The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

What Adam Knows

Previously: "Madam I'm Adam" 

I know what you did last Friday.

That's the text that Adam has sent to you. But what does it mean? It sounds threatening.

"What did you do last Friday?" Laura asks.

"I dunno," you admit. You've got brain-lock, and at the moment can't even remember what today is. "Ask him if we can meet up."

She taps a reply back into your phone. You're pulling into the student parking lot when his reply comes in.

* * * * *

"I'll see you at the start of fourth," you tell Laura a little later, in the hallway, when it comes time to part.

"Why, what's fourth?" she asks, a look of panic in her eyes.

"Your physics class. Ms. Gambetta?" you remind her. "You got a schedule from Catherine, right?"

"Yes!" she snaps. "But where'm I going to meet you?"

You have to remind yourself that she doesn't know her way around Catherine's day the way you know your way around Adam's.

"I have Ms. Gambetta third. I— He always hangs around outside there 'til Catherine gets there. So I'll see you then."

"Oh." Relief floods her face. "That'll be nice."

"And I'll pick you up outside there at the end of fourth and we'll go have lunch, just us."

"Oh, thank you, W— Adam," she corrects herself, then leans in to give you a quick hug, which thrills you all the way to the tip of your cock. She turns off into B wing and you watch until she disappears. Only then do you proceed to the A wing boys' restroom, which is where Adam said he'll be waiting for you.

That makes sense, of course, because it's also where you need to go to get your hair fixed up for the day.

The restroom isn't full, but there's a couple of guys in there, peeing at the urinals and chortling near the sinks. A couple of them recognize you, of course, because they are semi-regulars in here the way Adam is, and they all nod and grin at you; you jerk your chin back at them. You take the last sink, dropping your bag at your feet and bending over to take your kit out. When you straighten up, Will Prescott is standing at your elbow, leaning against the wall.

"Hey man," you greet him as you straighten up, but you concentrate on the mirror. You study your reflection a moment, then push up some of your hair and go to work on it with a metal hair pick. "How was your night?"

"It was okay. I was better when I woke up."

"Yeah?" You are trying not to show any panic, though you still can't think of anything you might have done last Friday to be ashamed of. "You said you know what I did last Friday."

"Yeah." He lowers his voice. "I remember everything now."

You catch yourself in mid-tease, and squint over at him. "Yeah, whaddayu mean 'everything'?"

"Everything. Schedule, friends, everything. Friday night with Maria. Monday afternoon up at the wilderness with—" He hesitates. "Caleb and Keith."

You hold his eye, then go back to pushing up your hair. "Huh. What, you just woke up remembering everything?"

"Yeah."

"Cool." You pick up and shake the can of hair spray, and apply a little to the heap of hair you've pushed up. "So you know none of it's my fault."

"I don't remember anything that's your fault."

"'Cos there's nothin' to remember." You touch your hair to make sure it will stay up, then go to work with the pick again on another spot. "You remember Clover Mystery?"

"Uh huh. I haven't figured everything out about that—"

"Well, me neither," you snort. "But it was that cocksucker that got us all out to the theater yesterday. You get that, right?"

"I guess it makes sense," he admits with obvious reluctance.

"Those fake DMs. Those goddam spoofs." I gotta remember to use that trick, you think. Use it to spoof some of the a-holes I like to jerk around. Then you dismiss it and go back to work. "We find that motherfucker, we find out who—"

"Do you remember everything?"

"Huh?" You glance at him, then pick up the spray can again. "I told you yesterday—"

"I mean that video that Clover Mystery sent you. You remember that?"

You blink at him, puzzled.

Then you remember. "Shit!" you exclaim.

* * * * *

First period is Current Issues. Your friend Keith is in there, but you ignore him (as Adam would and does) as you swagger in and slide into a desk between Lee Reynolds and James Brewer. Lee asks anxiously if he can see your homework; you tell him you took the day off yesterday from bullshit. That's what you tell Mr. Santiago, too, in those exact words, when he comes around the room to collect. He gives you a hard, angry look, but says nothing else.

You don't pay much attention in that class—which is a blowoff class anyway, in Adam's opinion—and sink into your chair to try dredging up and knitting together some memories that he has half-forgotten and never regarded as important to begin with.

It was a week or two ago—which means it might as well have been a month or a year ago—on a Saturday. Adam and Catherine were hanging out with Elle Moore and Laura MacGregor. It was turning into a fucking hen party, so Adam bullied them all into going out to the old quarry on the east side of town, because he figured there he might run into some guys that would be more fun. And indeed there were: Justin Roth and Jamie Rennerhoff and Spencer Osbourne and Shep Tsosie and Perry Small. They were all glad to see him, though the girls were much less delighted to have stumbled over them.

Spencer and Jamie, though, were especially happy to see Adam, because they had something they knew he'd like: a video they had shot the night before, up near the high school. (What were they doing there? They'd met up there with Christian Padilla, who lives nearby, and were goofing off in the empty field across the street from the school.) They had spotted a couple of figures getting up to mischief near the corner of A wing: digging, it looked like. These they had filmed, and were chortling about how they could get those assholes in so much trouble if they wanted to.

Adam, also seeing a chance for mischief, had asked them to DM him the video, which they did. (He found out later that they'd also sent a copy to Catherine, in case they'd gotten Adam's handle wrong; he has a couple that he uses, for pseudonymous mischief.) He never did anything with it, because he couldn't recognize the figures in the video, and he forgot about it soon after.

So that gives you an idea of where the video originated, and it would give you the shivers if you didn't have Adam's nerve to steel you.

As you turn all this over in your mind, your eye continually strays to Tanner Evans, on the other side of the room. He's an acquaintance of Adam's—one of the assholes he hangs out with—and also a friend of Spencer's and Jamie's, and is a troublemaker like them as well. You've no reason to suspect that he's involved in any of the weirdness that has afflicted you recently, but the sight of him reminds you that Spencer and Jamie could have spread that video very widely—after all, if they sent a copy to Catherine, of all people, they could have sent one to him. So although you would love to be able to pin all your troubles on those two, you have to caution yourself that the web of suspects is very big indeed.

In fact, as you glance sidelong at Lee and at James, who are also friends with Spencer Osbourne, the list of suspects could encompass half the senior class, or more.

It would chill the blood if it didn't make you hot with anger instead.

* * * * *

"Got your hair up, I see," Catherine says when you see her outside Ms. Gambetta's class.

And she is so nearly, perfectly Catherine—in the calf-length purple dress with the gold belt at her waist; the sandals; the reddish-gold hair that drapes in twin tresses over her shoulders and hangs past her elbows—that you almost forget that it's really Laura. You have to stop yourself from putting out a hand to catch her about the hip and pull her to yourself.

"Yeah," you grunt. "Oh, and I talked to, uh, Will while I was working on it." It's weird to call him by your own personal name, and the slight twitch in Catherine's eye tells you that she finds it odd as well. "He says he remembers everything now."

Her brow furrows. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, everything." When she still stares, you put both hands on her hips and pull her close. "He remembers everything that Will Prescott is supposed to know and remember," you whisper into her ear. "You know, like I remember everything he's supposed to know."

She looks confused and alarmed when you straighten back up.

"Well, that's great for him," she stammers. "But me and— and the other girl! We—! We don't!"

"Well, just relax and maybe it'll come."

"And maybe it won't! What if—?"

"How are you doing so far this morning?"

She makes a face.

"My last class was kind of a mess, and this one—" She casts a fearful glance at the classroom door, on the other side of which will be her Physics class.

"I can help you out, we can do your homework together." That'll be fun! you can't help gleefully thinking, and you are suddenly aware that you're still holding her, and patting her, and rubbing her, up and down the small of her back and the sides of her hips. Her flesh is very firm beneath the smooth dress.

"But I gotta get to my own class," you reluctantly conclude, and withdraw. "I'll pick you up here in an hour."

Her expression began to sag the moment you took your hands off her, and she makes a small face as she nods. You surrender to the natural urge, and lean against the doorway and leer at her ass as she walks into the classroom and over to her desk.

Next: "Question With No Answers" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"