Page 154 of Fight or Flight
Being careful not to shift the sweaters around, I slip my hand under them and feel around the bottom of the drawer.
“What the?” I mutter when my hand bumps up against something metallic.
Gingerly, I pull it out from under the sweaters and hold it under the weak beam of my flashlight.
It looks like it could be a knife, but there’s no blade, just a metal handle. Turning it over in my hand, I look for a button or some sort of release mechanism, but the handle is smooth with only a little bit of texturing for grip. Curiously, I flip the knife over and promptly drop it when a blade slides out from the end in a smooth, quick glide that almost slices right through my finger.
“Jesus!” I exclaim, staring at the knife like it might come to life and start chasing me around the room.
What the fuck kind of knife is that?
Using two fingers, I pick up and carefully tip it until the blade slides right back into the handle.
Fully aware that the knife could activate again at any moment, I slip it back under the stack of sweaters and hastily close the drawer.
I already knew Jace was into knives, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he has some stashed in his room.
His wardrobe is just as organized and tidy as his drawers, and it’s easy to check the open part where he’s hung up some of his clothes. The wardrobes also have a row of drawers in them that aren’t very wide or deep. Apparently they were originally for watches and jewelry, but they removed the inserts years ago and now encourage students to keep valuables like those in a more secure place.
I use the drawers as a place to put things that don’t really fit anywhere else, like papers and other small things I don’t want to lose.
Jace’s drawers are full of different kinds of knives. Some are familiar, like switchblades, a bunch of utility-type ones, and a collection of straight razors. But there are also several types I’ve never seen before, like ones with curved or oddly shaped blades, others with serrated edges, and lots of small folded-up ones thatI know better than to touch after what happened with the one I found in his dresser drawer.
The bottom of the wardrobe has a few pairs of shoes on top of some stacked boxes. The boxes are the same size and shape as a shoebox, but they’re definitely some type of storage box.
It takes way more time than I’m comfortable with to pull out his shoes, check the boxes, then put everything back. And I’m once again left with a whole lot of nothing when I’m done.
I really need to hurry up. The twins might not be coming home anytime soon, but the longer I’m in here, the higher the chances of getting caught, and that’s the last thing I need right now.
His bedside table is my next target, and my face flushes hot when I open the top drawer and shine my light inside.
Strips of condoms and packets of lube fill one side, and a bottle of lube and a flash drive are tucked into the other.
The drive isn’t mine, or the one he gave me, and while I desperately want to check it, I have a feeling it’s not full of top-secret documents but a portable spank bank of downloaded porn like the one he stole from my room.
I pause before opening the bottom drawer and brace for whatever craziness I might find, but it’s empty except for a laptop with the charge cord neatly folded beside it.
Dejectedly, I close the drawer and turn my attention to his bed.
Our beds all have huge headboards, ornate posts, and canopy tops, but the frames are big and heavy, and there’s only a two-inch gap between the bottom of the frame and the floor, so it’s pretty much impossible to keep stuff under them.
Just to be thorough, I lay down on the floor and shine my light under the bed, and unsurprisingly, there’s nothing there.
The only places left are the bookshelf and his desk.
I tackle the bookshelf first and shine my light over the spines of the textbooks and other school-related papers that are just as neatly organized as his drawers and wardrobe. I’m tempted to pull the books out and check them to make sure he isn’t hiding stuff within the pages, but I resist and instead move over to his desk.
Nothing that was taken from my room could be hidden in a book, and it’s not like he’s going to stash a checklist of crimes he’s committed or planning to commit in his Differential Integration textbook.
Using my light, I check out his desk. The contrast between the messy surface and the military-like spotlessness of the rest of the room is a little unnerving. So is the complexity of his computer setup.
Instead of touching anything on his desk, I pull open the top drawer. I’d bet my left nut that he knows exactly where everything on his desk is, and moving anything even the slightest bit out of place will give away that someone was in here and poking around.
My chest squeezes with something I can’t quite identify when I see two butterfly knives sitting on top of a pile of papers and notebooks in the drawer.
One is a carbon copy of the one I found in my room. Next to it is an identical knife, only the handle is black instead of silver.
“Betty and Veronica,” I mutter and carefully pick up “Veronica.” Now I get where the names come from.
