The Dirty Ones

Pretty much everyone—including Hayes, who should know this because he’s always been so up in everyone’s business, but clearly doesn’t—stops to stare at me.

“So what? I come from a long line of filthy writers. I refuse to be judged. Especially when Camille and Sofia both write the same shit I do!”

“We’re not judging you, Kiera,” Connor says.

“Sure feels like it,” I say. “Because I seem to have a target on me. Again,” I add.

“You weren’t the target back then,” Camille offers. “Connor was.”

“OK,” Hayes says. “This is pointless. Let’s just read the book.” He walks over to Camille, snatches the book out of her hand, and tosses it to Connor, who catches it out of instinct. “You read it, Con. You always were the storyteller.”

“Hey!” Camille objects.

But Hayes shoots her a shut-up look that makes her cower back into the couch cushions.

“Fine,” she huffs, closing her arms defiantly. “Whatever.”

“Read it, Connor.”

Connor looks at me, then settles back into the couch and opens the book.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – CONNOR

We all knew there was a tower in the woods next to Essex College even though no one actually saw it. Maybe it was just local lore, maybe there was some truth to it, but everyone had convinced themselves there was a tower and that rumor was passed down to the incoming freshmen every year.

But all anyone really knew was that there was a fence on the south property line. A twelve-foot-high wrought-iron fence that maybe went all the way around the mythical tower, or maybe not. No one knew that either because the fence had been there for so long the underbrush and brambles kinda ran through it. The woods were unkempt and thick. Like something out of a nightmare. So you couldn’t even get close to the fence to try to follow it to see where you might end up.

The other thing we knew before we became the Dirty Ones in senior year was that there was a gate in the fence on the south side of campus. It was even more impenetrable than the fence. Perhaps it really was electrified, perhaps not. No one I knew was ever brave enough to touch the damn thing because of the high-voltage warning sign.

Then there were the cameras. All over the place, but most notably right there on the gate. If you approached the gate and started fucking with it by poking a stick at the locking mechanism, a siren would bleep a few times. And if you didn’t get your ass back where you came from in ten or fifteen seconds, it turned into a full-blown warning that sent even the wildest, most daring students running.

“Who cares?” Camille complains. “No one wants to hear this shit. We all know there’s a tower and a gate. We’ve all heard the alarm. We don’t need convincing. Just get to the good stuff, Con!”

“There is no good stuff,” Sofia whispers.

“The sex, I mean.”

“That’s not good stuff,” Sofia counters. She looks at me for just a moment, then averts her eyes to the wall of bookshelves off to her right.

I want to say something about her little comment, because it’s not my fault we were forced to do those things. And she didn’t fucking complain most weeks. Most of the time we actually did have fun. There was good stuff, and she can deny that all she wants, but I was there. She’s not fooling me. So what if we made the most of a bad situation? That’s what smart people do. So fuck her and that thinly veiled accusation. She was no more and no less a victim of what happened than anyone else.

“Whatever,” Camille says, saving me from commenting. “No one wants to hear about the gate.”

“Did you write this?” Bennett asks.

“Who?” I say.

Ben nods his head towards Kiera.

“No,” Kiera says. “I didn’t set the scene in the first chapter, for fuck’s sake.”

“Well, what did you write?” I ask.

She shrugs. “I described the tower. Two-story, made of stone, about fifty feet in diameter… stuff like that. But I never wrote anything like this opening.”

“Because it’s boring,” Camille says.

“OK, let me skip ahead,” I say. “Because there’s like five more pages of description.”

“Well, then we know I didn’t write it.” Camille laughs. “My characters start having sex on page three.”

Sofia rolls her eyes, but no one comments.

Camille is good and drunk.

“OK,” I say, and begin reading again.

The invitations were beautiful and it was exciting for several reasons.

One, we now knew there really was a tower.

Two, we’d been singled out from the entire senior class.

Three, we’d been given the combination for the lock to open the gate.

And, four, we were supposed to go there that night.

At least that’s how I felt when I got mine. How the others felt, who knows. All I really know is that we all showed up at midnight.