EIGHT
RUELLA
“You’re coming to the party, right?” Corden asks from his usual seat next to mine in the common room. We have made this part of our nightly routine. We meet at 9pm in the comfy chairs between the fireplace and the bookshelves, I make a Horlicks and he drinks a tea as we discuss our days.
Corden is fast becoming a real friend here along with Deena, it might seem off topic for the mission I am on, but Corden is a vault of information and knows way too much gossip for someone who was at a different university for the last few years.
That’s how I found out about Piper. The name that was whispered around the room after Asher ran off. Corden filled some of the blanks, but not all of them. I know Piper is Asher’s younger sister, she resides in Deveroux house, and that something traumatic happened to her last year.
What that is, no one knows but Asher Vander, Jacob Evans and Daylan Bandini, who are always glued to her side. What made me so curious is that this so-called traumatic event happened around the same time Marlowe disappeared, and again strikes me as odd that one girl can be whispered about for some mental health issues, yet a girl can go missing in the middle of the night, and no one says a thing.
I need to know more but for some reason I still haven’t mentioned her name. Corden was about to gossip moreabout Piper until Deena chastised us for being unkind, that Piper deserved more respect than everyone whispering about her behind her back, so we shut up. I intend to push again soon though.
“What party?” I ask before taking a sip of the warm malty nectar in my favourite mug.
He shakes his head like he always does. “The welcome back to rager in the forest. Saturday night,” He smiles.
“No thanks. Sounds like the perfect opportunity for Darcy to take out some more revenge,” The blonde bitch has made it her mission to get in some verbal dig or elbow me every day, for the past four days. I will not be giving her the opportunity to take out her frustrations with Asher on me in a dark forest, with no staff and completely smashed.
“Ohhhh come on. Even Deena’s going,” he points in her direction from her seat on the floor, her back against the coffee table as she types away on her laptop. This is the first time she’s joined us and even though she stays quiet, she seems to be enjoying herself.
My eyebrows raise. “You’re going to the rager?” She nods as I take another sip. My thoughts spiralling with a perfect idea.
“Wait!” I sit up straight with a knowing grin. “This is perfect,”
“What is?” Deena asks looking up from her screen.
“On Saturday night, we show our faces at the party and wait until everyone is drunk,” Corden nods in excitement. “Then we sneak away to the records room,” I whisper. “If anything comes of it, we are seen with everyone else at the party,”
Deena smiles for the first time and I hear a little cheer in the back of my mind.
“That’s a pretty good idea actually,” Deena shuts her laptop and gives us her full attention. “Did you get everything you needed?” She asks Corden.
“Came this morning,” he smiles back.
“Then its settled, we meet here at nine and stick with each other throughout the party, make sure we talk to enough people to be noticed and then slip away,” We all nod in agreement.
“To the office hours extended!” Corden holds out his mug, I wince.
“That really is a terrible name,” We all clink our drinks before laughing.
“What?” Corden shrugs. “It makes sense, we are up to something after hours”.
After another half an hour finalising the plan for when we get back into the academy on Saturday, we part ways.
As I walk up to my bedroom a girl stops me on the stairs. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun and she has on a Marrowton academy sports jumper, but I don’t recognise her from this house.
“Hey,” she says with a smile. “Have you seen Bronwyn?”
I furrow my brows. “Bronwyn?” I ask. “Sorry, I’m new so I don’t really know everyone yet,”
She nods with a frown. “No worries. That’s her room,” She gestures behind her to the door one floor beneath my own. “If you see her, will you tell her to answer her damn phone and to email Mrs. Young and apologise for missing practice,”
“Erm, yeah sure,”
“Thanks,” Then she pads barefoot down the stone stairs like it isn’t as cold as a fridge in here.
I inspect Bronwyn’s door as I walk past, trying to remember if I had ever seen anyone coming and going from that room. But I can’t.
