Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Saint Parras College is a collection of buildings set around a central avenue. Side streets and walking paths twist around manicured grass, bushes, palm trees, and white-washed Spanish colonial buildings with those lovely red roofs and big red doors. It looks like a Caribbean Ivy League complete with creeping vines growing up along the walls and around the windows of some of the older structures, like the ancient church and the main administration building.
We skirt around the edges of campus, doing our best not to draw attention, though students are already hanging around outside. They know what the Jeeps mean. There aren’t many vehicles on the island, and it took absurd amounts of money and effort to bring them here, but so far they’ve been worth every penny.
Excitement peppers the air as the first real shipment of the year appears, and everyone knows what that means: parties, parties, and more parties.
All of them centered around Calico House.
We slow to a stop outside of a large building on the far edge of campus, set back away from the main paths. When I first came to Saint Parras, Calico House was a rundown former plantation building with crumbling columns and more snakes than floorboards, but over the last three years and with the help of my society members, not to mention copious materials smuggled in from the mainland, we’ve entirely renovated the structure and restored it to its former natural beauty. It helps that Dirk’s father is a world-renowned architect and Terrence can do the manual labor of ten men combined.
“Let’s get this stuff unloaded, logged, and stored,” I say once the Jeeps are parked. More Calico members come streaming out from the house and greet everyone as they pitch in and begin to unload. This part will be easy with all the extra hands, and the head of the household, Lesley, will make sure everything’s accounted for and nothing’s missing, not yet at least. I’m not stupid enough to mind if a bottle or two disappears, so long as my people are happy and loyal.
“There’s someone up at the house waiting to see you,” Lesley says. She’s a skinny brunette with a pinched face and an intense frown, and she’s the daughter of two Nobel Prize-winning chemists. I’m pretty sure she’s the smartest person I’ve ever met, though she tends to hide it. I don’t know why and I don’t ask.
“Someone from the administration?” I ask, frowning, head tilted. There shouldn’t be any problems tonight, but I can never be sure. Dom’s observation that this shipment isn’t exactly hidden was astute, but that doesn’t mean what I do is sanctioned.
I still have to play the game even if the game is easier these days.
“No, a student. A girl named Kaye.” Lesley squints at me. “New girlfriend? I can’t keep up.”
A smile spreads across my lips as I shake my head. “Not even close. But she might be a prospective new member. I’m thinking about it.”
“I didn’t know you were bringing in new pledges this year. I thought your brother and your cousin was more than enough.”
“We have room for one more.”
“Emilio, we talked about this. Grow too fast—”
“And we draw more unwanted attention. Thank you, Lesley, I’m aware.”
She sighs and rubs her temples. “You’re a pain in my ass. We’re not a bunch of swashbuckling pirates, Emilio. We’re college smugglers.”
“Smugglers can have fun too. Where’s she waiting?”
“Sitting room. I made her tea.”
“Thank you.”
Lesley sighs and walks off, shouting at Terrence to be careful already and taking over as I wander past the swarm of people heading into the house’s basement.
I walk up the front steps and pause to glance back. The Jeeps sit like silent sentinels, slowly being unpacked and unburdened, the society members moving with organized urgency and a subtle feeling of euphoria washes over anyone. I allowed myself a moment of pride—I built this machine. When I first arrived on this island, all of this was overgrown and I had to lug my goods by hand from the caves. The Jeeps, the house, that all came later, after months and years of sweat and hard work and blood, so much goddamn blood.
And last year, all of that was nearly taken away by one single girl.
I head inside. The house is well lit and comfortable, the walls freshly painted and decorated like it’s a museum. That’s a sort of joke—we bring in thrift store art and whatever gets destroyed is replaced on the next shipment—but there’s a sort of reverence for this place among those that get the privilege of living here. We’re a student society, which means we have semi-official status at the college, though really we’re independently financed and extremely exclusive. My first year, I brought in a dozen new members, but since then, we average two or three per year. On the surface, we’re a social club, though everyone on the island knows what we really do.