“Hopefully. How are you holding up?”
He sighed. “Winter break is coming up soon. It’s nearly a year since I went into WITSEC. I’m getting itchy feet, like I want to come out. Surely it would be safe enough to come out now?”
“What? No. Of course not. You need to stay under protection until the case comes to court. Look, we’re getting close. You just need to have a little bit more patience. It’s taking longer because we’ve established that the professor had created a similar secret society at his previous universities and the web is wider than we initially thought it was. It means that his financial machinations are more complex and go back further than we originally knew as well. So it’s going to take some time to unravel all of that.”
Silence.
“I can’t live the rest of my life like this, man. I’ve gotta do something or I’ll go crazy.”
“I know, but now is not the time.”
“Okay, whatever. I’ll stay here as long as it takes. I just want this to be over though."
"You and me both.”
“How’s Amber doing?”
“She’s holding up. The only thing is that the professor has honed in on Amber to be a candidate.”
There was a long silence on his end of the phone.
“Adam? What’s going through your head?”
“I don’t know. I’m furious that she’s been brought into all this. I made a promise to myself to always keep her out of it. I thought you could keep her safe and away from the professor. That’s it. I’ve made up my mind. I’m coming out of WITSEC. I have to protect her.”
“No! Absolutely not, Adam. That’s the worst thing you could do!”
“Mason! I’m not fucking around here. I want out! You can’t protect her from the professor. Maybe I can do better. Better than being stuck here not able to do anything to help her anyway.”
“Think about this logically.”
“I don’t want to be fucking logical. I just want to protect Amber!” His voice boomed down the phone. I pulled my phone away from my ear to protect myself.
“I know. I’m sorry. I thought I could keep her away from it. At least if we’re both members of the society I’ll be able to keep an eye on her.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’ll still be able to get to her.” He sounded grim.
“No. I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”
“He’s too powerful.”
“We’re getting close, Adam. Andrew has been able to find out more information about the professor’s ex-wives, who both died in suspicious circumstances. There’s a lot of death surrounding the professor but no one’s been able to prove it yet. We’re going to do that and put an end to this whole nightmare.”
“I hope so. I’m going stir crazy here. I just want to see my Amber.”
“No, you can’t. It’s too early. It could jeopardize the investigation.”
“At least let me talk with her.” His voice sounded desperate. “I need to know that she’s okay. I mean, she’s been a year without me. I love her. I miss her. I need her to know I’m okay.”
“I know. I know. But it’s too early. We can’t risk the investigation. Not when we’re this close to getting to the truth.”
I knew it was probably okay for him to talk to Amber, but I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want him to reconnect with her and potentially damage our, already fragile, relationship. I knew it was incredibly selfish of me, but Amber was mine, and I was damned if I was going to let anyone come between us.
He sighed. I could feel his frustration through the line.
“Can we at least tell our parents and Hermione? They won’t have any contact with the professor, have nothing to do with the investigation, and I don’t want to waste any more time pretending that I’m dead. Besides, dad’s 60thbirthday is in a couple months and I want to be there.”
Now it was my turn to go silent. I tried to think but my head was spinning.