Page 48 of Shattered Veil

Liam’s brow pinched together. “Why do you have to take off? I live next door. I’ll leave the door unlocked…if it looks like someone’s coming, we could warn you, and you could be in my apartment before you’re even seen.”

Colton shook his head so hard that a few inky black strands of hair fell across his forehead. He pushed them back and countered, “No, no, no. That implicates you.”

“Not if they don’t see you,” Zoey remarked.

“You have a security camera up,” Colton reminded both of them. “If a cop’s smart enough, they’ll ask for footage. They catch me on tape going in and out of 2D? Whatever, I’ll make sure my face is covered. They catch me going to your place…you’re an accomplice.”

“His camera can be easily taken down,” I stated.

“And then none of whatever you have to grab out of 2D is just floating around wherever you have to run,” Luke spoke up. “Take down Liam’s camera, get in, get out, get back to Liam’s apartment,” he added in a bitter murmur, “get out of our lives.”

“I’m not out of your lives until I’m chatting with you,” Colton pointed at me with purpose. “That aside—any other tenant could have a security camera. So many people have them on their doorbells and shit now. It’s too risky.”

Barely loud enough for me to hear, Luke whispered down to Claire, “2C?”

She murmured a quiet, “Don’t think so,” back to him, and just as he was about to speak to her once again, Colton voiced:

“Secret-secrets are no fun, guys—you got somethin’ to share with the class or what?”

Their nearly silent, two-sentence conversation didn’t need to be explained to me—2C was the only other apartment on the second floor aside from mine, Liam’s, and 2D, and it was obvious to me that Luke was questioning if our neighbor had a security camera.

Claire begrudgingly said, “I don’t think they have a camera up, but I’m with Colt.”

“Claire,” Luke complained.

Claire shrugged, his bothered tone not outwardly concerning her in the least. “Too risky. Even if there aren’t any other doorbell cams or whatnot, there are too many other factors. Walls are thin—downstairs neighbors could hear foot traffic if they’re awake. 2C could literally watch through their peephole since they’re right across the hall. Anyone in the entire complex could walk by and see him moving from 2D to Liam’s. All more reason why we’re not doing this shit.” Colton nodded emphatically as she spoke, and Claire looked to him. “Liam’s camera’ll stay up so we can keep an eye on the hall, and we’ll watch the entrance from down the road. We are in your ear and nothing else.”

“I’m with ya,” Colton replied quickly. “All goes as expected, we wanna just meet up here after?” All of our heads bounced in agreement, and Colton murmured, “’Kay…and for anything unexpected…if I take off, don’t try to distract whoever’s coming. Don’t try to intercept—that just points fingers back at you guys.”

“Alright,” Cassie murmured, “so…you run for it. We call you later?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “If I take off, my phone’s gone. I’m losing it however I can.”

“Wait—what?” Zoey asked with high brows. “How are we supposed to get back in contact or know if, I dunno, you’re on the run?!”

“Are you worried about me?” he cooed with a wry smile. “Zoey! I knew I’d grow on you.”

Liam snapped, “You’re not growing on anyone.”

Zoey patted Liam on the forearm without taking her narrowed gaze off Colton.

“I’m not worried about you, you fucking butt plug! I’m worried that any shit that you grab from that closet will be in police custody or—like Luke said—just floatin’ around wherever the hell you have to run off to!”

“See, it’s shit like that that makes me want to question this situation more,” Colton remarked. Zoey’s nostrils flared in silent response, and he held up his hands in defense. “I’m not gonna! Building trust,” he waved at himself and then the remainder of the group, “we’re building trust here. Anyway…you’re not gonna want me to keep my phone if the cops are after me. If I have that on me and the police see that you were the last point of contact and realize the call aligned to the time of the break-in…” He allowed his sentence to trail off without completing it because the insinuation was clear.

“Can’t you just delete your call history?” Luke questioned.

Colton returned, “From displaying on my phone? Yeah, but I’m gonna be a little preoccupied with getting the hell out of there—and that wouldn’t permanently remove it from my cell, either. If the cops want to plug it into a computer and do a deeper dive, it’s still gonna be there. All that data just gets hidden somewhere else unless you nuke it…like, wipe it clean, give it a factory reset as if you’re trying to sell the damn thing. I can’t exactly do that in a rush, so I’ll just ditch it somehow. Chuck it out a window, stab the screen with my keys a few times, try to flush it down the toilet—I’ve got options there. Anyway,” he continued without skipping a beat, “I’ll plan to come back here—right away if all goes to plan. After the dust settles, if shit goes sideways…probably a few days, maybe a week. I dunno. I’ll feel it out.”

“So, what,” Cassie asked him, “we just have to wait? You may just…disappear?”

“That’s the name of the game sometimes,” Colton told her with a shrug.

Everyone else remained silent, and I glanced to see Cassie shaking her head. It was the slightest movement, but I caught it nonetheless, and I assumed it was because she intended to speak privately with Colton afterward. The tone she had questioned him with was casual enough—well, it most likely sounded like a casual tone to the others who weren’t privy to the threat that Colton had presented earlier. It wasn’t casual in the least to me, though. I could hear anxiety laced in her voice…and though we had shared several moments in the past that were far more than tense, I had truthfully never heard that from her. Fear, I had heard—downright, to-the-bones terrified, I had heard. But anxiety—a hidden worry over what was to come—a nervousness over a loss of control—I had never heard that from her in the least. It was a fact that used to be astonishing to me.

I mean, she was beautiful, sarcastically witty, and stoic in the face of all things traumatic—what wasn’t there to be astonished about?

Now, however, as I heard the nervousness that she attempted to hide beneath the surface, I could feel her anxiety. Somehow, it surpassed all reason of biology, coursing through her skin and under mine.

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