At one point, Hazel comes to join us, but I resist the urge to tell her what’s going on. I think she picks up on the fact that something is strange, because she keeps glancing at me with a worried look in her eyes. Still, the last thing I want is anyone else getting involved in this. And besides, Hazel wasn’t named in the documents that Silas found. This doesn’t affect her, at least not yet, and she shouldn’t have to be dragged into it just because she was kind to me on my first day at the Academy.
By the time dinner rolls around and it gets dark outside, I feel like I’m about to go crazy with anticipation. I’m aware that what we’re planning could land us all in deep shit, and as much as I don’t want to risk my place in this newfound home, I want answers more. And besides… what if this isn’t as much of a home as I once thought it was?
We decide to wait until it’s dark out, when most of the faculty has already gone to bed. In spite of my concern that there would be monitors in the dormitory, it’s empty when I finally creep out of my room and into the hallway, doing my best not to make the old floorboards creak as I move. At one point I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I find myself paralyzed with fear until a bleary-eyed, confused-looking student passes me. My nerves are all frayed, and by the time I make it down to the common area and out to the front, the smallest sound is enough to make me jump.
The others are waiting for me when I step outside. They all look uncomfortable and vaguely nervous, but looking into their eyes shows me nothing but grim determination.
“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” Hunter mutters as we begin to make our way across the quad to the academic building. “If my dad finds out-”
“He won’t,” Shade says, waving him off.
“How do you know?” Hunter hisses. “What if someone walks in on us?”
“Then just tell them you wanted a secret place to make out with Boots,” Shade says teasingly.
It’s hard to tell in the dark, but I could swear I see Hunter go a bit red at the thought. “Whatever.”
“Guys, can we focus, please?” asks Landon as we come to a stop outside the administration side of the building. “We’re not--”
Shade claps a hand over his mouth.
Landon struggles for a moment before he notices what has the wolf shifter’s attention: a light has come on in one of the upper rooms. “Shit,” I hiss, and the four of us press ourselves up against the side of the building. We’re in the shadows, but the light shines like a beacon in the darkness, and it’s all I can do not to panic and make a break for it. My mind is racing: what if they see us? Shade’s jokes aside, how on earth are we supposed to explain this away? What will they do to us?
Relax, I tell myself, closing my eyes. You knew there was a risk when you decided to do this.
Unthinking, I find myself reaching out and grabbing Landon’s hand as we wait in tense silence in the shade of the building. He looks surprised, his eyes meeting mine for a moment, and then he grins, giving my hand a squeeze. His touch is both comforting and electrifying, and for the next several seconds I just try to focus on the feeling of his hand in mine.
What feels like an eternity later, the light upstairs finally goes off, and I let my breath out in a whoosh.
“We have to be careful,” whispers Hunter. “I think they heard us.”
“Go slow,” I whisper back, nodding at the door. “You have the key, right?”
“Of course,” Hunter replies, and fumbles in his pocket for a moment before extracting a skeleton key like the ones that unlock the dorm rooms. He stares at it for a few seconds, biting his lip, and then shakes his head, sighing. “Here goes,” he says, and slides it into the lock. There’s a click, and I watch as the vampire pushes open the heavy wooden door. He does it slowly, deliberately, to avoid squeaking, and I hardly dare to breathe as I creep through, the others following behind me.
As soon as the door shuts behind us, we’re in complete darkness. “Does anyone have a--” I begin, but Shade beats me to it, turning on his phone and using the light to illuminate the hallway. It’s strange seeing this place in the dark; it feels eerie somehow, not homey the way it did when I first arrived at the school. Things were simpler then, I realize: no conspiracies, no vanishings, no worrying myself sick over the fate of someone I cared about…
But, I realize as I glance behind me at the others, that was because back then, I didn’t have anyone I cared about. I had never been this close to anyone before, and I never in a million years would have expected to bond this profoundly, this naturally, with a group of people the way I have with my friends at the Academy. Maybe it really is predestination or something. Could we have always been meant to cross paths again?
We follow the hallway to the registrar’s office, which is locked up tight. Hunter pulls out another key and lets us in, looking nearly crippled with fear. I can’t blame him.
“So what are we looking for?” Shade asks, pushing the door closed behind us.
“My file,” I reply. “Yours, too. All of ours. Is it alphabetized?”
“Looks like it,” Landon says, squinting at the filing cabinets in the darkness.
Shade seems to be having no trouble reading the labels. “Do you have super vision
