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“Campus has strict outer wall security, but the inner campus security is still severely damaged and inoperable. Security of the employee cannot be guaranteed by the University despite strict outer wall security. Security measures within the campus, as recent events have shown, are compromised, and the employee assumes any personal risk while wandering on campus grounds after hours.”
I rechecked the files and confirmed the information. In the first three attacks, the security system had been hacked and disabled. For Benjamin’s murder, the system had been fried and destroyed completely. It would take weeks to get it back on track.
This was bad because, well… murder.
But it was also good, because now I was free to waltz around without being seen. Ideal for an undercover job.
Time to investigate, subterfuge-style.
Five minutes later, the cool air washed over my hoodie and leggings. My beat-up running shoes sank into the sodden grass. Athletic clothes were my best bet for now. At midnight, the only people who’d be out and about were insomniacs, alcoholics, and gym rats.
My cover buzzed insomniac gym rat treating her sleepless nights with a late-night walk under the moon since the vodka certainly hadn’t helped.
The familiar shape and texture of my trusty switchblade kept my hands occupied as I held it in my hoodie pocket. Still, I couldn’t shake the fact that I wouldn’t be safe walking around.
October first was weeks away.
This was my first day on campus.
Even though I’d made enemies, it wasn’t fair to assume they were killers just yet.
Betty sprawled out before me, silent and still except for the chain ladder clinking in the breeze. Mist blanketed the ground, and the beginnings of a storm rolled in. The clouds had fucked around across the horizon, inching closer but never making it here. Now, with a soft misty drizzle coming down as the warm ocean breeze encroached onto land, it seemed the bitch finally made her move.
The dirt pathway curved under the trees lording their canopy over my head, shielding me from the drizzle as I entered the inner campus. Once I stepped onto the pavement, I began the war with my intuition magic. This was one of those times I would have to coax it out of me. I felt it already.
My senses itched with paranoia. This much open, quiet space for someone who always hid in the crowds was one thing; a killer on the loose was another. Every dark window a shadowy eye watching me, and there were hundreds. Every corner I turned harboring an enemy waiting in ambush.
Ten minutes in, my nerves were properly rattled. My neck ached from jerking looks over my shoulder. The rain pattered relentlessly on the leaves, the pavement, the glass and steel of the buildings.
Still, my fucking intuition wouldn’t wake up. No level of begging made her care about the mission.
I stopped at the overhang of the illusion building and leaned against a column. “Get your shit together,” I ordered myself. “No one is going to get you out here.”
If anxiety couldn’t trigger my gift, I’d have to try calming down. A deep breath in, and then out. Then another. And another. Getting my heart rate down was step number one.
Next was meditation. There were spells, charms, and protections fucking with my magic on this campus, and I had to give myself grace for that. Nothing was wrong with me. I had the power to overcome this.
After what felt like an eternity, my intuition peeked her snobby little head out from hiding.
“There you are,” I muttered.
She cautiously explored me and then examined my needs, which were all focused on one thing: finding clues. She yanked hard to the side, nearly toppling me over, before passing through the doors of the building and into the hallway.
There, she stopped and hovered.
The metal handle was icy cold as I jiggled it.
Locked.
The building overhang shielded me from most of the windows and openness of the quad. So, I turned my phone’s flashlight on and shined it through the door.
Three doors down. That’s where my magic led me, trying to lead me into that room. Too far to read, I clicked the light off and urged my magic elsewhere.
It didn’t want to go.
Apparently, there was something very important in that room. Time to find out.
Chapter Seventeen
