time you want?”
“Sure, why wouldn’t I?”
“God, it’s like you live in an alternate universe.” It’s not like I’ve never heard of someone skiing. I had to listen to all the kids at Faulkner recount their spring break trips to Aspen and Destin every year. I just never paid that much attention. They were the rich kids, and their lives didn’t affect me.
“We’re renting,” he offers. “We don’t even have property there. It’s not that absurd.”
“But you have property in New York,” I say. “And here. Anywhere else?”
“A vacation home,” he says. “And Dad’s buying a bunch of property in east Faulkner, but that’s for business.”
“What property?” I ask, drawing back in surprise.
“The mall,” Royal says. “He wants to put in a casino.”
“Holy shit,” I say. “Does anyone else know about this?”
“No,” he says. “And it’s not a done deal. This would be the first one in Arkansas, and the gaming commission is giving him shit, and the governor is balking, so… Don’t go spreading it around, alright?”
My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid Royal will hear it. I’m not sure if Mr. D could take down the Dolces with this, but it’s pretty fucking big. A lot of people here are in love with their image of Faulkner as a small town with family values, a simple place where people still live by the rules of a bygone era. They don’t want to admit that gangs have already encroached into the neighborhoods on my side of the tracks, that drugs and violence are a part of life there.
But a casino… That’s not something that belongs in a small town. It’s garish and commercial and everything the town thinks its not. Probably everything they said about the mall when it was built in the eighties, but people are used to that now. It’s a part of the nostalgia of the town now. Gloria said it was closing, but I didn’t really think much about it. I sure as fuck didn’t realize Royal’s dad was buying it. It blows my mind that someone can buy an entire mall to begin with.
But it gives me one more week, buys me more time. So, the next day, I tell Mr. D about the mall and the casino, and once again, he asks me if I have proof beyond pillow talk. Again, I don’t.
Gloria wants to hang out on Saturday, and then there’s a basketball game, and a party. The next week, things are back to normal. But it’s halfway through January, and I’m terrified of losing my scholarship. So, that week after Royal drops me off at a respectable hour for the second Thursday in a row, I borrow Blue’s car and head to school at quarter to midnight.
I park on the side of the road a block away even though it’s raining, and I walk to school, not wanting Royal to see the car if he’s there. When I step into the parking lot, I have to dart back into the shadows of the trees to avoid being seen. A half dozen cars sit parked in the side lot where Colt got beaten that day, and two guys with umbrellas stand outside Royal’s car smoking pot, if the scent in the air is any indication.
I huddle next to a tree, praying the rain drowned out the sound of my footsteps. My heart is hammering so hard I can barely make out their voices over the thudding in my ears and the patter of water on asphalt. I hold my breath as a familiar little Tesla comes whipping into the lot and pulls up beside Royal’s car. Baron and Duke get out, slinging backpacks over their shoulders.
“Ready?” Duke calls.
“Yeah,” Royal answers, stepping away from the Rover.
I’m so excited I’m shaking. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s forty degrees and I don’t have an umbrella. But this is it. What I’ve been waiting for. My one chance to be free, to get the last information I’ll ever have to give my puppet master. I’m not leaving until I get something real fucking good, because I’m done being Mr. D’s puppet, his eyes, his snitch. Once I get this, I’m delivering it, and I’m walking away. Forever.
Whatever it takes, I’m getting in there tonight. I know better than to go through the regular channels, though. I can’t go to the Midnight Swans meeting and ask to be a recruit, like a boy might. Royal will throw me out on my ass. I’ll have to be sneakier than that.
I watch as Royal unlocks a side door and holds it open, gesturing for his flock to enter. He glances around and then steps into the darkness within, pulling the door closed after him. Only when they’re gone can I let out my breath. I wait a few minutes and then creep forward until I reach the cover of the cars. I’m pretty sure no one else is coming, but you can’t be too careful. After a stealth look around, I race through the rain to the door of the building. I’m not surprised to find it locked. A quick examination tells me this isn’t the kind of lock that can be picked with a bobby pin or credit card. No surprise there, either.
I move to the window on the right side of the door, a big glass pane overlooking the lot. Inside, I can just make out a science lab from the scant light spilling in from the hall. Even those are turned low, just the security lights the school leaves on all night. I push at the pane, knowing Willow Heights has the kind of windows that open, but it’s locked. Moving along the wall, I check each window. Each one is locked.
I’m not about to give up, though. I keep moving, checking each window of the next classroom and the next, until at last, I find one that gives. Jackpot. I knew at least one of the teachers would be too busy and distracted to check every window before leaving each day. I pull the window open, then pry the screen out with my pocketknife. Then it’s smooth sailing. I scramble in the window and drop to the floor, making sure to land on my toes to keep quiet. Then I replace the screen, close the window, and tiptoe into the building. My wet shoes squeak on the tile, so I slip them off and make my way in my socks.
There’s something spooky about the darkened, silent halls of a school, as if the ghosts of our daytime selves somehow haunt the place. I’ve walked the streets of Faulkner on my side of town a hundred times, but I’ve never felt as jumpy as walking down the empty halls of this rich prep school at night.
I’m fully exposed as the only person in the hall, and all the classroom doors are closed and probably locked. If one of the Swans comes out, I’m fucked. I hurry toward the library, my heart thudding in my ears. Even the soft scuff of my socks on the floor sounds magnified, echoing through the long hall and off the wooden lockers. When I reach the library, I find it locked, too.
Well, fuck.
I kneel in front of the door, shake my wet hair out of my eyes, and examine the lock, relieved to find it’s not as sturdy as the one on the outside door. I give a silent thanks to Lauren, my ex who taught me how to pick locks like a regular delinquent. At least I got one good thing out of that relationship. Five minutes with the metal pick in my pocketknife, and I’m inside.
I wince at the squeak when the door swings open, but at least the floor is carpeted in here, so my footsteps are silent as I sneak across the room. I’m almost to the section of bookshelf that pulls away when it groans, light spilling out a crack along the side. I dive under the circulation desk, my heart thundering in my ears, just as the door swings open.
Fuck fuck fuck.
The light falls against the wall in the direction the door opens, but enough of it makes its way to the desk that I know I’ll be fucked if someone looks this way. I hear muttering and footsteps as someone crosses the library. Holding my breath, I slowly ease myself further under the desk, out of the path of the light and into the shadows.
The door rattles, and then the footsteps cross back to the basement. “It’s locked,” calls a voice that I’m pretty sure belongs to DeShaun. Then he pulls the bookshelf back into place, plunging the library into darkness. Thank fuck. I close my eyes, melting back against the wood in relief. For once, I’m going to reign in my habit of bludgeoning my way through life and have patience.
If I charge into the middle of the meeting, they’ll probably never let me in as a member. If I wait until they leave, I can sneak down there and get a good look around, maybe find some clues about what they’re up to.
The one time Royal went down there with me and then freaked out, he left through another door. Which means there’s more to the basement than the one room I’ve seen. I curl into a comfortable position with my back braced against the underside of the desk, put in my earbuds, turn on Harlow and the Honey Badgers, and settle in to wait. It’s late, but I’m too wired to worry about falling asleep.
At least an hour passes before I hear the groan of the bookcase swinging open again. I fumble my phone out of my pocket, cursing myself for keeping it on. I barely manage to shut off the music and hide the screen before voices fill the library.
“The founders would roll in their graves if we let a girl in,” DeShaun says. “Even if it’s not in the rules.”
My heart flips. Are they talking about letting me join?
“Not her, though,” Royal says. “She’s a Darling. She’s practically a legacy.”
So, not me.
Mabel? Did she complete the challenges?
Maybe it’s time I paid Colt a visit. If he won’t tell me how to join, maybe he’ll at least tell me how to get in touch with Mabel. She’s a girl. She might be more inclined to help another girl get in.
“If you really want to piss them off, pick someone they’d hate to see join,” says another voice that sounds familiar, but I’m not sure if it’s Cotton or Dawson or another one of their friends.
I wait for Royal to say my name, to put me forward as someone the Swans’ founders would hate to join their exclusive, fancy boys club. If his goal is to piss off the old snobs, who better than a poor girl from a trailer park? I’m the furthest a person can get from being a Swan.
“Should I record the minutes and lock up?” Baron asks.
“Mabel already completed the challenges,” Duke says. “She’s like an honorary Swan already.”
So, I was right. Next task might be tracking down a Darling.
“By accident,” Baron says, and I hear the bookshelf grind back into place. “She wasn’t completing them for us.”
“Besides, she’d never take the oath,” Royal says.
I’m ready to scream in frustration when they step out of the library, closing me off from the rest of the conversation. I’m tempted to follow them instead of going down in the musty old basement to root around and try to find clues. This is a live meeting, happening right now.
But there’s no way I could trail them down the hall without them noticing.
Damn it.
I wait a minute to make sure everyone’s out, a sense of defeat already heavy inside me. I wanted to hear that conversation. Still, I’m here to get info for Mr. D, not to eavesdrop to see if anyone’s talking about me behind my back. I focus on the task ahead and creep to the bookshelf. The lock is an old fashioned one I’ve never encountered before, but when I tug on the shelf, it gives way.
About fucking time I caught a lucky break. Baron was too distracted by talk of Mabel and didn’t lock the door. I push my feet back into my damp boots and slip through, pulling the door closed behind me so no one will notice anything amiss.
The light in the basement is still on, since apparently no one at this school realizes electricity is something people have to pay for. I make my way down the stairs and glance around. Instead of just a couple chairs pulled off to the side, six chairs sit around a low table cluttered with beer bottles in the middle of the room, confirming my suspicion that there must be more rooms down here. Still, the extra furniture isn’t exactly something Mr. D can use. I cross the room, scan the bookshelf for anything noteworthy, and then try the door next to the shelves.
That one’s locked, but it’s a newer lock, and it only takes me a few minutes to pick it. The lights are out in this room, so I switch on my phone’s flashlight and glance around. The room is even creepier than the first one, which has a cement floor and a bare bulb overhead. This one has a dirt floor and crude stone walls with cobwebs in the corners. In the middle of the room is a huge stone that might be a table or a slab where they sacrifice people. It’s hard to tell.
On the far side of the room is an open door that leads to a dark, dirt tunnel. And that’s where my journey ends. Not about to voluntarily step into something that looks like a nightmare waiting to happen. I backtrack into the first room, thinking how ironic that this room feels safe in comparison to the other one, even though this is the room where the Dolces stripped me and forced me to suck Royal’s dick.
I shake the thought away and circle the room, checking the bottom of the table and chairs for secret envelopes. Nothing. Fuck. Returning to the bookshelf, I scan through again, this time more thoroughly. My gaze stops on a fancy spine that’s at least two inches wide, with gold leaf printing but no title. I hook my finger in the top and pull it out, hearing a hollow thud inside. My pulse skips, and I flip it onto one side, feeling along the edge of the cover until I find a small clasp.
I undo it and pull open the cover to reveal the hollow inside. Inside the box that’s cleverly disguised as a book lies another book, this one black leather, with bent corners and worn edges. I lift it out, my fingers shaking. The pages are thin and yellowed, with lines of handwritten text bleeding into the paper with age.
I sit down at the table and flip to the beginning. On the first page in neat, old-fashioned cursive handwriting, are the words The Midnight Swans.
I can hardly believe my eyes. This is everything I’ve been looking for, everything I need. The key to my scholarship. It’s been here all along, right under the school I’ve been attending for months.
I flip through pages of names and dates, recognizing half the names on the first page—Darling, Rose, Montgomery, Delacroix. All old money families, founders of the town, with various things named after them, from roads, bridges, and creeks to hospital wings, elementary schools, and businesses. Beyond the member lists, I find the oath written out in faded ink, and then a section called “Recruits.”
My heart hammers as I read the slanted lines of cursive.
A Swan is STRONG
A Swan is BRAVE
A Swan is LOYAL
Till the grave.
Each pledge is put
To these three tests
To weed the weak
and keep the best.
To show your STRENGTH
To show your might
You’ll face a Swan
and win the fight.
A show of LOYALTY
To move on
Betray a friend
For a Swan.
The last virtue
is test number three
Face your fear
To prove your BRAVERY.
So, those are the three challenges the Silver Swan mentioned. When I asked to join, Royal really did give me the first task—fight a Swan and win. And in a way, I did. I showed more cunning than strength, but hey, I completed the challenge. Maybe he did bring it up, and that’s why they were talking about letting a girl join.
The next page is all about brotherhood, including a line about “a bond forged by a shameful act” that no one else knows about. It kinda creeps me out, but as far as I can tell, that’s the only mention of the gauntlet, as the next page has a list of rules. I skim over them, as most are about secrecy, and then read the code of conduct, which makes it sound like the Swans were once upstanding role models for the school instead of thugs who rule by the power of intimidation.
After that, there are pages and pages of meeting minutes.
At last, I go back to the beginning and pull out my phone. I curse myself for listening to music, as the battery is on red already, and considering the stamina of my ancient phone, I’m not sure it’s going to last through photographing every page. I start with the most important ones, the ones I figure Mr. D wants to see, which are the minutes from the meetings since the Dolces took over. Since I don’t have time to read them all to find exactly when the olds were kicked out, I find a date about two years ago and work my way forward.
I’m halfway through when the light overhead blinks out. I jerk upright, my breath catching in my throat. Is someone in the room with me?
No, that’s impossible. I would have heard them going for the light switch. Wouldn’t I?
I swallow hard, trying not to panic. This isn’t a small space. It’s underground, and yes, nightmares of being buried alive or the roof caving in are already flying through my head, but I force myself to breathe. My phone hasn’t died. I can find my way up the stairs and get the fuck out.
Forcing myself to stay calm, I close the book and grope around, knocking a beer bottle off the table before I find the book box to hide the real book. Whatever. Who’s going to notice a broken bottle?
I secure the Midnight Swans book and use the light from my phone’s screen to find my way to the shelf and replace it.
Just as I set it back where it belongs, a shrill whistle echoes from overhead, muffled by the ceiling. It drones on in repeat, the familiar sound of a tornado siren. What the fuck is going on? Did the rain outside turn into a crazy storm? Or did someone set off that alarm on purpose? My mind flashes to that slab of stone in the other room. Maybe my offhand thought about it being for human sacrifices isn’t so far off, because if they somehow know what I’ve been doing, they’ll fucking kill me. I didn’t even look for hidden cameras.
One thing’s for fucking sure. It’s time to bail.
I run for the stairs, hoping they only tripped some alarm and didn’t decide to have a little fun burning down the school for their latest shenanigan. Racing up the stairs, I grip my dying phone in one hand, determination keeping me going. When I reach the top of the stairs, I throw my shoulder against the door like I’m escaping a bunch of psychos who just made me blow their leader on my knees. It’s like hitting a brick. Instead of flying open, the door holds fast.
Right. I closed it.
I take a breath, trying to calm my irrational fears, and grab the door handle.
It doesn’t give.
Fuck fuck fuck!
I rattle it frantically, as if I’ve somehow forgotten how a door works, as if I’ll find it magically unlocked. Modern locks are one thing, but I’ve never picked something like this, and any second now, I’m going to be doing it in the dark.
I shut off my phone’s screen and take a few deep breaths. Panicking is not going to fix anything. I take out my pocketknife and find the pick by touch. Picking a lock doesn’t require seeing what you’re doing, anyway. It’s all about feeling what you’re doing, and I’m perfectly capable of that. I slide it into the lock and stark poking around, trying to find the locking mechanism.
That’s when I hear a scuffling noise somewhere below me. I freeze, my blood running cold.
“Did you hear that?” asks a familiar, New York-accented voice. “There must be a mouse down here.”
“Or maybe a rat,” answers another, similar voice. A second later, a flashlight beam falls on me.
I cringe instinctually, too caught up in my fear to play it cool and act tough.
“See?” Baron says. “A rat.”
“Whatcha doing there, Jailbird?” Duke asks, a taunt in his voice. “Leaving so soon?”
