Page 70 of Degradation
‘How many times?’ he asks.
‘I’m not sure.’ I whisper, staring up at his throat.
He swallows. ‘Make an educated guess.’
‘Between five and eight.’
He paces the room. ‘That’s it?’
I clasp my hands together, sitting straight with my head forward, treating this as an interrogation, the kind I’d be subjected to at The Heath if I or someone else did something wrong. My heart thuds hard and I try not to think about the implications of Blake knowing what I’ve been up to because I’m afraid I’ll freak out.
‘Yes.’
He appears in my vision. ‘You’re sure?’
I glance into his eyes and then away quickly. ‘Yes, I’m sure. It was no more than eight.’
He stalks out of my room, and I hear him in his. I quickly message Lu.
Dear Lu, I’m going to tell Blake. He’s the one I suspect the most. If you don’t hear from me within five minutes, call your cousins, I guess... From, Daisy
I got u, Thelma. (Sorry, i was lying before. i have 2 b Daphne. It’s a thing) 5 mins and im callin my boys. B careful. He might b nuts.
I’m still trying to work out the reference when he comes back in a minute later and throws a pile of papers on the bed next to me. I put my phone on the bed behind me, face down.
‘Then how do you explain these? There are way more than eight discrepancies in the cameras over the past couple of months.’
I stare at the sheets, seeing lines and lines of outages and reboots, of deletions and other activities that don’t make sense.
Shaking my head slowly, I look up at him, my gaze searching his face, his eyes. It can’t be him, surely. Not unless this is a crazy double bluff on his part.
I don’t think it’s him, but all these alerts prove that someone is using the house cameras. Lu was right. We need help.
I slowly stand and limp to the other side of the room to where I know the cameras can’t see. I open the drawer and pull out the notes and the letters, putting them on the desk.
He’s watching me from the other side of the room. He hasn’t moved. I silently beckon him, and he sighs, sauntering over.
‘What is all this, Daisy? What could these pieces of paper possibly say that would make me...’
He trails off and picks one up. The first one I got. He frowns and picks up the next and the next. Then he uncrumples the letter.
‘What the fuck?’ he surveys my face, trying to find something in it, but I don’t know what. ‘Show me the emails.’
‘Keep your voice down,’ I remind him. ‘He...at least, I think it’s a he...watches. Listens, too, I’m pretty sure. Your list of inconsistencies proves it. But he can’t see us here, and he can’t hear if you’re quiet, remember?
Blake’s eyes widen and he looks back at the cameras.
‘I wondered why you moved the desk,’ he whispers.
I don’t know why the tone sends a zing through me, but it does.
Without a word, I open the laptop and bring up my inbox. I open the first one and then the last one, playing the video that was sent of me being hit across the face and falling to the ground in a loop.
‘Who is it?’ he asks. ‘Any ideas at all?’
I sit in my chair. ‘I thought it might be you, or Mav, or Shade. I’ve considered the other members of the frat. I wondered if it might be part of the pledge stuff at one point. But I have no idea. This letter,’ I tap the longer, crumpled one, ‘was a couple days ago. It was left on my desk while I was in the shower. I... checked the cameras from your room, but the timestamp of every single one in the house jumped forward by two minutes. There’s nothing to show who was in here.’
‘Is that why you like Mav sleeping in your bed at night?’
