“Yeah, since freshman year,” he answers.
“What’s the deal with that place?” I continue brightly. “Is it like Hogwarts for future senators? Or moreEyes Wide Shutbut with better lighting?”
“What?” Thomson glances around like he’s expecting someone to pop out and yellgotcha.
I press on. “How do you know what to do?” I pause. “You know…the rules. The expectations. Who decides what.” I take a breath, try to sort out which questions are the most important. “I’m just curious, you know, since I live there now and all. So far, no one’s really explained anything. Like what exactly is The Order? Why do you have to obey it?”
The effect is instantaneous.
Thomson snaps his head toward me, eyes wide, the blood draining from his face. “Who said that word to you?”
“Which one?” The smile slips off my face, “Rules? Obey? Order?”
“The Order,” he whispers so softly I can barely hear him.
“Carrson mentioned it this morning, but he didn’t explain what it was.”
Thomson rubs his hand over his face, groaning. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why?” I whisper, becoming alarmed.
Thomson hisses, low and urgent. “You can’teversay that word in public. I’m serious. You don’t understand.”
“I’d like to,” I say, my tone still light, but my pulse is hammering. “That’s kind of the whole problem.”
He glances left and then right, like he’s checking to make sure no one heard. Since the closest person is two rows ahead, we’re most likely in the clear.
At the front of the room, the professor clears her throat and begins her lecture, asking us to open our books to Chapter Twelve.
Thomson turns away from me. He stares straight ahead. Doesn’t meet my eyes. Barely moving his lips, he mutters out the side of his mouth, “Meet me after class.” A beat. “I’ll tell you what I can.”
***
The minute class ends, I stand. So does Thomson. We don’t speak. He just gives me a look, tight, unreadable, and heads toward the side exit. I follow, slinging my bag over my shoulder, heart pounding in my ears.
He leads me down a back hallway and out onto a side path behind the biology building, where the trees are thick and no one ever goes unless they’re smoking or hiding.
He stops beside an old stone bench, its surface streaked with moss and spotted green with lichen, like something pulled from a crumbling garden behind wrought-iron gates. Thomson glances around until he spots Stevenson. They have some kind of unspoken conversation that ends with Thomson jerking his chin back toward the main campus. Stevenson nods once and turns, disappearing without a word. I’d assumed Thomson wasn’t that important. He seemed like one of the quieter ones, but the way Stevenson followed his silent order without hesitation? Yeah, I might need to reevaluate who’s actually pulling the strings around here.
He turns to me and says, “What do you know? Let’s start there.”
I shrug, trying to sound casual. “Not much.” A beat and then I say, “I know what I hear, that your fraternity runs everything around here. The school. The town. That you control all the illegal stuff. Drugs. Guns. Gambling.”
He says nothing, just watches.
“I know what I see,” I continue. “You’re all rich. Good-looking. Privileged. At first, I figured you were just spoiled brats throwing around daddy’s money and always getting your way.” I pause, swallowing. “Then I saw…that man. When I delivered pizza.” I glance at him. “Carrson, he keeps talking about bonds, obey, and The Order.”
My voice drops, quieter now. “It made me realize how much I don’t know. I’m going to be around for a year. I feel like I need to have at least a basic understanding, so I don’t get myself, or you, into trouble.”
Thomson stretches his legs and stares down at his shoes like he’s weighing something. Like he’s deciding just how much rope he can give me without hangingus both.
“What you said was true,” Thomson says quietly. “The Order controls everything. All the illegal stuff and most of the legal things too, but there’s a lot more to it. I can’t tell you everything, and, honestly, there’s a lot evenIdon’t know. They keep things from us until we’re older.”
“Who’sthey?”
“The Fathers.”
“You mean your dads?”
