Ride or Die

5. I Knew You Were Trouble

~ WILLA's POV ~

I got home a little before midnight that night. Like a damn Cinderella. Except, I wasn’t coming home from a ball after dancing with Prince Charming. I came from a secret society gathering and kissed a sexy stranger to extort information. It was worth it though, because I got it.

He said this thing’s the clue to the next party location.

I took out the small matchbook I got from Connor. It looked like a normal matchbook to me, nothing out of the ordinary. I was walking aimlessly up the stairs and to my room, when I noticed the door to my mom’s room was slightly open.

It’s midnight and she’s still up?

Peering inside, I saw that she was sitting on the bed, looking out the window. The light was off, except for one lamp by the nightstand. Listening closely, I could hear her little sniffles.

“Mom, what is it?” I turned the lights on and strode over to her, “What’s wrong?”

Mom turned to me and her eyes were swollen, tears brimming on her eyes as she said, “Baby, I was from the hospital…”

“Yeah? Is Wes okay?”

“The doctors said there’s nothing they can do… Wes is… Wes is declared brain dead,” her hands went to cover her face, choking back her tears. “He can’t survive without life support…”

“No!” I shook my head from side to side.  “No, No… No,”

“And there’s something else,” she pulled a piece of paper from her lap and her hand shook as she handed it to me. “The police came by earlier and gave me this. They said they found this at Wes’ dorm room,”  

I took the paper from her and unfolded it slowly. There were tear stains all over but the writing was clear as day. It read:

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By the time you found this, I’m probably already dead.

I’m sorry, everyone. I’ve tried my best, but I can’t do this anymore.

Please don’t be angry or sad. I’m in a better place now.

Thank you for everything you’ve done. I love you always.

Wes.

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“No…” I threw the paper away instinctively. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.

“They said it’s his suicide note,” mom said again, her voice coarse from crying.

“No! This can’t be him! This can’t be Wes!”

“Oh, baby,” mom pulled me into a hug. She buried her face to my chest and I felt her tears on my skin. “I never knew your brother was suffering… I’m such a bad mother… I don’t know what to do…”

“No, you’re not a bad mother,” I insisted. “Look, we don’t even know when he wrote this and why. Or if he wrote it at all. We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions,”

“…And then the insurance…” she sobbed.

“What’s wrong with the insurance?”

“The insurance can’t cover everything. On life support, Wes only has a few more weeks,”

“Wait, just wait,” I peeled her away. “What are you saying? They’re gonna cut him off the machine?”

“Between paying the mortgage and everything else, we can’t afford to keep him on the machine for long…”

“I have some money saved up from modeling,” I said quickly. “We can use that,”

“Honey, are you sure?”

“Yes, absolutely,” I nodded. “I’ll wire you the money tomorrow,”

Mom smiled softly and wiped away her tears. Staring at the note on the floor, she held back her tears and said, “But honey, what if it is Wes? What if it’s what he wants?”

“No, Wes isn’t like that. You and I both know that,” I said firmly.

I picked up the paper from the floor and studied it some more. But instead of focusing on the words, I focused on the letters. He wrote in cursive, but that was odd since he didn't write in cursive when journaling.

“What are we gonna do, baby?” mom sobbed helplessly in my arms again.

“I’ll get to the bottom of this, mom. Don’t worry, I’ll figure out what happened to him,” I held her tight and gripped the paper in my hand. “You just wait. Don’t lose hope,”

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The next morning, after wiring all the money I had in my account to extend Wes’ life support, I went back home and sat in my bed, flipping through all the pages in his journal and investigating this weird matchbook I got from Connor.

On the front of the matchbook was the logo of Columbia University and underneath it said, “New York, NY, 101018”. On the inside it read, “Leave the match for I will burn”. And normally a matchbook would have 12 matches, but this one only had 10.

What does this mean?

I tried googling Columbia and matches or fire, or even the words ‘Leave the match for I will burn’, but nothing came up. I must have stared at the thing for almost an hour until I finally caught something.

New York, NY, 101018… That’s not a real zip code.

I was right. Columbia’s zip code was 10027. That must be the date, October 10, 2018! I got excited, I cracked the first piece of the code. Now I just had to figure out the location and time.

Ten matches… Ten PM?

Of course! And now the location… Leave the match for I will burn… What’s a place that would burn down if we lit a match?

Of course. The school’s library.

A simple Google search later, I figured out Columbia’s official library was the Butler Library. October 10, 2018, at 10 PM… At this library.

I didn’t know what I would find over there, but I knew I must go and find out. This would not bring Wes back, but at least a fake suicide note won’t tarnish his memory.

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The day of the party finally arrived. I didn’t know how to dress for the event, so I wore a simple little black dress and I got a new mask from Party City. By 10 PM, I pulled up in front of the campus and got out of the cab.

The Butler Library was a huge building in the middle of the Columbia campus. It looked so grand, standing tall in its neoclassical design. The library was open 24 hours a day during the academic year. Even though it was late at night, there were still a lot of students studying. I pressed my coat tighter around me as I walked, making sure I was blending in. It was hard though, since most of them were in sweatpants and hoodies.

As I made my way inside, I realized that this library was huge, and I didn’t know where to go from here.

Maybe there’s a hidden door behind a curtain somewhere?

My eyes scanned the rows and shelves of books, there were hundreds and thousands of them, it would be impossible to know if there was a hidden door somewhere in there.

Still, I gave it a shot. I walked down rows and aisles of books, touching and pulling on random books, thinking it was gonna open a secret door or something like in the movies. I did it for a good twenty minutes before I finally gave up. There was no secret door. All I did was make a mess and people were giving me weird looks.

But as I was about to give up, I spotted a group of guys in suits walking down the halls. In their hands, I saw that they were carrying masks. I knew I had to follow them, so I waited until the last guy made a turn before I walked right behind him.

They were walking down the long hallway and I was walking behind them, tiptoeing around so they wouldn’t realize I was following them. At the end of the hall, they turned to the left, and I waited for a second before following them. But as I made that left, I arrived at a dead end and there was no one there.

What? Where did they go?

I looked around me and I was completely alone there. I swore I saw them turn left, I was right behind them. How could a group of guys suddenly disappear into thin air within seconds?

I tried inspecting the walls, knocking around to see if there was some type of hidden door there. There was nothing. All I could see was an air vent on the bottom corner of the wall.

Wait, could it be?

Bending down, I studied the air vent. I tapped on it lightly, and suddenly the cover fell to the floor, causing me to flinch back. I was no technician, but I knew that an air vent’s cover shouldn’t be that loose.

I leaned my face into the pitch black vent hole. It was a big enough vent that I could fit crawling into it. Big enough for guys to crawl into it too. And as I listened closely into the darkness, I could make out a faint noise. A noise that sounded like… EDM music.

I didn’t even stop to think further. I crawled into the vent and put the cover back up. Using my phone’s flashlight, I lit up the air vent and followed the long path ahead. As I was crawling on the cold metal, a part of me was thinking, this looked like a bad idea. I could die out here and no one would know. But another part of me was filled with an adrenaline rush. I felt like a detective, cracking codes, and following leads.

“Whoa!” I kept crawling and I didn’t realize there was a huge hole in front of me and I fell right into it.

“Ah!” I screamed as I stumbled down, head first.

This is it, I’m gonna die!

I was expecting my face to hit hard concrete, but instead, I fell into a pool of something small and squishy. Some of it got into my mouth and I spat it out quickly. Once I got my footing and my phone light again, I realized I fell into a tub of foam peanuts. 

I was in a dark place resembling either a tunnel or a bigger vent. And at the end of the tunnel, I saw a door with a window resembling an exit. I could hear the music coming from over there, so that must be it. The party.

I climbed out of the tub of foam and straightened my hair and dress. Slowly and carefully, I walked towards the light.

What is this? A secret society underground party?

The music got louder and louder as I came nearer and nearer, until finally, I reached the door with the window. The first thing I noticed when I pushed back the door was how loud the music was playing, I felt like my ears were about to pop off. It was insane to think that they were playing music this loud right under a library.

Moving forward, I arrived at a dark underground area, but the walls and ceilings were covered in pink and purple neon lights. LED lights were shooting out from a projector, and a DJ stood in the back end of the room, pumping beats like it was Coachella.

It felt like a scene from a movie. People were dressed in crazy, sexy Halloween costumes with glow sticks around their necks, and they were drinking and dancing without a care, a complete 180 to the elegant masked party they had the other day.

“Can you take a picture of my t**s?” Before I could process everything, a girl dressed in a sexy maid outfit came staggering at me. She shoved a camera to my face and I had no option but to take it.

“Uh… sure,”

She made a sexy pose with her t**s dangling in front of me. I wasn't sure, but I took the photo anyway.

“Thanks, b***h!” the girl slurred and took the camera from me, turning to her heels and staggering to another person, asking them to do the same thing.

What the hell…?

Scanning around the room, I now realized that this was a scene not fit for a PG-13 movie. There were guys without pants on standing in the corner of the room, either pissing or j*********f, I didn’t wanna know. And don’t get me started on the dance floor. People weren’t dancing as much as they were gyrating their half naked bodies with the random strangers next to them.

“Holy moly guacamole…” I found myself muttering.

Backing away from the dance floor as far as I could, I saw something resembling a diner’s booth at another corner of the room. On the table, lay a girl wearing nothing but a gold bikini, and guys were doing alcohol shots and snorting some white powder straight up from her skin.

This can’t be legal.

I wanted to back away to another place, but no matter which corner of the room I pick, it was all the same amount of crazy. I thought about leaving, but if I leave now, I would go home empty handed and without any information. If this was the kind of thing the secret society was doing and Wes was involved in it, I had to know. So, I took a deep breath and gave myself a little pep talk.

You got this. I am Willa White, the girl that took Paris fashion week by storm. This is only a party. I can totally handle this.

Nodding to myself, I adjusted my mask firmly and strutted forward, going further into the belly of the beast.

Oh god. What am I getting myself into?

- - - - - To Be Continued - - - - -