“It’s a start. Is Karen still staying at your house?”
“Yeah, Dad said he’d rather we all stay there until this is over.”
“How’s he doing?”
“After getting over the initial shock about him going missing and feared for dead? Fine. He just can’t believe two esteemed doctors would turn on him and fabricate a story like that.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever understand it.”
The problem ran deep and was centuries old. I wasn’t sure there was much we could do aside from sue the Maslows and The Institute. The orphanage was no longer standing, so we couldn’t go after them. It wasn’t like Stella needed the money, or Eva now, but who knew how many other patients they had like this.
“Are they done searching your premises?”
“No, they’re still out there. I don’t even know what they’re looking for at this point.”
“Maybe they’re just being nosey and want to see what it is The Swords do for kicks.”
“Well, they won’t find much.” I smiled. “We’re not as creepy as people think we are.”
“You call it hunting when you look for new members. That’s pretty creepy.”
I shrugged. Maybe it was creepy and I wasn’t entirely sure where they could go from here. I’d set up a meeting about that later tonight, but first I had to make sure Eva wouldn’t do anything else that would put her in danger and the only way I knew to do that was to stay at the hospital until they let her go home later.
“You could just have an open-invite policy,” Mae suggested.
“That would take away the secret aspect of the society,” I said.
“You have to change with the times, man,” Logan added.
They weren’t suggesting anything outlandish. Most of the other secret societies weren’t very secretive at all. They’d shed their cloaks and invited outsiders, people who had no previous ties to the societies. They published their names in the school newspaper. Maybe that was the future of The Swords as well. Maybe they needed to hang up their cloaks. It could be a beginning, but it wouldn’t solve the issue entirely. They all—The Swords, The Eight, The Seven, Skull and Bones, the Order of Gimghoul, Quill and Dagger—needed to adapt to the times. They needed to be more inclusive and work on minimizing the bad reputations they’d gained over the years because of their misconducts.
Those were things I would have to do from another position. I’d been giving it a lot of thought and decided that I’d be passing the baton to Will. I’d still be around to help out and attend major events, but it would be up to Will to report to whoever the next person in charge was. So far, the benefactors hadn’t said. They did write everyone a letter stating that they cut ties with the church, and that bit of news helped ease the discomfort. According to the interim chancellor, the Byzantine priest as well as the monks and nuns had gone rogue over forty years ago and hadn’t been backed by the archdiocese. Whether or not the newcomers knew that was a different story.
“Adam, are you listening?”
“What?” I blinked and pushed my thoughts aside.
“Is Eva okay?”
“Yeah, she’ll be fine as long as she stops looking for trouble.”
“Did her mom survive?” Nolan asked.
“All of the nuns did,” I said, except for Wendy. She’d sacrificed herself, after all. “They’re still in police custody.”
“Jesus.” Will exhaled. “Who would have thought?”
“I told you to join The Eight,” Nora said, “but you’re too stubborn.”
“As if The Eight doesn’t have its own issues,” I responded. “You think a sex ring scandal like the one you guys have will just go away?”
“It’s not a scandal,” Logan said.
“Not yet.” I shot him a look. “Until one of the girls decides to speak up and bring you all down.”
“That won’t happen,” Mae said. “They all were there willingly and signed contracts, so unfortunately, even the ones who should speak out and be heard, probably won’t.”
“And it wasn’t our society, it was the benefactors who created a separate entity,” Nolan said. “We have nothing to do with it.”
“I’m just saying, don’t act surprised when those worlds collide and you’re all screwed over.”
“My father is no longer the president of The Eight and he was the main source of the problem, so I don’t think that’ll happen,” Mae said.
“Rings aren’t usually controlled by just one person. Look at what happened to us.”
“What’s still happening,” Wolf said. He’d been oddly quiet this entire time, scrolling his phone, so when he turned it over to the rest of them and they saw the headline, all of their jaws collectively dropped.
Fetus Remains Found Buried in Yard of Rogue Priests’ Homes
“So much for keeping secrets,” Nora murmured.
“According to this article, the Catholic Church says they stopped funding or accrediting these people over thirty years ago,” Mae said.
I knew that. It was what I’d heard from Riley, but fetuses? Disgust rolled through me. How long had these things been going on while I was there? While I waved at them. While I spoke to Father Becker and played the piano for him.
“I guess it’s a good thing you’re an atheist.” Nolan punched my shoulder playfully.
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. I knew my brother was trying to lure me into going on a rant about religion, but I wouldn’t give in. I was too busy trying to find ways to leave this organization better than I found it and in a sense, it would be, but it could always be better.
Chapter Forty-Three
Eva
He kept on coming back. I didn’t know why. I’d been awful the last few days. I was either not speaking at all or shouting all of my words. It was like I’d regressed to my teenage years and I couldn’t find a way to control my anger for the injustices. Stella blamed my new medication. She said it would take a while to adjust to them. I imagined she was right. It still sucked to not feel like I was in control of my emotions though, especially around people who were being so kind to me.
“Adam’s here.” Karen’s voice was soft.
I looked up at her from my place at the window bench I was perched on and nodded. We’d been staying at Dr. Thompson’s rental, a mansion he’d been staying at for a while, since he started working at The Institute in the middle of last year. He’d invited us here and hired some private security badasses to keep us safe. And yet, I felt unsafe. Of course, Dr. Thompson had apologized for dragging me into all of this. He’d been trying to protect his own daughter. He genuinely thought he’d be able to get me out of The Manor in a day, two days tops, once he got to the bottom of everything. He hadn’t realized there was no bottom to this, no end. He hadn’t expected The Maslows to go after him the way they did, to bully him into hiding out by using his daughter’s safety against him, to plant stories about his mysterious disappearance. The entire thing was troubling, and now they’d found remains of unborn children and children born and killed right away. After interviewing the monks and nuns they had in custody, they found that the rapes had been happening for decades and because the women weren’t allowed birth control, this was their way of covering them up.