Page 59 of The Other Side
All too soon, I found myself knocking on Chance’s door, dressed in all black. Black sweater. Black yoga pants. And, thankfully, my only pair of sneakers were also black.
“Your ass looks great in those pants,” was the first thing Chance said when he got a good look at me. He snapped his mouth closed—dare I say, mortified—as if he hadn’t intended to voice his thoughts aloud.
As for me, my body was suddenly on fire, blushing from head to toe.
Not knowing how to respond to his comment without embarrassing myself, I turned on my heel and walked toward the stairwell. A moment later, Chance’s footsteps were close behind.
As we had hoped, at ten o’clock at night, the school was deserted, so we were able to make it down to the administrative offices undetected.
I’d instructed Chance to bring flashlights, as I didn’t want to worry about getting caught, knowing that without some form of light, the basement would be pitch-black and impenetrable. The lights he had procured were barely adequate, but we’d make do.
“I hate it down here. It’s definitely haunted, right?” he joked, keeping close enough that I could feel his body heat through the thin leggings.
“I’ll protect you,” I replied sarcastically.
“Oh yeah?” he challenged. “Who’s going to protect you?”
“Shut up, Chance,” I hissed. “I said no talking other than what’s necessary when we walked through this harebrained plan last night.”
“I didn’t think you were being serious. I thought you loved the sound of my voice.”
I scoffed, feeling around under Jolene’s desk for the hook hidden in the back corner, where she stashed the master key set she got tired of taking home every evening. “Gotcha!” I whispered victoriously.
Chance moved the beam of his flashlight to the lock on the records room door to help me see what I was doing. I sighed in relief when the door clicked open at the behest of the key. Careful not to allow us to be locked in, I instructed Chance to move the stone block against the door to hold it open.
“What is that smell?” Chance half-gagged when he entered the room.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“God, I hope not.” He placed a gentle hand at the small of my back. “What exactly should we be looking for, do you think?”
“I don’t know? A big red folder that says ‘Montgomery Prep Secrets’?” We hadn’t really thought much further than the idea that there had to be some record on campus about the missing girls.
“Hey look! Old trophies.” Chance grabbed one, but the gold-coated star must not have been securely fastened to the rest of it because the base landed on the stone floor with a loudcrack.
“Chance!” I barked. “Stop messing around! We have to make this quick so no one walks in on us breaking and entering.”
Snatching the top of the trophy from him and placing it on the ground, I gave him a gentle punch on the arm.
“Such a violent little muse.” He chuckled, rubbing his bicep, as if I could have actually hurt him.
“Stop calling me that.”
Chance hooked his arm around my waist from behind, pulling my back flush against his front.
“What? Little or muse?” he whispered, his lips right next to my ear.
“Both.” I shoved him away. “Do you want my help or not? I can’t think when you’re so close to me.”
A smile curved along Chance’s face, pleased at my admission.
“The school should keep incident logs—try to find those.” I ignored his continued advances and moved to the opposite side of the room, away from him and his infuriating magnetism.
“What are you going to do?”
“See if I can find any thicker-than-normal student files from the year the girls went missing.” I paused, having a sudden thought. “We should grab the 1992 yearbook too. That was theyear you said you thought they went missing, and the yearbooks in the lounge stop at 1988.”
He gave me a thumbs-up in agreement, and we got to work.
