Page 50 of Villain
For a moment, it appeared as though he wasn’t going to answer, but then Yejun resituated the sketchpad on his leg and said, “She tricked me into thinking we were friends when, in reality, she was just like everyone else. She only wanted something from me. The second she got it? She had no problem tossing me to the wind.”
“Did you meet on the app?” Nix knew he said his friend—not that they sounded like they’d actually been friends at all—hadn’t died, but it couldn’t hurt to second-check.
“No,” he told him. “We met in class. Figure drawing is my main focus and I was retaking one of the basics last year because they had better models than the advanced classes. I’d pop in now and again and she and I got to talking one of those times. Seemed like we had a lot in common, so I hung around sometimes.”
“I heard you were a playboy.”
Yejun snorted. “Don’t get it twisted, Firebird. She and I weren’t fucking. I don’t fuck my friends. Too messy. Anyway, I didn’t call you here to share my feelings.”
“Why did you want me to come?”
“Figured Lake, King of Stoicdom, didn’t properly explain things to you yesterday,” Yejun said, grinning when Nix quirked a brow at the jab. “What? Come on. He’s not here and I won’t tell. Stoic should really be that guy's middle name.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Nix agreed.
“I’m typically not.” Yejun winked at him.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. He was clearly the biggest flirt of the three, but he’d said he wouldn’t do anything, and so far he was keeping his word. If he really had called Nix here to fill in the gaps for him, it was best he take advantage while he could.
“Lake had me sign an NDA or contract or whatever. I get that I’m supposed to help you draw out the hacker by pretending to be involved with you, but I’m still not really clear on the why or the how.”
“The hacker we’re after tried to use someone else to get to us,” Yejun explained. “Luckily, we discovered their plans before they could infiltrate the Kings too deeply, but it put us on edge. We know it’s the same person who attempted to get into the club’s computers, and thanks to that little act, we’ve got a better understanding of what they’re actually after.”
“Which is?”
“Lake. They want to stop him from taking the throne. The person they used before worked their way up the tiers organically. We’re not sure if they were on the same team from the beginning or if the hacker recruited them after the fact, but they were working together.”
“What could they get from being a King that they couldn’t elsewhere?” Nix didn’t understand. Lake had told him that the app was really a secret recruitment tool for the club, sure, but… “Were they hoping they could make it into Club Essential?”
“I don’t think so. They were collecting data on us, and our guess is the plan was to release it to the public all at once. Irrefutable evidence that we’re deviants and Lake is unfit to take the throne.”
“Okay,” Nix pursed his lips, “but it’s not like the planet isn’t already aware of the stuff that goes on with Enigma.”
“It's one thing to hear about college kids fucking around—literally. It’s another to see it and have it flooded all over the news. If Lake’s reputation is destroyed to that extent, he’ll no longer be considered an essential piece on the board. It’s the fact that he’s in line for the throne that keeps him safe. If the entire planet demands he step down? Both the Council and the Order will vote him out. If he’s not essential to the running of the government, there’s no need for him to remain in the club.”
“The Kings get up to a lot more than just sex with other students, don’t they,” Nix said. “You guys dare people to do dangerous things and then laugh when it ruins their lives.”
Yejun didn’t bother trying to deny it. “Sometimes we can be bullies, sure.”
“If you know that’s the sort of thing that could ruin your reputation, why risk it?”
“Because we can? Because it’s fun?” He rolled his eyes. “Things work a certain way here, everyone knows that. Implicating us implicates the entire school, and very few people would be stupid enough to attempt that sort of thing. That’s how you’re made to disappear.”
Nix tensed. “Have you…Killed people before?”
It was crazy to even consider, to think about them going around straight up murdering others and getting away with it. But it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first case where Imperials and Royals and those in power committed those types of serious crimes with no repercussions.
“You really didn’t come prepared, did you?” Yejun looked at him more closely. “Murder? Murder is easy for an Essential. I doubt the majority of the public would even bat an eye over something as small as that.”
What could they be hiding that was worse than killing?!
“We’re losing the plot,” Yejun stated then. “Let’s get back on course, yeah? My point was, right now, the only part of the club’s darker proclivities that can be proven involve sex. The bottom level of the Clubhouse is literally a sex club, after all, and so long as you’re invited by a member, just about anyone can enter there. So long as everyone just thinks this is about sex, it’s no big deal.”
“But you just said—”
“Okay,” he sighed, “so maybe if there was a legitimate body count, people might be angry. Especially if that count included one or several well-known members of society. Then again, maybe no one would care. This hacker is trying to find dirt on us, any kind of dirt. If they gather enough of it, spin it the right way, release it at the right time, they might be able to make an impact. We aren’t willing to risk that possibility.”
“So,” Nix drawled, “what you’re saying is you’ve done worse than force someone to give you a blowjob, and you know that’s wrong and want to cover it up?”