Good Girls Never Rise: A Dark Boarding School Romance

Before leaving the common area, I found Shiner attempting to one-line one of the girls that Bain often frequented, which stole Bain’s attention away instantly. Which meant my plan had worked like a charm.

Gemma was nowhere to be found in the common area, but that was because she was in the art room, and I was fine with that, knowing we had eyes on Bain at the moment. The last few nights of tutoring had been tense. Aside from a few bantering comments about how I needed to do my homework so the SMC felt that she was doing her job as my tutor, along with quick, heated glances from me that I was certain she didn’t even notice, we’d mainly kept to ourselves. I had a feeling she was still angry about the fact that I hadn’t given her any more information on Bain, but it was better that way.

Cade, Brantley, and Shiner had been on their A-game with keeping up with Bain after Tuesday’s slip up, and he’d yet to leave the school grounds like he had in the past. Bain had fucked with us the other night, as if he knew there were eyes on him. I’d had a suspicion for a while now that he was getting antsy, and Tuesday confirmed as much. There was no one in the library after Cade had taken Gemma back to her room, and once we were done searching the darkened library aisles, finding not even a single page of a book out of place, Bain suddenly reappeared and slipped back into his room after we’d gotten back. It was a damn miracle that neither of us had gotten caught by the duty teachers scouring the halls that night.

Shaking the feeling of pressing anxiety from my shoulders, I crept up the stairs and walked down the hall slowly. It didn’t take long to find myself in front of Bain’s room, and I was inside the dorm even quicker since I had the master key—well, a copy of it, at least. Something I wasn’t sure my uncle knew, considering I’d stolen his and made a replica the first week I’d arrived here.

I knew it would come in handy eventually. Always think ahead, Isaiah. Cover your bases. A swallow worked itself down my throat as one of my father’s lessons came to mind. He’d always taught me to think ahead, and even though I hated him more than anything in the entire fucking world, I’d stayed true to that piece of advice. I had a backup plan for every aspect of my life—except for being the heir to my father’s business. There was no backup plan for becoming the Huntsman, because that meant harming Jack, and I wouldn’t do that. Jack was my limit.

As soon as the door clicked behind me, my gaze grew sharper and my ears more alert. I wasn’t sure what my father wanted me to find. He’d been too cryptic over the phone yesterday, and I wasn’t in a spot where I could question him further. I could only assume it was related to drop-offs and sales, though. I knew Bain’s phone would likely hold the most information, but that would be much tougher to snag, so his room was my first stop.

I stepped over his bundled clothes on the floor and lifted up his mattress, searching for any makeshift holes inside for hiding spots. The pillows in my hands were just the same as any other pillow, soft and fluffy, lacking any weight that would indicate something shoved inside. His dresser was full of boxers and extra uniforms, along with a few pieces of street clothing for after classes and weekends.

Just as I stepped back from his desk, something caught my eye. A Polaroid camera? My brows pinched as I picked it up and inspected it. Then, I placed it back down quietly and searched the rest of his room for what I was absolutely certain would be here.

I stood in the middle of his floor, searching every corner of the room until I paused, staring at a book. It wasn’t unusual to have a book on your desk at a boarding school, right? But what was unusual was that it was neatly pushed up against the back end of his desk. Each book was ramrod straight, almost look

ing like a decoration that would be on a shelf in a house versus an actual textbook that the school had given us.

My finger ran down the spine slowly, and instead of skin-like leather touching the pad of my pointer, it was plastic. Hard, unbending plastic. As I tipped one book back, the entire thing moved in one fluid motion, revealing the smallest cutout in the wall.

What a fucking idiot. I changed my opinion from earlier. Bain was stupid.

The hole wasn’t any bigger than a few inches wide than it was tall. There were frayed pieces of drywall all around the edges, and as I reached inside, I easily grabbed the photos.

I flipped through them quickly, knowing that, at any given moment, Bain could head upstairs. The guys were instructed to text me the second he stepped out of the common area, but still, that wouldn’t give me much time to exit his room without running into him. It was doable, though. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.

The first few pictures were of Journey, which was no surprise to me. Everyone knew of his obsession with her, and although her accident was ruled just that—an accident—I still suspected he had something to do with it. I didn’t buy his alibi when we’d cornered him, and without anyone suspecting that someone was at fault other than Journey herself, no one else had questioned him. I wasn’t convinced, though—not with the things I knew. Which was another reason why I didn’t want Gemma alone—not with a direct threat from Bain himself.

After pushing aside the few stalker-like photos of Journey, who had obviously been unaware that her photo was being taken, there was one of Ms. Glenburg that had me snarling. Not out of protection, because from the looks of the photo, it was quite obvious that she wasn’t just lusting over me but over Bain as well. Her tits were on full display in a lacy bra with what I assumed to be Bain’s thumb in her mouth. Her red lips were wrapped around his finger with hollowed out cheeks as she sucked. I didn’t give a flying fuck that Bain seemed to be having some sort of an explicit relationship with her. I wasn’t jealous in the slightest. But what I did care about was that the next photo was of me as I hovered over her with my hand up her skirt.

That fucker.

Bain was the one who told the SMC. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise that he’d been following me—my suspicions have been there for a while, especially with what he’d said to Gemma. But now that I was certain he was the one trying to get me kicked out of St. Mary’s, that likely meant he knew I was following him and reporting back to my father on his whereabouts. Did he know my father was the Huntsman? Or did he just know my father was in the same line of business as his? Most of the time, you could put a face to someone’s name, but what name did he know my father by? Carlisle Underwood? Or the Huntsman?

My teeth gritted together so hard my jaw throbbed. Finding this meant that Bain knew too much. I knew calling my father was inevitable. He needed to know that Bain was onto me, but what did that mean for me? For Jack?

I shoved the photo of Ms. Glenburg behind the next, careful not to crinkle the edges, but when I settled on the image in front of me, my fingers clamped down.

Golden brown hair fell down her back in those luscious waves that I found myself wanting to touch out of the simple notion that they looked soft. Her bottom lip was sucked into her mouth as she stared at the computer screen in front of her. Even through the bad quality of the photo, I could see the intense look in her gaze as the screen illuminated the perfect planes of her cheeks and—was that Cade beside her?

It was. My firm grip grew tighter, the edges of the photo bending in my fingers. This photo was taken Tuesday, after I’d left Gemma in the library with Cade as I searched for Bain’s sneaky ass.

Goddamnit. My heart began climbing in speed, the thumping so hard my chest rumbled. I cracked my neck as I shoved the photos back inside the hollowed part of the wall.

My phone vibrated, and I angrily pushed the fake book back in its place and read the text.

* * *

Cade: on the move.

* * *

I was out of Bain’s room before I even put my phone in my pocket. My strides were slow and easy down the hall, and I knew I appeared as I usually did on the outside, but I was burning with a million little fires on the inside, all of which formed a blazing circle around Gemma.

A feeling of protection like no other had surfaced, and I wanted to find Bain, shove him up against a wall with my hand wrapped around his throat, and demand he never look in her direction again.

There were two reasons Bain would be taking photos of Gemma, and none of them settled well with me. He was either interested in her because of me, or he was interested in her because she reminded him of Journey. Both options added on another layer of anger that all stemmed from my fucking father.