“Keep your head down!” Dean told Calgary in a hoarse whisper. “If we get caught, it’ll probably go bad for us, but it’ll go bad for the people pulling sec rotation, too.”
Chastised and afraid, Calgary dropped his head to the hard wooden surface and watched Dean.
Sitting there in the darkness, contemplating the area he needed to cross to get to the girls’ dormitory, Dean couldn’t help wondering how his dad was doing. Only a few minutes ago, he’d felt really close to Krystyalmost as if he could just reach out and touch her. Once he’d even thought he’d heard her voice.
“Dean,” Calgary whispered, “are you just going to sit there?”
“Until the guard makes the corner, stupe.” Dean watched the distant shadow. “Get ready.”
“I think I hurt my leg.”
Dean heaved a sigh. “Calgary, you wanted to see a naked girl tonight. Or at least find out if she is naked. Now get up off your ass.”
As the guard hit the corner, Dean moved off at once, staying low. He felt the vibration of Calgary’s heavier steps echo along the wooden timbers.
At the end of the catwalk, the rooftop of the girls’ dormitory they sought was only a seven-foot jump out, almost on the same level. Probably the original buildings hadn’t been that close to the perimeter walls, but the school had grown over the years and the walls hadn’t. Dean took the jump in stride.
Calgary hesitated, freezing on the catwalk like one of the gargoyles Dean had seen in a history book. He waved to the boy. “Come on.”
Eyes closed, which Dean considered to be triple stupe of the first order, Calgary jumped. He made the distance with no problem, but tried immediately to remain standing straight up. The incline of the roof threw him off.
“Oh, shit!” Calgary said, waving his arms wildly.
Dean grabbed him by the shirt and helped him find his balance. “You hit this rooftop like a sack of guts hitting the butcher’s floor,” he whispered, pulling the boy down to the roof. “You better hope everybody in this damn building is a sound sleeper.”
That was one thing that Dean had found true; people inside the school’s heavy walls slept more soundly than he’d have ever thought about doing when he was with his dad. At school, it was a totally different way of living. He threw an arm around Calgary’s shoulders and held him down until the sec guard passed.
“We’re pretty close to her, aren’t we?” Calgary said.
“Ever notice that vanilla scent she wears?” Dean asked.
Calgary hesitated a moment, then shook his head. “I’ve never been that close.”
“Trust me,” Dean said, “she wears it. Get your nose open a little bit, and you’ll probably be smelling it in the next few minutes. Then we’ll find out if vanilla scent is the only thing she wears at night.” He grinned. Finding Phaedra was no longer just for Calgary and the thrill of doing something he wasn’t supposed to. There were mysteries to be solved that he hadn’t even known he was interested in.
Dean led the way across a third of the rooftop, staying below the ridged top so the sec people wouldn’t see him. Calgary trailed at his heels, complaining that they were moving too fast, until Dean told him to shut his mouth or he’d make Calgary carry his own shoes between his teeth.
Leaning over the eaves, Dean counted windows. When he found the fifth one, he scooted across the rooftop on his stomach, using his fingers and toes. With his head lower than the rest of his body, the blood rushed to fill his brain and face, making it feel that it would explode. His heart hammered inside his chest, too.
“Is that her room?” Calgary asked.
“It’s her room.” Hauling himself over the edge, Dean looked into Phaedra Lemon’s bedroom.
The room was small, holding only two beds, a chest of drawers and a trunk at the foot of each bed. Boys slept four to a room in bunks, but the girls only doubled up and had single beds. There were fewer girls, and Mr. Brody had mentioned that at one time only boys were allowed at the school.