The Secret Girl (Adamson All-Boys Academy #1) - C.M. Stunich Page 0,68

as I can, and I promise myself that the feeling of eyes following me is just my imagination.

The next morning, I'm bleary-eyed and exhausted, but I've got the satisfaction of knowing I have my crystal back. The floorboard did not come up nice and clean and easy. Instead, it splintered in parts, and even though I've jammed it back in place, it doesn't look so hot. Underneath the boards there was just the rough wood of a subfloor, some pennies, and lots of dust bunnies.

Nothing cool or mysterious to be seen.

When I tell the twins about the note, they exchange a look and tell me to meet them after school.

During Mr. Murphy's English class, I try to distract myself by checking him out, but every time I think about something that's nice about him—like his tight, firm butt or his full mouth—it seems so much less enticing when compared to Spencer. Or the twins.

I can't seem to get the bullying dickheads from the Student Council out of my mind.

After school lets out, the twins surprise me by showing up with a picnic, and then escorting me down to the girls' dorm. I've missed coming here, but only an idiot would traipse through the woods alone in the dark to hang out in an abandoned building with a maniac on the loose.

“Do you think I should tell my dad about the notes?” I ask as they unlock the door and let us in. It feels almost wrong not to go in my usual way. “Where did you get those keys anyway?”

“Which question would you have us answer first?” they say, stepping back and holding their hands out to gesture me inside.

I slip past them and settle down on the couch, noticing that the class photo of Jenica that I left on the table last time I was here is gone.

“What the hell …?” I murmur, checking around on the floor, and even underneath the sofa. It's not back on the nail either. It's just … vanished. “Jenica's picture is missing.”

The twins exchange a look and then glance back at me.

“You didn't take it?” they ask, and I shake my head. It seemed wrong to remove it from this place, like clearly this girls' dorm was started for her, the first female student at Adamson. The photo belonged here.

“No. At least I still have a picture on my phone though …” I glance over at them with narrowed eyes. “My Samsung. Thankfully I've got everything set to auto-upload to the cloud. You could've cost me some irreplaceable memories, you know that?”

“We have to save face,” the boys reply, shrugging together before they each take up one of the big, comfy (but rather dusty) armchairs that sit across from one another.

“Nobody at the academy likes you, Chuck,” Micah says, smirking at me as he crosses his legs at the knee. I notice that when they're not trying to fool everyone into thinking they're just two halves of the same whole, he sits with crossed legs while his brother keeps both feet flat on the floor. “You were a weird, introverted jerk who shunned any offers of friendship or good will. You refused to help Church fix a mistake that you made, and now your fate is sealed. You're the resident pariah. Just be glad that we, as the compassionate, good-hearted Student Council, have decided to take your punishment on ourselves.”

“So you're saying if you guys didn't pick on me, somebody else would? Pretty cheap excuse if I say so myself.” I flop back down on the sofa and rub my hands over my face. We didn't come here to discuss me. Quite frankly, that's the last thing in the world I'd like to discuss. I'd actually prefer discussing the threatening note, the guy with the knife, or the missing photo. How messed up is that? “So who took the picture?”

“Could've been Ranger,” Tobias muses, looking up at the beautiful detail on the ceiling tiles. I think they're tin. “Then again, he's known the picture was here for years and didn't touch it.”

“Maybe the creeper who's been leaving me these notes then?” I watch as Tobias reaches down and unbuttons his blazer with a slow flick of his fingers, his green eyes focused on me as he takes it off with an agonizing precision meant to rile up all my girly bits. Dick-weed, I think as I swallow hard and try to focus on what he's now pulling out of the picnic basket instead.