Fishburne was a great storyteller. Although Jaime had probably heard Fishburne’s stories a thousand times, he was still enthralled as Fishburne retold his adventurous and tragic child soldier’s childhood. Jaime unconsciously inclined forward, letting himself be reeled into a stream of raw, burning memories. Fishburne’s voice was as animated as his body, vividly painted out the scenes in front of the audience’s eyelids, transmitting the horrors, the fear, the depthless miserable of raiding and murdering villages for the sake of his own safety. No one dare to ask question, breath taunted as child Fishburne as he was forced to put a bullet between a man’s eyes. Dal stood by Fishburne’s side, a misty gaze settled at the bottom of her teeming ocean-blue eyes, prideful and vaunt.

However, after a while, Jaime’s attention started to drift. Music thumped in Jaime’s bloodstream, ignited a small fire spark at the far back of his head—a sign that his body was repelling the disgusting beer out of his system. He had asked for some cold water and was debating whether to left for more water. He needed to take a breather, because he would puke if he spent another second breathing the air that was vicous with sexual tension when pent-up blokes meet rounded-eye chicks. Moreover, the tangy taste of sweat and booze and palpable empathy made him dizzy and sick. Passmore, who was standing besides him, kept looking him with concern.

I really need a drink. The thought of water brought his entire internal organs to coil tighter in anticipation of the cool, pure liquid. He needed to think, and standing here as one of Fishburne’s admirer wouldn’t do. He had enjoyed the party, but business was still need to be complete. The party wasn’t a great change to Jaime’s plan, but it was opportunity nonetheless, and he would be foolish not to take it. He wouldn’t do anything as of right now, considering it was only an hour or so into the party and no one was drunk enough for their memory to be unreliable. In the meantime, though, he had to set up the stepping stones. That meant he needed to locate More first.

Just as he was about to turn, Ahmed suddenly bursted into the circle and showered a champagne at everybody near his standing radius. For a few moments, things were all sticky and fuzzy, foaming sprays rained on their head. Fishburne swept Dal in his arms and French-kissed her in front the entire audience, earning a roar of approving hoots. Meanwhile, Jaime stood paralyzed, trying to control his anger when realized somehow only him ended up with beer dripping down his front. The people was dead silent for a splintering silence, staring at the jumping muscles near his mouth, before they all doubled over and laughing like maniacs. Ahmed took in Jaime’s twitching face and proceed to sloppily apologize, barely concealed his smugness. That the piece-of-shit was purposefully riling up with him.

Jaime snarled at Ahmed, knuckles meeting hard cheekbones. The brat sprung a gorilla arm over his shoulders as though they were chums, although discreetly lugged a painful punch in Jaime’s solar perlux. Thankfully, before either of Jaime and Ahmed managed to smash one another’s skull in, Passmore grabbed Ahmed’s collar and hauled the fucker off. Dal pushed Fishburne away to grab him a towel and send another peal of giggling his way as she directed him to the washroom.

Fantastic, Jaime snapped at himself as he weaved through the crowd, baring his teeth at those who glanced at him, Just fan-fucking-tastic. He slammed open the washroom door, ready to kill.

“Jesus!” A voice shouted, husky and slick with body fluid. Bodies scampered apart. “What the fuck, man? Get out!” Titters peppered up from behind Jaime.

Jaime stepped inside, locked the door properly and flicked on the light.

“Bloody hell. Get the fuck out. Are you mental?” The same voice that screamed at him. He casted a glance at the direction, although the fogged glassdoor prevented him from distinguished any features.

He toed the discarded clothes away from him. “Don’t mind me. Carry on your business,” Jaime said, stripping out his shirt and ran the tap. Amber liquid flushed out from the ceases of his shirt, tainting the water into a dirty pee colour. He frowned as he sopped up his neck and hair and glossed over his chest, the steam wafting off the hot tap carried a liquor scent.

A familiar snigger followed the husky voice’s curses, “Baby, you’re going soft.” Jaime rolled his eyes. Reed More. He couldn’t have guess.

A wet squelch followed as the two occupants moved inside. Jaime squeezed a generous amount of soap onto the fabric in his hand, making the whole room felt sick with the thick lavender perfume akin to what Dal wore. He scavenged for the hair-blower, plugged it in and flipped it to max. He pressed the shirt onto the given towel and squeezed the excess water out a few times before ran the hair-blower across.

Should have found this whore in this dump first, Jaime thought, and quickly pinched his nose. His inability to think was the proof that he had drunk too much, and his vulgarism was a confirmation of that. Shit. He wasn’t himself.

“Fuck,” A frustrated growl emitted, quickly dismissed by the relentless sound of flesh slapping against flesh. “Fuck. Fuck this.” More moaned, and Jaime glared up at the sharp pain ringing. A bulky boy yanked the glass-panel door open. Jaime met his eyes in the mirror, blank-faced at the murderous daggers shooting at him. “Fuck you,” The kid shoved Jaime roughly against the wall, breathing cum-stink breathes onto his face.

Jaime stared him down. “You’ve three seconds before I fucking cut off your dick and shove it down your throat, bastard,”

“Fuck you.” The boy spat but let Jaime free nonetheless, albeit with another shove. Jaime smirked as the boy hurriedly scooped up his jeans and shirt and pulled them on. In seconds, he had stomped out, banging the door loudly behind. Muffled teasing trailed after the boy, and Jaime finally let out a bark of laughter.

“I’ll bill you, dick. This is the nth time you ruined my chance at getting a proper laid.” More huffed, although amusement undertoned his complain.

Jaime tossed More’s jeans through the crack of the tub. “Get out. You’ve got something to do.”

“You’re no fun.”

Jaime slumped by the sink, impatiently pressing his fingertips on the fabric every few seconds. He’d just need it to be damp enough to wear and looked decent. Luckily, he had changed into a cheap cotton shirt instead of wearing the school’s uniform shirt. His undershirt wasn’t terribly soaked, so he was OK. He work his way slowly around the entire surface of the garment, front and back, inside and out.

More had heaved himself out of the tub and tugged up his jeans. “I’m not even gonna asked what happened.” More peered over Jaime’s shoulder as he looped his belt around his waist.

“Good. Because it’s one of your uneducated ex again.” Jaime said. “I need you to be sober tonight. Stick close to Dal Bland, Fishburne and Passmore. Keep pouring drinks for them, get them drunk senseless.”

More considered this and nodded. It didn’t take a genius to figure that Fishburne, following the previous Head Boy tradition, would sooner or later be pressured into hosting at least one earth-crashing party. Fishburne’s reign was coming to an end, and without hosting a single party over the past two years, it was a matter of sooner or later would the party be. Albeit, initially, Fishburne only planned to have a small gather-up with his rugby team, with Dal and Jaime to congratulate Passmore’s appointment, and the only liquor that would be consumed was the beer he had learnt to self-brew in his bathtub.

Of course, that wasn’t the case. The rugby jocks had trundled up with six-packs and small kegs that had been stowing away.

Fishburne was furious to know that his teammates had already broke the news to both Dorms, claiming that Fishburne was throwing a bash.

Jaime had played in the role of a hard-time advisor, warning the consequences, however who ultimately tided over things was Dal, who swayed Fishburne to prospect over the possibilities of having fun. “We would clear up the party before anything goes out of hand.” Dal reassured Fishburne and Jaime.

“It’s gonna be fine. Enjoy the blast like it lasts,” Fishburne said, although that sounded more like he was trying to persuade himself more than to Jaime.

“Sure. This’s gonna blast into a disaster.” Jaime muttered, shaking his head, although inside he was doubling over in glee. It was an immense pleasure to watch the lions and lionesses stood high and mighty on top of their Pride Rock, smiling down at their kiss-ups and admirers, blissfully unbeknownst to the fate awaiting at the short end of their life.

Now, normally, parties would never be on the school ground since the risks were too much. If they were bursted, the whole lot of them would be in it together.

Usually, they’d sneak to Tippett Point, an abandoned metal-wrecked dock that was only a mile from Castleton. The bar there didn’t care to ask for IDs, too. More freedom and much safeter.

That meant, Fishburne’s party would be the first one to be host on the Attic, the Head Boy’s suit. As opposed to the general student body, the Heads get to live at the top floor, a quiet and excluded quarter. Not many have visited the Attic since most Head Boy tends to keep the goods for themselves. In fact, this was also Jaime’s first time at the Attic, recalling the awe flushing his chest when he stepped through the threshold and swept his gaze through spacious suit, with its glorious three wide-set windows and the compact kitchen-living room compound.

Fishburne kept his room simple and neat, the furniture was minimalistic and in sombre brown-and-black palette, a dark-wine smooth rug carpeted around the coffee table. As he trawled through the living room, defusing the irrational jealous at Dal’s familiarity with the place, Jaime silently added another factor to the list of reasons he would want the Head Boy title. Power, respect, scholarship opportunity, and accommodation.

As more and more people climbed up the separate private route from the Main Staircases, and as twilight and night descended down as one, talks start to rotate around faster and faster, barely concealed musings and truths. One said the Attic was cursed by the vengeance spirit of a Head Boy who committed suicide a few decades back, another claimed the Attic used to be a popular spot for confessions, for making love, for breaking hearts.

But one in particular, though, one that caught and spread like wildfires in forms of gasps and hushed exclamation in a matter of minutes was: the Attic was the only place on the Campus that there was no supervising camera.

Without communicating aloud, ideas immediately deep-rooted. Without cameras, the Head’s room would be the only safe place for any rule-breaking activities to go on for a long duration. Partying, cross-gender meet-ups, underage drinking.

Or, things, such as, trading of weed and cigarettes and alcohol on a monthly, if not daily, basis.

And they didn’t need to ask for confirmation from Fishburne. The fact that they had been dishing out six-packs and started slipping into an animal-mode and no legal officers had come to break up the party spoke for itself. There was a chance that supervisors were letting them off the hook out of sympathy for the kids, but one thing Jaime knew for sure was that everything in Castleton was as ruthless and rigid as the one besides him. Fishburne was a cautious man, but if he agreed on such risk of expulsion, therefore he must have see minimum danger to his position.

Meaning, there was indeed no cameras.

Jaime glanced up and matched More’s calculating gaze in the mirror. Their facial features were similar, differentiated only by Jaime’s healed slashes on his cheekbones and More’s dust of acnes.

“I think I saw the Reggie Rat somewhere,” Jaime said, patting the front of his shirt and flipped it on the other side to dry the back. Someone banged on the door and More banged back, making obscene moans. More glanced at his watch.

Outside, the music was still low, but judging from the increasing screams and whoops, half of the boy Dorm would be here, the other half was coming, and the girl Dorm was sidling along in meager twos and threes at a time. At best, they had until midnight, three hours away, before the rest of the Campus made their way up to the Attic. With the sound volume all the way up, and undoubtedly attracted the Headmaster’s hearing. At worst, they had another hour before one of the patrolling teachers noticed the girls and the boys sneaking across the boundary line.

“You want me to talk to Reg.” More drawled. “You know it’s, like, an unsaid rule that exes don’t talk to each other, right?”

“Like I care. Drug the Cokes they were passing out. And plant the package if possible.” He thought, then added. “Maybe gave it out to the jocks, too. Let them pass it around.”

More nodded.

Like a chain reaction, once it started, there would be no tracing back.