What Keeps Our Hearts Beating

Chapter 16

Raiph felt rage and jealousy running through his veins as he beheld what lay behind the brick. The Dorothy Parker poetry book...he recalled the anguish in Brasen's face reciting those poems when he was in the hospital ward when he was suffering. Probably like those words were giving him strength, his bodily impulse to trick the brain from focusing on the pain and instead focusing on the words... muttering those words again and again. After those sessions, Raiph couldn't get those words out of his mind. Like he was being haunted by the words of his former best friend. He finally confessed to Dr. Weber that he needed to know where those poems came from, like once knowing the source he could fight the demons in his mind. Dr. Weber had shut his eyes and told him what those poems were, like he also had nightmares of those poems in his sleep, confessing it was he who had first introduced Brasen to her poetry, like unlocking a door he could no longer shut behind him.

And now she had this book hidden here, like all the other lies and deceit.

All those questions that had seemed so innocent now came back at full swing. Tricking him for information about Brasen, about their friendship. When they had shared that kiss in the drawing room, had she been thinking about Brasen when she cried!

He slammed the book down onto the table. He had feelings for Lacey, and had believed she cared about him too. The Halloween dance was in 3 days. Lacey had been avoiding him since her encounter with Dr. Weber. Since Brasen's alarm had sounded and all hell went loose trying to locate him. When Brasen had been found smiling up in his room after an hour of endless searching, he just shrugged and said he had been in the lab and there were no guards to tell them that his bracelet had malfunctioned.

Raiph hadn't believed a word of it. He had personally checked the lab first when the alarm sounded. Brasen was not there. They had exchanged a heated glare after Dr. Weber berated the guards for fucking up his plan. Even the hidden cameras had poor footage and nothing even captured Lacey returning to her room after her meeting with Weber. Someone was covering for her.

Raiph felt it best to stay silent, but knew that there was a lot more to Brasen and Lacey's relationship than either of them wanted to admit. And he felt that the only person capable of tampering with that kind of security system was Ming.

He slammed down his math homework again, not able to concentrate and decided to enter the warzone that was the ballroom where Sandra was in full out dictator mode. She was busy arranging and rearranging furniture and decorations for the Halloween dance, cobwebs spewing off of the golden curtains and the piano dusted and moved to put a dummy ghost piano player at the keys. The diapered marble floor was covered and the crystal and gilt metal chandelier had giant black spiders hanging from the pristine sparkling light. It looked like the 18th century had thrown up confetti and spiders. Sandra pulled on her black hair and was screaming at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing in that dining room. She was berating one of the maids who was not helping her enough and the maid was chewing on her nail like this was the last thing she was being paid for.

"Sandra, calm down," Raiph said, putting his arm around his friend and trying to calm her down before she had a breakdown.

"Calm Down! Do you see this place! My name is associated with this catastrophe and I am too much of an artist to let this fumble out of control."

"You are working with amateurs. Hell, you put Ming in charge of food. That was already your first mistake since we both know there won't be any appetizers left after he is done eating them."

Sandra smiled and then put her face in her hands. She shrunk down on one of the purple velvet chairs that was probably prohibited but none of the staff dared lecture her at that moment. "For once, I thought I could be a real decorator and party planner. To put my artistic skills to work, for once! And look at this! Black spiders. I wanted black orchids!"