The Curse of the Osirians

House of Dares

Layla's POV

In the end they had us walk back up the stairs to the landing outside of Victor's office so that we could look in.

"See the bunch of keys on the desk next to Victor?" Alfie asked us.

"Yeah," Nina said as I nodded, a bit distracted by how close Jerome was standing next to me. I looked up to see him staring right back at me and I blushed as I looked back down, missing the grin that covered his face.

"Those are the master keys. He carries them with him everywhere he goes. So you'll never get them," Alfie continued to explain.

"But there is a key box on the wall just beside him," Patricia informed us.

"Yeah. He keeps a spare set of every single key in there," Jerome said, so close to me now I had to stop myself from instinctively stepping backwards.

"What are you lot looking at? Hmm?" Victor called out as he spotted us and left his office.

"Sir, we were just trying," Jerome started to say before my sister and her glorious lying skills decided to speak up.

"Admiring your coat. Is it vintage?" I resisted the urge to smack my forehead.

"Yes, just as I thought. This floor...it could use a polish," Alfie said from the stairs.

"Hmmm. Yes. In that case, Please feel free to polish it Alfie," Victor said as I chuckled at the turn of events.

"No! Er," he tried to say as Victor grabbed his arm.

"Come with me," Victor said leading him down the stairs.

"Nina, now is our chance," I hissed as I pushed her forward towards the office. She raced in and I followed after as she fumbled with the keys and managed to unlock the box and grab the attic key. She started to run out with both sets of keys though so I grabbed her by the arm and pried Victor's set out of her hands and placed it back on the desk just in time for us to get back onto the landing as Victor made his way back in, shooting us all looks of suspicion.

I grinned as Nina slyly showed us the attic key, wiping the smirk off of Patricia's face.

"Lucky," Alfie commented as he held a bucket and mop.

"Very lucky," Jerome added as he grinned over at me.

"Well, we'll see how lucky they are tomorrow night. When they go up into that attic," Patricia sniped. I gave my sister a high five as we went back to our rooms to get started on our homework.

*****

"The calls were going through to Joy's voicemail. But now I'm just getting an unobtainable signal. What does that mean?" I heard Patricia saying as she walked into history class the next day with Jerome and Alfie. I get that she was worried about her friend but she was becoming a broken record at this point and it was getting on my nerves.

"It just means Patricia, that she's got fed up of you bombarding her with messages and texts.
And she's changed her phone contract," I heard Jerome saying. I used my hair to hide the smirk on my face as I glanced over at Nina.

"All the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players," A male voice called out into the room. I couldn't help but finish the next few lines in my head. It was one of my favorite Shakespeare quotes.

"Hey. My name is Jason Winkler. And I'm your new history teacher. I'll also be teaching drama," the man said as I noticed all the girls sitting up in their chair as our new teacher faced the class. I had to admit, he was definitely an 8 on the hotness scale in my book.