Chapter 49

Larissa

"How do you always manage to drag me into things like this?"

Bay looked around in all directions as if there would be someone else around at this time of night, while I was busy trying to open the little iron lock decorated with stone tendrils and snakes that just wouldn't open.

The last time I had broken in somewhere was three months ago. It must have been a ring store, yes . And the locks of jewelry stores were always harder to pick than the conventional ones anyway. So, I was all the more annoyed that this damn lock from the last century wouldn't open.

"Now, relax and try to help me," I sighed, frustrated.

Bay stood next to me with her arms crossed. "Which one of us is the one with the criminal background?"

I ignored the comment.

Bayla thought she knew my whole story, but she didn't know the half of the shit she'd been spared as the child of a rich scientist.

"This lock is weird. I'm only used to those cheap things or jeweler's locks... What this is..." I hit the stupid snake again, half of which was covering the lock. "I absolutely can't tell you."

"Let me see." Bay pulled me aside as if she actually had a clue.

"Whoever this professor is, he seems to want to protect himself well... For whatever reason!" I let out in frustration.

He couldn't seriously expect someone to think of breaking into his office. A boring university director.

"Maybe he has good reasons," Bay muttered in thought.

"Do you think he's involved in this drug thing?"

All those things Grace said every day about the Copelands made no sense at all. It felt like everyone was dangerous if it was up to her or Vivienna's clique.

Who could you trust if even the director of Vanderwood was a mafia member?

Bay looked at me for a moment, as if she wanted to get something important off her chest, but then looked back down at the lock.

"If you know something, you should tell me now ."

I leaned against the wall and gave my best friend a scrutinizing look.

It was a wonder I'd managed to follow the Adams all the way to Blairville without them seeing me. I'd driven right behind them a good five times, and that was on a motorcycle.

"I don't know, Larissa, I wouldn't trust anyone here if I were you. This town is the embodiment of a rumor mill, and maybe not without reason."

There we had it. You couldn't trust anyone. Still, it was a dull little town. Nothing remarkable.

I could hardly imagine anything being worse than the streets of Sacramento. At least I had a roof over my head now, and a very nice one as well. I didn't want to go back to that stinking hole, that old life on the streets without a permanent home.

It really felt like a new chapter, as I had had the opportunity to take my best friend with me and leave all the garbage of the past behind me. Jackpot indeed.

It was horrible how hard it had been to get rid of all those toxic relationships and gangs, because they had always found me again. Sacramento had never been safe. Even for someone like me who had been born into it, where mums did drugs, drunk dads beat their kids and disappeared to the cigarette machine, never to return. The place where homeless children struggled on the streets for everything they were denied.

I had already seen a few people die. And I was glad that I had made it this far.

I deeply hoped that everything would change from now on, and I hoped that things would work out with my studies. I simply had no other choice.

Bayla paused and looked at me.

"Larissa..." she began hesitantly. "I wanted to ask you what you think about the idea of getting out of here." I raised both eyebrows. "I have a packed bag at my mother's vacation home, and..."

"Wait a second..." I interrupted her, confused. "You want to go back?"

She pressed her lips together as if she was afraid of my reaction.

"This town is weird," she continued. "Girls disappear from campus here and die in the woods somewhere."

"You're not still thinking about that murder..." I murmured, tilting my head with a furrowed brow.

Bay widened her eyes. "Larissa, something like that is horrible!"

"Don't be so loud," I warned her in a low voice. "And don't be like that." If only she knew that one death was nothing compared to the crowds of people who died every day in big cities because they overdosed, were killed by gangsters or simply starved to death on the street. "We have it really good here. And just because the people here are a bit weird doesn't mean we have to be the same."

Bay looked down at the ground in despair.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

"You've got me, and I won't leave again, I promise."

She looked up. Then she nodded, slowly, but still with a desperate expression, and turned back to the lock.

I wondered if I'd ever be ready to talk to Bay about the past, or if she'd judge me the same way Olivia did back in high school.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I asked Bay, who by now was sliding her hands along the doorframe instead of turning her attention to the lock.

"The lock looks like it's locked by a certain mechanism... But I don't understand it... Maybe there's something on the frame."

Bayla had a wild imagination when it came to this. She had been writing stories or telling me about her books full of mystery and intrigue since elementary school. We'd spent hours with our flashlights in my old orphanage because Bay had been sure she'd seen a ghost, and at her house, we'd decorated castles of blankets with fairy lights and cuddly blankets so she could read to me late into the night – at least until the renowned spoilsport Diana had turned up and sent us to bed.

"Only you could come up with something like that."

I grinned at her with amusement. She tilted her head and gave me that typical Are you serious? look.

"I'm trying to help you, okay?"

She sounded more irritated than usual. Something seemed to be stressing her out.

Outside, the wind howled, causing an eerie noise in the empty porticoes of the ancient building.

I automatically pulled my biker jacket a little tighter around my waist. It had suddenly become so cold.

"Do you like him?" I asked Bay, trying to distract myself a little.

She seemed to know immediately who I was talking about because she paused for a moment before continuing to examine the door frame on her tiptoes.

"He's so annoying."

I raised an eyebrow. "Oh, yeah?"

She always said she wasn't into go-getters.

I'd tried to convince her to flirt with Ezra yesterday at Midnights, but she'd complained nonstop about having a headache.

What a lousy excuse.

"Really." Bayla sounded annoyed. "And don't always raise your eyebrow like that. It's unfair."

I grinned.

Typical Bay.

Clack.

"Oh my God!" I gasped.

The stone snake moved over the massive lock and finally disappeared into the keyhole.

"What the..."

Bayla and I looked at each other in surprise and I couldn't suppress my joy.

"Whoever had been the architect of this building, holy shit ."

I couldn't describe it any other way. Who came up with such creative and yet really unnecessary ideas? Especially as it had looked almost real.

"Your turn," Bayla whispered, taking another look at the lock.

I took my tools, which were my only memento of Sacramento, and fiddled with the now exposed lock until I heard another soft click.

"Wow, why am I friends with you, you little criminal?" Bayla laughed with amusement, and I couldn't help but look at her with mock annoyance.

"Come on, without me, you would have grown up like a little princess in a glass castle."

I pushed down the handle and indeed, it worked. The wooden door opened, and a dark room lay in front of us, bathed in the moonlight that shone through the huge windows.

I turned to look at Bay, who only now seemed to realize that she had volunteered to do this.

"Do I have to go in there alone ?" She looked at me in remorse.

"We can't both go in. One of us has to keep watch."

She looked around the corridor for a moment, as if there was a lot left to think about, but I simply pushed her into the room.

"You'll manage."

"But..."

Then I just closed the door and looked around carefully.

It was even scarier here alone than together. The wind had picked up. A storm was raging outside. The weather here took me some time to get used to, and I was struggling hard with the cold. I wouldn't survive here on the streets.

But why was I still even thinking about it? I was here now, and I had somewhere to stay.

Clack.

The sound of a stone echoing in the corridors snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked around frantically, but there was no one to be seen.

Larissa, relax. The wind is just too strong.

I leaned against one of the columns in the corridor.

The office was in the middle of the building, right in the large tower that connected the east and west wings, so it was in a good position to get caught.

Then there was a scratching sound on the stone floor.

Creak.

I looked around, but it was too dark.

The wind, Larissa. Relax.

I could just go in to Bay, but the aim wasn't to rot in there, but to disappear again along with what we were looking for.

I suddenly became impatient.

For fuck's sake! How long did it take to find a piece of paper?

A howl sounded in the distance and I got goosebumps again.

It definitely hadn't been the wind. I wondered if it had been one of the wild wolves in the Blairville woods.

I heard a sharp gust of wind from one side of the corridor and spun around. I suddenly felt like I was being watched, as if I wasn't alone.

In a hurry, I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and shone the flashlight in the direction where the noise had come from.

Nothing.

I turned around to check the other direction, but something was blocking my way.

Someone.

I wanted to scream, but this someone put his cold hand over my mouth so that only a soft whimper escaped.

He looked around to the right and left and then dragged me into a side corridor where the moon was shining directly on us through the side windows.

This made me realize who I was dealing with.

My heartbeat slowed down a little, only to speed up again.

It was fucking Adrian DeLoughrey , standing here in front of me, slowly taking his hand away from my mouth and indicating with his finger in front of his mouth that I should be quiet.

When I nodded, still a little shaken, he walked to the corner of the hallway, looked both ways and came back.

I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

"What are you still doing out here at this hour?" he asked me searchingly.

His brown eyes literally pierced me. Then they began to glow dark red. I staggered back, startled.

"What the..."

Adrian turned away from me and looked into the corridor. When he looked back at me, his eyes were back to normal.

It could well be that my subconscious was playing tricks on me again, perhaps because I was so excited. Or he was really on drugs.

He came closer.

"You still haven't answered my question."

He sounded impatient, almost demanding.

I swallowed, thinking about Bay, who was still in there, but I couldn't tell Adrian about that. We had a mission and the guy would snitch on us, no doubt about it.

"I wanted to take pictures."

He looked down at me.

"Without your camera?"

"I have my cell phone..." I said quickly.

He eyed me as if he didn't want to believe me. Then, to my relief, he moved back a little and looked around the corridor again, almost as if he was afraid of being caught. Just what for?

When I remembered his threat from the last encounter, I was overcome with fear and stumbled backwards toward the window. He seemed to notice, because he turned back to me.

"Larissa," he murmured as he grabbed my arm. "Even though you seem to be bursting with boldness..." His grip loosened, and his hand traveled further up, over my shoulders. "...especially after what you said yesterday…" His finger traveled along my collarbone, and up my throat. I swallowed again and realized that my breathing had become shallow. "You better watch out for me." He looked me in the eyes again, firm, convinced by his own words. His expression was made of steel. "But, at this moment, I'm the least of your problems."

What did he mean by that?

A howl could be heard, this time a little closer than before.

Adrian listened carefully.

Clack.

He wheeled around, but there was nothing there.

He quickly turned back to me and grabbed my arm, only to lead me out of the side corridor and back into the main corridor where I was supposed to keep an eye out for Bayla. He kept pulling me toward one of the wide spiral staircases that led us down to the first floor and out of the main building.

"Wait," I pressed out in tension, because I wasn't ready to leave Bay behind. "Where are you taking me?"

"Away from here," he said, looking around in several directions and then pulling me past the wall, toward the way I always came from in the morning.

"Why?" I asked, a little out of breath because he was walking so fast.

We were already in the overgrown colonnade that led to the new off-campus houses.

I wanted to stop again, to say something, but I didn't know what to say without endangering Bay or the mission.

Adrian looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, his dark hair all tousled from the wind. I recognized a blue line on his jaw. Was that paint?

But he turned away from me too quickly, ready to drag me along with him.

A little too late, but at least at all, an inner voice reminded me that you didn't just let men drag you along, no matter where, if you didn't know the guy or his plans.

I stopped so abruptly that I automatically forced Adrian to pause.

"I'm not taking another step until you tell me where we're going."

"Why do you have to be so stubborn and insistent?" he asked, then came toward me.

"Wait, what?"

Without warning, he grabbed me by the waist, threw me over his shoulders like I was a sack of potatoes and started moving again.

I wriggled as hard as I could.

"Don't even try," I heard him growl.

He picked up speed. The trees rustled around us. By now it had become a really violent storm and I could see branches sweeping past us.

I tried to break free again, but his grip was so damn tight.

What on earth was going on with this guy? Was he perhaps trying to kidnap me?

Heat burned in my cheeks.

Then, very abruptly, he stopped and set me down. Natural light illuminated our faces, and now I could see him better. I looked around and, to my surprise, we were at the front door of my accommodation.

That had been quick...

"How do you know where I live?"

He scrutinized me.

"You ask too many questions." Before I could protest, he continued. "I want you to go in now. This is neither the right time nor the appropriate weather for that kind of activity."

Wow , Adrian DeLoughrey was being protective. Only there was one problem: I didn't need a daddy substitute.

"Excuse me, but are you trying to dictate how and where I spend my time?"

Adrian narrowed his brow. He seemed to be getting impatient.

"Just listen to me."

And again, he looked around, but apart from the storm and the treetops dancing in the wind, there was nothing.

He must be paranoid.

"Trust me. If you go outside, I'll notice."

I rolled my eyes and turned to the door to go inside and contact Bay as soon as possible. Then I remembered something else.

I looked around, but... there was no sign of Adrian. He was gone as quickly as he had arrived. And our mission with him.

Bay was on her own and somehow, I didn't like the thought at all.

What if Adrian had had a good reason for taking me away? The reason he had been looking around the whole time...

The wind whistled through the trees, cracking the branches. I felt a little queasy in my stomach. Then, very quickly, I slipped back into the house through the door and decided to text Bayla.