Page 47 of Half Truths (Secret Society 1)
“Our practice was also iconic,” he said. “You stayed for the entire thing. Usually, people come, snap a pic or two and leave.”
“It was entertaining.”
“We aim to please.” He winked.
I couldn’t help myself, I smiled, shaking my head. He was such a flirt. Between him and Logan, there was no way a girl stood a chance. My phone vibrated in my hand. I glanced at it.
“Shit. I have to go. My Uber’s waiting. Good seeing you, Nolan.”
“You too, Mae,” he called out as I turned around and started walking. “We can hang out outside of bed too, you know. Unlike Fitz, I’m not opposed to having real friends that I don’t hook up with.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I called out.
I thought about it the entire way to the library. Logan didn’t have friends that he didn’t hook up with? What did that even mean?
Chapter Twenty
There was a chill in the air as I walked to the library that had less to do with the weather than it did with my mood. I wasn’t sure if it was the tower chimes, and how eerie what they were playing tonight was, or the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking about whatever meeting may be going on in there at the moment. Maybe it was that I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about whether or not the black cloaks were still following me. They’d left me that note saying they were watching me and I fully expected one of them to pop out in the middle of the night. The wind picked up with a hum, and I held my coat closed tighter, lowering my head to fight against it.
When I finally got into the library, I exhaled a shaky, cold, breath and walked to the back, where there were tables set up everywhere and I felt like I had my own little work space. I sent the pictures I’d taken on the camera to my phone, and emailed them straight to Ella Valentine. She’d been kind enough to let me take all of those days off and Max had been awesome and taken pictures of the football team’s first home game while I’d been away. Sending these pictures was probably not a big deal to Ella, but I definitely felt good about completing another assignment.
Slinging my bag on the table, I set it down softly and opened it to pull out Lana’s laptop. I’d switched it out with my brother’s after still finding nothing of interest in his. I spent fifteen minutes opening folder after folder on Lana’s laptop and not finding anything, until I saw a folder labeled: PERSONAL SHIT and inside of that, another folder labeled: PORN. I hesitated. I didn’t want to see Lana’s personal videos, especially if she was having sex in them, but it could just be regular porn. Either way, I clicked the file. Instead of videos, what I saw were word documents titled by date.
April 1st—
By the time I got to the Gorges and knocked on the door, it was 12:05 am. He greeted me with a smile and told me I was late. Tardiness was unacceptable. I told him I’d make it worth his while. I’d never spoken to anyone that boldly before, and I definitely never imagined speaking to him like that, but once the words left my mouth and I saw darkness encompass his gaze, I knew I had him. He’d asked me to bring a friend, and I couldn’t. That was another thing I’d have to apologize for, or pay for, depending on how you looked at it. The next day, I had welts on my backside and a soreness I’d never felt between my legs, but I’d never felt more alive.
It ended there. My jaw dropped. She’d been right to label it porn. Who had she been with though? There were files dated from April through May. She’d disappeared sometime in May. I checked the date of the last file. May 23. I Googled Lana Ly to verify when in May she’d disappeared and caught my breath when all of the searches with her picture came up. Missing girl: Lana Ly. Another missing student. Kidnapping victim or runaway? My eyes were riveted on that word: another. I clicked on one article, then another, until I ended up on a Reddit message board about the missing students. According to Reddit, which I knew to only take with a grain of salt, girls had started going missing on campus since 1902. One of the users said the reason it wasn’t made a bigger deal was because a lot of the girls came back, claiming they’d just run away for a little while. Some people on the message board suspected a serial killer in the area. Others argued that was stupid because if that was the case, the cops would be vigilant and on it. The serial killer topic caused an argument between people that went on for forty pages.
