Page 48 of Brat Baby
Eventually, my heart slows enough that it doesn’t feel like blood is pumping furiously through my veins and I’m able to think past the fear and darkness.
I run through the facts to try and calm down enough to move. The building and our dorm require student tokens to get in, and only mine and Oakley’s tokens will get our door open. Unless she invited a random in, then it’ll only ever be her and me here, and Oakley doesn’t seem like the type to invite someone over without giving me a heads-up.
There is no one in my room.
There is no one in my room.
It takes several more repetitions to convince my nervous system that there is no one else in my room and it’s safe to move my arm. Carefully, I reach for my phone on the bedside table, see that it is just past four in the morning, and activate the flashlight, flooding the room with light.
I almost pass out with relief when my room is definitely empty of any other life form. Sweat covers every inch of my body. Sitting up, I throw off the blankets and suck in several ragged breaths as the cool air washes over my skin. My hands tremble the smallest amount as my body recovers from the several minutes of flight mode.
With the room being empty, I scan the space to try and find what caused the noise that woke me up, searching for anything that could spontaneously make a metallic sound.
Carefully, I raise up onto my knees and use the flashlight to check the floor but find nothing that wasn’t already there frombefore I went to sleep. Raising my arm, I check my closet. The door is slightly open, but I’m pretty sure that’s how I left it before I fell asleep.
Moving on to my desk, I immediately freeze when I see my textbooks piled high in a pristine stack, right in the center. That is definitely not how I left them. Nor is my chair, which is now facing my bed, instead of my desk.
Every alarm bell in my head is ringing as I stare at the chair. Someone was in my room, touching my things, and… watching me sleep?
My mouth feels as dry as the Sahara as I slowly knee walk to the edge of the bed before climbing down and taking the two steps to my desk. I’m not sure that I’m breathing correctly as I spot the little card on top of the textbooks.
With a trembling hand, I pick up the crisp white card and see that my name is written in cursive, with a tiny outline of a bird near the Y. I turn it over, but that’s all there is.
It occurs to me that I am standing in the dark, still using my phone for light. Two seconds later, the room is flooded with the light from the ceiling, and I can stare at the card with a little bit of shock and a hell of a lot of confusion.
Turning my attention back to the stack of textbooks, I put the card down on my desk and pick up the macro textbook from the top of the pile. This is brand new. I check the spine for a library issued Dewey-Decimal number, but nope. And no library barcode on the back, either.
What the hell?
Someone broke into my dorm room and into my actual bedroom, took all of my library books, and replaced them with brand-new copies?
It has to be one ofthem, right?
Hudson is the one sending all the rewards, but this doesn’t feel like him. I swap the textbook for the card again and reread my name.
That little bird. It’s nothing fancy, just a tiny bird outline, caught mid-flight. It kind of looks like a dove…
Xavier.
Xavier was in my room. Oh my god, is he still here?
Dashing to my door, I wrench it open and go out into the darkened living room. The light from my room is enough to show me that the tiny apartment is empty. Disappointment crushes my chest like a fucking sledgehammer.
Why didn’t he wake me up? Is this a part of whatever game they’re playing? I just… I don’t get it. Why the hell can’t they tell me what’s going on?
I turn and go back into my room, gently closing the door behind me before releasing a heavy sigh. I’m really over this whole thing. Not enough to give up my plan, but enough that I’m really starting to get irritated.
Reactivating the flashlight on my phone, I flick the light switch to off and then climb back into bed. There is absolutely no way I’ll be falling back to sleep now, so I open SugarLife to the message thread with my daddies, scroll all the way to the very top, and then read our beginning again.
Chapter 28
Emery
Stifling a yawn with the back of my hand, I’m vaguely aware that Derek’s classroom is filling up around me. I continue to drum my fingers on the desk next to my laptop, staring at nothing as my mind chews over all the new information and questions from this morning.
Xavier was in my room while I was sleeping—fact. One I can’t prove yet, but it must have been him. The only alternative is Tray, and there is no fucking way he would have spent money on new textbooks for me. He probably would have stolen all my shit to pawn or trade.
Which makes me think all the odd little things that have been happening are also Xavier. Like when someone packed up all the books on my bed when I fell asleep with them out.
