Bully King - J.A. Huss Page 0,92

get you up there wasn’t enough, do not wait, Cooper. You’re gonna find something very interesting in that unit.”

“What?”

She gets in her car, starts it up, waves her fingers at me through the window, and drives away. Leaving High Court College forever, apparently.

Then my phone buzzes a text.

Cadee: Well?

Me: Well, what?

Cadee: Is that jerkface fuck Victor living in my cottage?

Me: Hold, please.

I turn towards the prep side of campus, leave the college side by way of one of the wall gates, and then walk all the way down to the opposite end of campus, go into the freaking woods, stop in front of Cadee’s cabin to peek in the windows, and decide not to answer her back.

Because yes. That jerkface fuck Victor is living in her cottage.

I turn my phone off so I can have time to go back home, find keys to the fully-restored 1954 Ford pickup in my father’s small-but-mighty classic car collection, and go up to Poplar Creek Self-Storage to see what fresh hell awaits me behind a dented-up metal garage door.

Poplar Creek isn’t really a town. It’s an intersection you have to pass in order to get to Poplar Lake. And Poplar Lake is pretty much just like Monrovian Lake, except it’s not surrounded by mansions and a private school. Just cabins. Ordinary, everyday, family-friendly vacation cabins.

The intersection consists of a gas station mini-mart, a bait and tackle shop, a pizza place, and a Tastee Freez. The sign for the self-storage facility has been living on a billboard over the gas station for decades. It looks more like a prop or a thing forgotten than an actual advertisement for a business. A landmark.

I’m pretty sure no one who drives past that sign ever seriously considered it an option for storing junk.

Except my father, apparently.

It takes a minute to get past the front gate—five, actually. I don’t have the code to get in, Laurie didn’t give me that. But once I say the name Valcourt, the woman on the other side of the crackling speaker decides to buzz me through.

The key did come with a number on it, so I find the building, go inside, and stand in front of the metal roll-up door, unsure if I should be doing this.

Whatever secrets are in there, they don’t belong to me. They belong to my father. And I’m not sure I want his secrets.

I pace up and down the hallway for a while, trying to decide what I should do.

Walk away?

Or face whatever truth is inside?

I have never pretended to be something I’m not. I have never called myself smart, or motivated, or polite. In fact, my father’s litany of complaints about me—Cooper, you are an inconsiderate little prick who thinks that this good life you’ve been provided is a right instead of a privilege. You are also greedy, stupid, lazy, and will never amount to anything—is all pretty much dead on.

I am all those things.

So fine. I deserve his litany of insults. I’ve earned them.

But I’m not a coward. At least I haven’t been up until now. I know that whatever’s going on in the upper levels of Fang and Feather is bad. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. That’s why Lars, Ax and I are trying to walk away.

Trying, Cooper? There is no trying. Either you walk away or you don’t. Enough with the excuses. Because that’s what they are.

I have one more year of college and then I can walk away. I’ve been saying something along those lines since I found Cadee Hunter in a crying heap up in her Alumni Inn attic bedroom by accident three and a half years ago.

The key is sliding into the lock on the door before I even realize I’ve made a decision. I toss the lock on the ground, roll up the door, and stare at the room filled with neatly labeled boxes.

Cadee’s name is on one of the boxes in front, but hers is not the only name on a box in this storage unit.

There are dozens of them and even though I should not be able to find the connection between them so easily, it’s there and it’s easy.

I don’t need to open them up and see what’s inside.

I know.

Because I am invested in this cover-up.

I am, in fact, an accomplice.

It takes me about an hour to transfer the boxes to the back of the truck, and then another couple hours to drive them to a place far enough away to feel safe