“You start with her drawers, but be careful to return everything just as you found it.”
Grace nods. “Let’s hurry up. We don’t know when she might return.”
With a sigh, I start rummaging through the bags that are hanging on the wall. Aside from some receipts, notes from class, and a little bit of makeup, there’s nothing useful. She has a lot of fucking bags, and I’m just thankful not everyone is the same as my own, because that would’ve been too fucking creepy.
I sit on the floor, pushing the duvet up. It’s covering the bottom part of the bed, and somehow, I have a hunch there could potentially be something worth finding underneath.
My hand searches for anything underneath, and when I stretch further, I finally reach something. Slowly, I pull it out, only to be met with a small wooden box. Grace stops searching when she spots the box in my hands and sits on the floor next to me.
“Open it,” she urges, impatiently tapping her fingers against her thigh.
I take the lid off, tossing it aside, and start pulling the contents of the box out. It’s filled with letters, and a photo album. Grace reaches for the letters, and I start opening the album, flipping through the images.
The first couple of pages are with images of Astrid and Soren, dating from when they were kids, as early as five years old, up until a year ago. My heart aches at the sight of Soren, but I swallow a thick knot that forms in my throat and flip to the next page.
My heart sinks to my feet when I see all the pictures of Sawyer and Astrid. Some are very private, which I immediately skip. No one wants to see their brother in such a state. Then, there are photos from their dates, and in each one, they seem genuinely happy. They’re smiling, hugging, and kissing. From the outsider's perspective, they look like a picture-perfect couple.
I slam the photo album shut, setting it aside. “Anything on your end?”
“These are from Sawyer if you want to read,” Grace says, skimming through the contents of the letters.
“No, thanks,” I mutter.
“Alright then, it’s nothing important, really. Just him proclaiming his undying love for her,” she says with an exasperated, overly dramatic sigh. With a chuckle, I dig through the box a little more, spotting an envelope that’s different from the ones that have the letters.
With a frown, I pull the contents out, and it’s a bunch of sticky notes.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” I roll my eyes. “Let me read, will you?”
She scoffs. “Hurry the fuck up, then.”
“Oh.”
All of the sticky notes are brief, with a date and time. There’s nothing else written on them, and even when I flip them over, nothing. Grace takes the one at the bottom of the pile, and it’s the only different one.
“Look,” she points toward the small message written in cursive letters.
“Meet me in the room,” I read out loud. “What room?”
“Fuck if I know,” she shrugs. “But the handwriting matches the rest. Since this one was at the bottom, we can assume it was the first note Astrid received. But from whom?”
“Well, she’s a part of the Sinners and Saints crew,” I turn to look at Grace. “It could be from one of them?”
“And the first note was for her to know where to meet them,” Grace concludes. “But what room?”
“Wait,” I frown. “At the beginning of the school year, when I was called into Colton’s office to discuss all of that cheating scandal, he told me the school tried taking down the site multiple times, but it always popped back up. And that the IP address always traced back to the campus.”
Grace tilts her head to the side, deep in thought. “That means that somewhere on campus, there’s a room specifically for Sinners and Saints. It could be an unused dorm, one of the old labs in the basement that no one’s visiting, or even a part of the church behind the academy.”
I nod. “They have a place where they’re gathering, and it’s here. It’s somewhere no one will ever look, and they either keep everything in that room, or they’re using it as some sort of headquarters.”
“Oh, I’m getting the chills from excitement,” Grace squeals. “Okay, okay, so how do we find this room?”
“I don’t know,” I groan. “The latest note Astrid got was for tonight, so that means she’s already there.”
“Is there a pattern?”
