𝘾𝙝𝙧𝙞𝙨
﹥━━━━━━━━━━﹤

"What the fuck?!" Adriel roars, pacing angrily.

"Papa, calm down." Madi soothes him.

"Papa?" JB curls his face, disgusted. Same.

"He's been watching us this whole time - that sick fuck!" Adriel curses. He's fuming, I understand why.

"He probably saw everything..." I say to myself.

"We don't know that for a fact." Morgan tries to make me feel better. Key word being: tries.

"He's probably still watching us right now!" AJ realizes.

"Look at this, motherfucker!" AJ flips out and pretends to jerk-off.

"AJ..." I call his name.

"I'm going to curb stomp that sick fuck!" AJ goes off.

"AJ..." I speak up again, rubbing my temples.

"I hate him, I—"

"ADRIEL!" I yell, making everyone look at me.

"He's dead." I remind the group.

"Shit." AJ curses.

He brings it down a few notches, and thankfully, I'm getting a headache.

"That's good, right, now we know at least we're not being watched?" Andy's positivity is reminiscent of Morgan's but she's remaining quiet.

"Maybe." Morgan answers with my exact thought.

Andy wrinkles his forehead. "What do you mean, maybe? Maybe as in he's not dead?"

"Oh, he's dead. Hella dead," Jabari laughs uneasily.
I shoot him a cold look for that. It just wasn't necessary.

"I wouldn't put it past him, to be honest. Malcolm used to say he'd live forever." Adriel says, wiping off his glasses with his shirt.

"He said a lot of things, because he was an asshole, he's not a mortal." Madi sniggers.

"You mean immortal." Morgan corrects the brunette.

"Oh." Madi blushes, embarrassed.

I don't have time or the energy to laugh.

"So what does this mean?" JB asks, standing over everyone else.

"What if we go to the mansion, and he's still there or something?" Andy asks.

That, I have to laugh. "What, do y'all think he the boogie man?"

"Well..." they all murmur.

I suck my teeth. "I know that house like the back of my hand. I also know Malcolm isn't alive anymore. Let's get in there, find whatever it is we're looking for, and get out."

"What are we looking for again?" Andy is clueless.

"The Lavender Room has a vanity in it, it used to be mine - from Malcolm; I think it might be a camera or something, I don't know, but I want to get it. Maybe then we can figure out if it's still working, what it's hooked up to, who's been watching it?" I let them know.

Everyone nods, understanding.

"I should check the Lodge, then?" AJ has a point.

"What about Red Sage?" Jabari raises another point.

"I'll help Papa with Black Elk, we can meet somewhere later if we find anything?" Madi proposes.

"Yeah, that's fine." Morgan says quietly, rubbing the back of her neck. She looks overwhelmed, too.

"We can go to your parents' bnb." Andy speaks up for him and Jabari.

"Yeah, I'll do that for you since I'm your best friend." Jabari says to me. I immediately roll my eyes knowing where this is gonna lead.

Here they go. . .

"Well, I'm like his brother, so." Andy brags.

"Well, I am his brother." Jabari argues.

"Just go." I exhale deeply, pinching the bridge of my nose.

"Chris and I will be at the mansion. Why don't we all meet at The Q tonight?" Morgan reads my mind. She's so smart, that's my girl.

"How are you guys already thinking about dinner?" Madi makes everyone groan with another one of her dumb comments. And Morgan is the blonde one.

"For the rave, baby." Adriel tells his girlfriend.

"There might be a clue there, Malcolm owned The Q before, didn't he?" Andi looks to me for confirmation.

"Exactly." I rasp.

Andi looks at Jabari and taunts him like he's keeping score.

"We'll meet in the parking lot at ten," Morgan suggests. Everyone agrees.

"Don't do any more snooping until then, can't  raise any red flags. Some people here still might work for him." I leave the group with a final warning.

We're hiding in plain sight, Morgan and I. I will say, if anyone suspected us of being up to something shady, they wouldn't expect us to be in Madi's station wagon. Although, we might've gotten some judgmental stares from rich assholes that also live on this mountain.

I remember the days of taking my Jeep through wealthy communities, admiring the architecture of each home, wondering when I'll live in something like that.
Morgan told me she and Callie would do that, too, in their beat up cars - manifesting. Look at us now. It's almost poetic.

"I don't miss the drive up this mountain." Morgan talks after a long drive with silence.

"I thought you fell asleep." I tell her, turning the music down.

"I tried. Couldn't."

"Hm."

"You sure you want to do this?" Morgan asks me.

I look at her sideways. "Of course. What, you scared?"

"If I am it's only because they think Malcolm still might be alive."

"If he was, I'd kill him again."

"I'd help you this time." Morgan laughs.

I come down from my laughter too and my face falls.

"Whew, it's actually not funny." Morgan deadpans.

"Not at all." I agree.

She sits up in the passenger seat and stares out of the window.

"Do you miss it?"

"What's that?" I ask.

"How things were before I changed everything, like, with you and Malcolm?"

"No," I answer all too fast. "Sometimes."

"I'm sorry I ruined your life, I don't think I ever really apologized for you having to, like, kill him. I gave you, like, PTSD and shit, and your dad." She laughs awkwardly.

I chuckle, rubbing her thigh. "No, no you didn't ruin my life. I only miss how innocent I was. I didn't know what Malcolm was really doing because I didn't care. He had so many girls and they all ended up missing, on drugs, pregnant, or worse. I never said anything. You came along and suddenly I remembered how I was raised. Like, before I knew you, I couldn't even stand the thought of him treating you like the others. I felt the need to protect you, I don't know."

"There's also been times where I miss him. Not who he was when he did all of those terrible things, but before. Like, teaching my how to drive, hyping me up to ask out girls in high school, aheh. He helped me find my signature scent, you know?"

"Really?" Morgan gasps.

I smirk, nodding.

"So it really is a dead man's secret, huh?" She jokes because I'll never tell her what colognes I wear but she loves them so much.

"Guess so." I tease, taking a right.

Finally, we're outside of the gates.

"Huh." I huff, noticing something.

"His initials are still on the gate." Morgan notes.

Weird.

I put the code in the gate, thinking it would be the same since everything else, but I'm wrong.

"Let me try." Morgan offers. She gives me a series of passcodes and they're all incorrect.

She looks defeated, settling back in the passenger seat.

"Fuck this." I cuss, freeing myself from the seatbelt.

"Come on." I order, going around the car to help Morgan out of it.

"You want me to climb the fence?" She asks me as if it's an insulting request.

"Well I don't want you to just stand there, this was your idea, Princess."

She starts to climb and then has a lightbulb moment from the looks of it.

"Wait," she says, "try my birthday."

"Why would it be your birthday, don't you think they would've changed it?" I snarl, scaling the gate.

Morgan cuts her eyes at me and then plugs in the digits of her birthday.

The gate opens and Morgan drives the car through, yelling at me to "stop fooling around get down from there."

Doctor Monty and Juana have got to be the laziest, dumbest people I know because they left their back door unlocked. Entitled, rich people, I'll tell ya.

"I wonder why they left it open." Morgan talks quietly.

I shrug, pushing the door open.

"What is that smell?" Morgan asks, covering her nose.

I sniff then regret it.

"It smells like swamp ass and weed." I comment a little too loudly.

"Hello?" A voice croaks from the other room.

Oh, fuck.

"Act natural." Morgan whispers to me quickly.

"Who are you?" Some girl appears.

Her eyes are red and low, she's been smoking weed hence the smell.

"I'm the maid, this is the pool boy. Who are you?" Morgan puts up a facade.

"I'm Desiree, Jesse's friend, I'm house-sitting."

"Not anymore," Morgan says, "I'm telling Mister and Misses McLaughlin right now."

"Please don't! I need the money, I'm saving up for a car-"

"Okay, kid, we don't need a sad backstory." I say, bored.

The girl sucks up her tears and asks if we need any help.

"No, in fact, it would be better if you left for the day. I have to clean and it'll take a lot to get that smell out of here." Morgan acts. I'm impressed.

"Okay, s-sure, whatever you need." Desiree stammers.

"Wait," Morgan pauses. She looks around frantically for something, flipping notepads and papers.

"What?" Desiree panics.

"The paper with all of the passwords on it, where is it?" Morgan asks.

Oh, she's good.

"Uh, uh, it's right here!" Desiree scrambles to find the notepad full of passwords and hands it over to Morgan, the "maid."

"Thank you, your secret is safe with me. You can come back in about three hours. Don't tell them we came because we're doing this for free, as a surprise." I add. Gotta make sure we cover all bases, the last thing we need is this Desiree girl to tell the couple we stopped by again.

Desiree goes to the other room to grab some of her things, and her boyfriend???

The two teens scamper out of the house and get in the Camaro in the driveway.

Once the car is fully off the property, Morgan and I look at each other plainly.

I shake my head and she laughs.

"That was easy." I say.

"Way." Morgan agrees.

She looks over the notepad.

"Why do you need that?" I ask Morgan.

She points to the words on the page that read "safe" and "dad's study."

"Smart." I tell her, impressed.

Morgan smiles and then goes to Monty's study which used to be where Malcolm kept his security cams and monitors.

1886

Morgan cracks the code and lets us inside the home office.

The fireplace. The desk. The office chair.

"Did these people just keep all of Malcolm's shit?" I murmur.

Morgan snickers. "Looks like it."

We both wander around, looking for any clues.

I pull books off the shelves like in the movies, trying to see if there's a hidden path or something behind the bookcase.

There's not.

Morgan does something similar but with the trinkets on the mantle above the fireplace. No such luck either.

Morgan vibrates her lips, getting discouraged.

"What's that?" I ask, pointing to a large covered canvas by the fireplace.

Morgan shrugs and then removes the cover.

What we see makes us both gasp for air:

I look at Morgan and she's petrified.

"Was this Malcolm's?" I ask although I'm sure I know the answer.

"Actually," Morgan pauses for a beat to swallow. "no."

"What do you mean 'no?'" I get mad.

Morgan shakes her head. "Chris, this picture was taken recently. Remember, this is from the trip?"

"No." I refuse to believe it.

Morgan pulls out her phone and shows me a that same exact picture with the date and time stamp.

"FUCK!" My emotions get the best of me and I scream, kicking over one of the chairs.

"Why does everyone want you?" I ask, pacing.

Don't get me wrong, Morgan is a beautiful, gorgeous, sexy, tempting queen who deserves the world and I'M very lucky to have her, so they should be jealous. But that's the thing, I have her, why can no one fucking respect that? Why must these incels force me to result to violence?

"He smiled in our faces, too," I recall our time with Monty who came off so innocent. Family man my ass.

"I have to kill him..." I decide, hands on my hips.

"What the fuck?" Morgan expresses her disbelief, sitting down hopelessly in a chair.

"I'm gonna do it. I'm going to drown his ass - him, Tate, Ben. Or the electric chair, is that still a thing, where can I find one?"

Morgan says, "Babe—"

An idea makes me change my mind. I ask, "Monty got that picture from somewhere - your Instagram? Didn't Juana say she follows you?"

Morgan nods. "Yes, I guess that's the only thing that makes sense. It's just weird."

"It's more than weird. I should burn this bitch down."

"Don't get worked up again. Let's just... find the camera in the room." Morgan remains calmly enough to stick to the mission at hand.

Me, though, I'm still considering arson. This house is cursed and needs to be burned down.

We enter the lavender themed bedroom and waste no time turning it upside down.

Morgan goes straight for the vanity. She stares at her reflection, looking curiously.

That curiosity turns into anger quickly. Morgan takes one of Jesse's trophies and smashes the mirror.

She keeps striking it over and over without a word or a cry.

The mirror shatters, shards fly everywhere.

I flinch as debris hurls towards me but stay close for Morgan.

As badly as I want to stop her, I'm sure she needs this.

She calmly puts the trophy back and says, "Let's go."

I'm being supportive, opting to not saying anything that might upset her further. I'd offer to talk about it, but she doesn't have to say anything. I know what that was about, and anyone who knows what Morgan endured with Malcolm, wouldn't blame her either.

We amble down the staircase silently.

To make the moment less tense, I nudge Morgan.

"Breaking, entering, and now vandalism." I joke.

It works, she laughs and it warms my heart.

Just so she knows I'm here for her, I throw my arm over her shoulder and lead us towards the back door.