“Your stress.” Then she leans over the table, places the drink menu on the side of her face so the other diners can’t read her lips, and says, “You need to get fucked.”
Then she leans back in her chair and smiles.
I just stare at her.
“Am I wrong?”
“No. Not really.”
“Cooper is ignoring you, isn’t he?”
I shrug. “He’s a little distracted as well.”
“It’s your fault, you know.”
“Is it?” I laugh.
“Of course. If your man loses interest it’s your job to bring him back.”
I ponder this. She’s being a total bitch, but she’s not wrong. In some ways. I’m not trying either. And then, before I can stop myself, I blurt, “I feel like everything is on hold.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… he’s busy with his project. That’s the most important thing. And I don’t blame that on him, I already know that Jack is breathing down his neck. So I feel like once that’s out of the way he’ll be back.”
Leela cocks her head at me. “Does he see Isabella?”
“I don’t know. Why?” I squint my eyes at her.
“He does, Cadee. He has been seeing Isabella. She has brought him dinner every day this week.”
“She has?”
“Yes. Sophie has gone with her. And Michael. It’s almost a double date.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Leela leans over the table and snatches my hand. I almost pull away, but catch myself just in time. “Because I care about you, of course. I’m in charge of your happiness.”
I make a face at her. “What do you mean?”
“I run all the Maidens, sweetie. It’s literally my job.”
“Oh.” Then I say it again. “Ohhhhh.” Because it suddenly makes sense.
“Would you like some advice?”
I shrug. “Sure. Why not.”
“Challenge him, Cadee. Give him an opportunity to rise to the occasion.”
And there are those words again. “How do I challenge him, Leela? What does that mean?”
“You want to see what it means?” She pulls her phone out of her purse, taps on it a few times, then hands it over to me. “Have a look.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - COOPER
Jack is not happy. Victor and I have done the seismic testing twice in the last week and came back with shit for results. Right now it’s seven at night, pitch dark out, and Jack and I are walking back to the family mansion for a serious meeting with Father about my research methods.
Inside, the house is quiet and dark and it suddenly occurs to me how weird it must be to live all alone in this giant house with no one to interact with except staff, who have all gone home for the weekend.
We find the Chairman in the kitchen. He looks pleasantly surprised to see us as he shoves the last bite of a sandwich in his mouth and chews through his smile.
Jack doesn’t wait for him to finish. “Nothing. He got nothing. Again. We’re wasting our time here. It’s somewhere else.”
My dad takes his time chewing. His eyes are on Jack, not me. And they’re narrowing down into slits in real time. I don’t say anything because it’s obvious that Jack is pissing him off. Finally, my father says, “Where do you suggest we look next, Jack?”
I interject. “What are we looking for?”
Jack glares at me. “Don’t start asking questions now, Cooper. It makes you look woefully uninformed instead of curious.”
I don’t even know what that means. And I do not care about this project. All I want to do is collect my data and pack this shit up.
“Are you going to throw a tantrum, Jack?” my father says. “Or did you interrupt my Friday night with a solution?”
“We do the Glass House next.”
My father shakes his head. “That place is only twenty years old. It’s not there.”
“You don’t know that. It’s in these woods and we need to find it.”
“Listen,” Dad says. “If you want Cooper to check the Glass House, make him check the Glass House. I don’t really care. Do you care, Cooper?”
“I give no fucks at all.”
I wait for my father to chastise me. Or, at the very least, glare at me. But I think I detect a slight smile.
“Great.” Jack looks at me. “You and Victor need to be at the Glass House at dawn. We will do the entire thing tomorrow.”
I’m fairly certain there’s no way in hell we’re gonna be able to do that. But I nod, then say, “Later,” and leave.
It’s Friday night, I’ve been working on this project non-stop all week, and Cadee texted just before Jack and I left the tomb. She’s got a surprise for me.
I’m actually excited about that.
There’s a party going on at the Hunter Building. This happens every single weekend. Both Friday and Saturday nights. It’s a lot of thumping, and strobe lights, and kegs lined up in the central courtyard. At least a hundred people drop by each weekend, which is nearly half the school. But tonight, it’s so packed when I go inside, I have to push people out of my way to reach the elevator.
Once inside, I sigh a breath of relief and lean against the back wall as I ascend.
If there’s one thing I hate about this dorm, it’s the parties. Every fucking weekend with the parties.
But then again, the last few days at the inn over fall break were painfully quiet.
Something has changed and I don’t know what it is.
Probably me, since I’m gone all the time working on Jack’s project.
That’s what I’m calling it now. Jack’s project. Because it’s certainly not mine and my father seems only marginally interested in the results.
The doors open and I step out, ready to turn to my right towards Cadee’s room so I can let her know I’m here, but then I stop in my tracks and just stare out at the bridge that spans the length of the courtyard in front of me.
“Cadee?” I squint my eyes. I can’t tell if it’s her because the woman on the bridge directly in front of me is painted up in white. Her whole body flashes with the black-light strobe from down below, making her alternate between dark and light.
There are a lot of symbols painted on her body in what appears to be red, but which only show up when the light is black.
Triangles, and circles, and—I can’t quite see her face, but something about it is not right.
“Cadee?”
The length of the bridge starts and ends just outside the doors to our rooms. Like a pathway to each other. But when you get off the elevator, it’s in profile. I turn to my left towards my room, never taking my eyes off Cadee as I make my way to the entrance of the bridge. It’s lined with high-end tabletop torches. Real flames shoot out of tall, silver cylinder canisters. The night is cold, but here the air is hot and I begin to sweat under my jacket.
Cadee waits in the center of the bridge. Directly in the middle. Both hands braced on the railing, and now that I’m looking at her from another angle, I can see that she is slightly bent over. Her ass up in the air.