Chapter 135 – Evading Scrutiny – Silver Brooks

My visit to Perri's new hideout was going to be a surprise. The subject I wanted to discuss was sensitive and I didn't want her trying to talk me out of it over ChatCat. That's why I decided not to message her about it beforehand. This just meant I needed to locate the Discipline Hall on my own.

Luckily I had a good idea about who to follow in order to be led directly to it. Jin was currently meandering around outside the cafeteria lobby like a loony drunk. After watching her behavior for an extended amount of time I was really beginning to believe she was drunk at school. It wouldn't be the first time.

Much to my annoyance Jin didn't go straight over to the hideout like I hoped. No, instead she had to visit some of her random classmates to chat, stir up trouble with an SCA patrol, and then proceed to steal a bag of chips by reaching her freakishly flexible arm into a vending machine. What a clown this girl was.

A secret is only as strong as its weakest link, or so the saying went. Eventually Jin led me to my target as intended. The place was on the far side of the school, away from any regularly used facilities. In a way it was like the old science wing used to be, an out of the way location that few people knew about.

The old science wing became commonly known overtime because we were using it. The large amount of members our group had made such activity impossible to hide in the long run. That being the case, Perri's group would inevitably be discovered here as well.

This location wasn't a bad position otherwise. Normally the SCA didn't range this far from the heart of the school. There was so little of note out this far that doing so would usually be a waste of time and effort. Perri knew that and chose this place accordingly. How long would it be before the SCA learned about this new place?

It was at this point that I decided to stop hiding and reveal myself to Jin. The big oaf waved excitedly at me as she saw me approaching. I couldn’t help but to respond with a cheeky smile.

"Silver! You came to join us! Perri said she knew you would!" Jin said.

"I came to check out the new hideout." I said. "Is Perri already inside?"

"Yeah, yeah, she and the others got here before me. I had a few things to take care of. Want some chips?" She asked, gesturing her bag of chips towards me.

"No thanks... I'm curious, how do you plan to get inside? This door still looks locked up."

"It's not locked. We just keep the chains on the handle in case the SCA decide to come prowling. It won't look like it's been tampered with from a distance. Check it out."

Jin pointed to the locking mechanism itself. It was undone, but still bound the the chains around the door handle. The chains didn’t wrap around both door handles. This was probably Perri's handywork, knowing how good she was with lockpicking.

"Come on, I'll take you to Perri. She's going to be happy to see you here."

Jin casually pushed the door open and I was treated to an unexpected sight. Whatever this hallway once was, it had been completely transformed under Perri's management. The hallway had no overhead lighting, and virtually no electrical lighting to speak of. Both sides of the hall were adorned with typical store-bought table candles. The hallway was softly illuminated with an almost mystical glow.

The girls moving between classrooms in the hallway were basically shadows from the distance I was at. The lighting was so weak that it was hard to make out anything in detail until I got close. Jin led me through the place, pointing out some of the tapestry hanging from the wall. Instead of graffiti being on the wall directly, it was on fabric.

The tapestries were strategically placed with the candle lights in mind. They hung just behind where each candle table was located. The tables themselves were actually just regular student desks placed out in the hallway. Some of the tapestry was decorated with glow-in-the-dark ink which caught my interest. As a fan of niche artwork this hallway was an expression of the things I loved.

"You like it, don't you?" Perri asked as she came out of one of the classrooms.

"Like it...? I love it! This looks amazing!"

"I knew you would. I orchestrated the arrangement myself. We all pitched in a few dollars to buy the materials and made the artwork ourselves. I was hoping you'd join us sooner but you were too busy helping the event committee with the Christmas decorations."

“It’s dark here, but kind of cozy. It reminds me of how we always kept the lights out in the old science wing classrooms. That was long ago, before Naomi struck a deal with Ms. Sampson.”

“That’s not all! Come here! Check out this classroom we’ve been setting up!” She said.

Perri pulled me over to the same classroom that she came out of earlier. The classroom was filled with larger, more powerful candle lights. The room actually had tall, free-standing candle holders around the room. It was easier to see in here compared to the hallway. The room was smoky, not just from all the candles, but from the cigarettes a few of the girls had.

They were hanging out on expensive looking couches and chairs. Everyone was lounging around having casual conversations of their own. Each of the seating arrangements had tables near them with coffee cups and trays full of snacks. A record player in the corner was playing a chill tune. The atmosphere felt so soothing that I could imagine myself sleeping on one of those couches.

The expensive furniture raised a massive question. Where did this stuff come from? How did they sneak all of this stuff over without the SCA noticing, or any of the staff for that matter? Even if the staff was oblivious to such behavior, there was no way the janitors would overlook students hulking furniture and equipment through the hallway.

There was also a large cabinet filled with snacks. On the far side of the room there was an imposingly large grandfather clock. There was a clothing rack full of clothes in one corner of a room and a folding privacy screen right beside it for changing. All the girls inside this room were wearing casual clothing rather than their uniforms.

“How…?” I started to ask, taking in all the sights this place had to offer, “How did you… Where did this… I just don’t understand. I thought you were trying to keep a low profile?”

Perri grinned conspiratorially.

“We are!” She said. “This place has a major secret that I’m about to show you. Come here.”

She took me by the hand again and led me to a room on the other side of the hall. This room had little in the way of decorations and there was no one else inside at the moment. There was a massive hole in the ground at the center of the room. It was so large that I was apprehensive about walking into the room at all. Was the ground here even safe?

“This was boarded up with some wooden planks but we pulled out the nails.” Perri said. “Guess where this goes too?”

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I looked down into the dark hole and thought about it for a moment. Then I realized.

“This is above the school basement!” I said.

“Yep!” Perri said.

Perri pointed to the opposite side of the room where there was a curtain installed over something. There were two candle-desks beside the curtained off area. Perri snapped her fingers at a girl watching us from behind. The girl in question went around the hole in the ground to draw back the curtain. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at before I turned back to Perri.

“That’s an elevator, right?” I asked.

“It is! I remembered seeing it that night we helped Holly and the others get inside the school. All our furniture and clothing came from downstairs. Pretty neat, huh?”

"I don't know... We'd be in deep trouble if the staff discovered us here. This is similar to why Megan was suspended, remember? The school, Ms. Sampson at least, really wants to keep the basement hidden."

"You’re worrying too much! We've been discreet about our entry and exiting. No one's going to find us here unless someone goofs up in a big way."

Someone already did. Jin proved just earlier how easy it was to trail her with only mild effort. If the SCA were really hunting them as proactively Perri believed they were then they'd probably have already discovered this place.

"Putting that aside, as long as you limit yourself to the Discipline Hall then maybe things will be fine? Maybe Ms. Sampson and the SCA won't look into all this? This hall was locked up, but I've never heard of it. It can't be that important. As long as the basement remains unused they may not care."

Perri shook her head and clacked her tongue disapprovingly.

"But then we'd be missing out on the coolest part!"

"Which is...?" I asked, already dreading the answer.

"I moved your shrine inside!" She said as if revealing a surprise gift.

I grimaced in response. I was on the edge of destroying that damn thing before. After all that happened between me and the Killing Cat I absolutely didn't want to see it intact now. I put the shrine out of my mind and assumed that people were no longer interested in it. That was naïve of me.

"You can't be serious?" I asked in mild annoyance.

"Of course I am!" She said cheerily, either ignoring or oblivious to my negative tone.

She turned to the girl that drew open the elevator curtain.

"Hey! Mind doing the honors? I want to take Perri down myself!"

"Sure." The girl said.

Without warning she jumped down into the hole at the center of the room. I freaked out for a moment and ran to the edge of the hole. Apparently the drop wasn't that deep, but it still looked like an uncomfortable fall. I gave Perri a concerned look and she grinned in response.

The girl below flicked some sort of switch and suddenly the sounds of electrical devices whirring up filled the air. Overhead lights flickered on reluctantly, going on and off several times before finally staying on. The elevator on the other side of the room made a 'ping' sound as if to alert us to its readiness.

"Come on!” Perri said.

She was already pulling me along and didn't wait for my response. I pulled away and dug my heels in before she could take me any further.

"That doesn't look safe!" I said.

"Oh relax, you'll be fine!" She said. "As long as we make it down there before the electricity goes off then we'll be fine. Besides, even when someone got stuck that one time we still managed to get them out through the hatch in the elevator's ceiling."

"That doesn't inspire confidence..."

"Just come on!" She said impatiently, pulling me harder.

Reluctantly, I allowed myself to be dragged along into the elevator. The inside of the elevator was just as rickety and antique as it looked from the outside. Perri had to press the door operation button several times just to get it to shut. She smiled at me innocently as if that weren't a massive red flag.

Fortunately we were able to go down to the basement level without any problems. The lights flickered in the lobby as we walked in. Perri didn't bat an eye and continued on in through a set of red double doors. The basement hallway was vaguely familiar to me from the last time we visited the basement.

The Shrine of Nyx was now located in the room that the basement's cellar door opened up into. I easily understood why they put it here. Perri had already proven that she could bypass the lock on the cellar door as well. The shrine wasn't too far away from the basement door’s location. They likely just dragged it over and left it in this room.

"What do you think?" Perri asked.

Going by the smug sound in her voice she probably already decided I'd love this no matter what. She clearly didn't understand my earlier frustration with the statue.

"I wish you hadn't." I admitted.

Her smile didn't waiver.

"Sure, no one will be visiting it anymore but everyone in our gang will appreciate it."

"I'm not sure about that, but it wasn't my concern. In fact, I've completely forgotten about this shrine by now and I don't want to dwell on it. Instead, I want to talk to you about why I came here."

"You came to be by my side, right?" She asked, sounding self-satisfied.

"I came to tell you about what happened to Naomi."

"Yep, I heard." She said proudly. "With the way things are going, I'm pretty much set to take her place, aren't I?"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that... Casper said…"

Perri rolled her eyes.

"Oh please don't bring up Casper and the others." She begged. "I’ve already accepted three of them with open arms. The rest will come running one-by-one once they see which way the wind is blowing. As far as I'm concerned I'm the queen bee now. Even Casper will admit she was wrong eventually and I’ll accept her with open arms."

"Is that all you care about?" I asked in an exasperated huff, "I’m starting to think that Casper was right. You just want to take over."

“There’s no need to be insulting.” She said. “I just think it will be a nice change of pace. Our group will benefit from the new ideas of a new leader. You see the potential there, right? With me at the helm we can enact any rules on the group that we want!”

This was enough to make me pull away from her grasp.

“I don’t want that... At all… I want to go back to the way things were before. I want my peaceful school life back, without all this fighting and drama. Remember how nice things were at the start of the school year before all of this? I want that back.”

“Why settle for the status quo when we can create something so much better?” She asked. “I thought you of all people would appreciate a new wave of visionary ideas. Most of all, we need a leader that will proactively stand up to the SCA, Brittney, and anyone else that dares to give us trouble. Don’t you want that?”

She punctuated her statement by putting her hands on my shoulders and trying to get me to look her in the eyes. I couldn’t. Her idea of what constituted a good school life was at fundamental odds with mine. Naomi’s recent change was radical, but it had its merits. The fights with Brittney’s group couldn’t go on, let alone fighting with any other group.

I didn’t want her to be leader. That’s not why I was interested in Perri to begin with. It felt like, these days, I had little time with her to myself. Our relationship stagnated almost as soon as it officially began. It would only stagnate even more with her in the leadership position. Did we even have anything special between us now?

I sighed and drew upon as much inner resolve as I could muster up.

“I’m not joining your group.” I said firmly. “Our group is going through a break-up and I won’t be part of it.”

“You…” She said in disbelief.

I finally stared her back in the eyes.

“Perri, I wanted you to myself, remember?” I asked. “You seem to have forgotten about that altogether. You’re so focused on being popular and being surrounded by people that worship you that I don’t even know how to approach you anymore. I know I can’t ask you to give all that up for me, but I wish you’d see things from my perspective.”

Perri was silent. She dropped her hands from my shoulders and stared at me contemplatively. We stared at each other, waiting for the other to break the silence. It seemed there was nothing more to be said.

“Let’s go back up.” She said in a soft, weary voice. “I think it’s about time for us to be heading home anyways.”

Things were awkwardly silent between us following that. It was clear that neither of us knew how to convince the other that our way of seeing things was the best way. Perri wanted something fresh, something new. I just wanted what I once had.

Casper’s mother gave me a lift home and the car ride was equally quiet. The music coming from the radio system made things easier, but the silence between us told me that Casper had a lot on her mind as well. She was leaned against the window with her arms crossed, watching the houses go by as we drove past them. The difficulties of the day were evident in her lethargic body language.

This was another day that it was all too easy for me to stumble into my bedroom and collapse on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Half-formed plans and half-baked strategies for setting things right tried taking root in my head. Everything I could come up with just didn’t seem like enough.

I wasn’t known for being clever like the members of the student council. There were only so many things I could try in order to set things right again. It felt like my group was crumbling down all around me and there was nothing I could do to keep it together. It was almost Christmas, a time that friends usually came together, and yet we were falling apart.

My phone rang from inside my school bag. I dug it out and was surprised to see that the call was coming from the Women’s Institute for Art and Humanities. Was a recruiter really calling me so soon after the school day ended? I had only arrived back home a few minutes ago.

“Hello…?” I asked.

“Hello…” A nervous sounding Cora Wells said from the other side of the phone. “Are you able to visit my college today? I’ve got an amazing offer for you.”