The Folder

Chapter Five

Victoria and Julius

I open my mouth and then close it again, my speech failing me. He’s more beautiful than I remember.

“It’s a long story, come on, it’s breakfast time.” Julius says, saving the day. He drapes his arm around his best friend and pulls him along. I have no choice but to follow.

As we enter the cafeteria, everyone stops talking and stares. There are about twenty students all with their mouths hanging agape. My eyes suddenly find the floor very interesting. The silence stretches until I hear a shuffle of feet. “Arthur, Jay, what’s going on? You know we can’t bring outsiders to this floor.”

I look up. Standing in front of us is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Her dark hair falls effortlessly to her waist; not a strand out of place. Her uniform compliments her perfect olive skin hugging her curves in all of the right places. Her eyes are a dark green that shine brightly under her long lashes.

I watch as Julius, or Jay as she called him, reaches up and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “She’s my new roommate.”

“What?” The girl and Arthur ask at the same time.

“We have been selected for a new experiment.”

“What’s the experiment?”

“Yeah, Julius, what is the experiment?” I ask arching my brow at him.

He shifts uncomfortably. “It’s top secret no one can know.”

Arthur stares between the two of us and I can see the gears turning in his head.

Suddenly, my stomach lets out a big gurgle and my cheeks instantly flush with heat. “Did I mention we haven’t eaten in almost a week?” Julius says weakly.

We quickly find our way to the food line. I pile my plate high with fruit, bacon, and pancakes, drowning everything in syrup. As we slide into one of the many empty round tables, Arthur slides a cup in front of me. “It’s straight black, just like you like it.”

Hesitantly, I raise it to my lips, still refusing to look his way. “Thank you.”

I look to Julius, who has taken the seat next to me. There’s something odd about his features as he stares at Arthur, but it quickly disappears. “I guess I should probably make the introductions. Mary,” he says, turning to the pretty girl. “This is Victoria. Victoria meet Mary. You already know Arthur.”

Mary smiles sweetly, “Oh really? How do you know, Arthur?”

“We met at the coffee shop on the ground floor.”

“Is that where you have been disappearing to in the mornings?” She asks, turning to look at him, a small hint of heartache in her face.

My veins seem to freeze over. Is this his girlfriend? Is she the reason he dumped me? It’s starting to feel very hot in here and I vacantly pull at Julius’s t-shirt that seems to be trying to suffocate me. Mary notices. “Do you not have clothes of your own?”

“I…I...” I try to push my brain to form a sentence but I’m finding it too hard.

“She forgot them during the move,” Julius says through a mouth full of eggs.

I scrunch my face up in disgust.

“Well then, I’m sure they are all gone by now. What do you say after classes today we head down to the ground floors to do a little shopping?”

“That would be great,” Julius says.

“I can speak for myself you know,” I mumble, shooting him a sideways glare. “Yes, that sounds okay Mary.”

“Great,” she says perkily before standing. “Well, we better be off then.” She seems to momentarily forget that she had asked Arthur a question, but it still burns in the back of my mind. Where had he been disappearing to in the mornings? Because I know it hasn’t been with me.

As our group is leaving the cafeteria, I feel as the others' eyes follow me out. In the main room, Julius grabs my arm, holding me back. “You can’t come with us. You’re not a part of the Golden.”

“I understand that. I’m going back to our room to get my books and head to class.” I glance down at myself. “And maybe find something that fits me a little better than this.”

He nods thoughtfully like he wants to say more but doesn’t. He’s still holding my arm, causing my hairs to stand on edge. Eventually, he drops it. Wearily, he glances back towards the cafeteria. “Don’t speak to anyone.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m telling you not to.”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“Fine, talk to them but you’ll end up being the laughing stalk of the floor. You are just a normie Victoria. Normie’s don’t associate with the Golden’s.”

“Unless they’re trying to get in their pants, right?” I ask, my eyes starting to burn.

He rolls his eyes. “You are so sensitive. I’m just trying to look out for you.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need you to do that for me.” I walk away as quickly as my feet will carry me.

Ten minutes later, I find myself standing in front of the elevators with my key card. I swipe it. There’s a beep and then a flashing red light. I swipe again and get the same result. I look around, my eyes searching the deserted room. In every corner where the ceiling meets the wall is a perfectly angled camera, its light flashing green. I wave my arms. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Hello? I think there’s been a mistake.”

Still nothing.

I spend the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon browsing the shelves in what seems to be the sitting room for the Golden’s. I have my feet propped up on a recliner in front of the warming fire when Mary finds me. “What are you reading?”

“Someone named Shakespeare,” I say, flipping the page.

“Oh he’s good.” When I don’t say anything she shuffles her feet. “Are you ready to go?”

I blink up at her. I had almost forgotten about our planned trip this afternoon. “Let me put my stuff away and I’ll meet you back here in fifteen.”

She nods.

The lights in the hallway are much brighter and it takes my pupils a few seconds too long to adjust. Our room isn’t very far and you can see the door from the entryway. Someone is leaning against it.

I glance behind me nervously. I suddenly find myself not in the mood for conversation.

As I approach, I realize it is in fact not just someone leaning against the door; but it is, in fact, the someone, and he has his tongue down a pretty dark-headed girl's mouth.

I clear my throat as I get closer, but the two pay me no attention.

“Uh..Julius?” I ask awkwardly.

He breaks away from her and his eyes dart at me annoyed.

“Who’s this?” The girl asks, her voice obnoxiously snooty.

“She’s no one,” he shrugs, but he pulls her away from the door so I can enter.

“Then why is she entering your room?”

I try to avert my eyes as he shushes her, before grabbing her mouth with his. I tuck my hair behind my ears and close the door to our room as quickly as I can.

When I leave again, they have disappeared. Something in my body feels funny but I push it to the side.

Mary is waiting for me by the elevator when I walk back into the room, looking impatient as she taps her foot. As we wait for the elevators, an awkward silence begins to stretch.

“Thank you for taking me.”

“Yeah, sure. No problem.” She seems to be deep in thought-like her body is here but her mind is somewhere else. The elevator dings and we both step inside.

“So you and Arthur…are you?” I let the question linger in the air while silently cursing myself. Why did I ask that?

Her cheeks flush and she quickly turns her head. “No, why would you think such a thing?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “You two just seemed to share something at breakfast.”

She lets out a nervous laugh. “No. I am just his partner in the trials.”

“His partner?”

“Yes.”

She doesn’t say anything further, so I decide to push my luck a little more. “What does that mean?”

“In the Golden experiments everyone has a partner that they…” she trails off and begins to bite her nails. I watch as she glances nervously towards the blinking light in the corner of the elevator. A camera? “Well, each of us is partnered up with someone as part of the experiment.”

She follows my gaze to the camera and then her eyes meet mine. She stares at me hard, almost pleading with me not to ask anything else. We seem to come to a silent understanding.

The rest of the ride is silent.

“Hi Mary.” The elevator doors have dinged open to the ground floor. A lady stands before us waiting to get on. She’s tall and thin; her blonde hair pinned perfectly atop her head. She wears a long lab coat with a name tag reading: Rose.

“Heading to the lab?” Mary asks.

“You know it. I have to analyze the results from this morning.”

“Yes, it was a challenging one but Arthur and I did OK.”

“I have no doubt about that.” As the elevators start to close behind us, I stick my arm out quickly, bringing them open again. Rose takes a step further back, clearly afraid, so I smile.

“You work in the experiment department?”

“Y-yes,” she stumbles nervously. Something about me is clearly putting her on edge.

“Why did my keycard not work this morning for the elevators? I know that the WOH makes no mistakes so I was denied access for a reason.”

“I-I…” Her eyes dart between Mary and I nervously. I see Mary nod slightly out of the corner of my eyes, or maybe I imagined it. Why would Rose need permission from Mary to speak to me?

Rose takes a deep breath. “Did you not receive your Folder Victoria?”

So she does know who I am. “No, and you know that too. There has to be a hidden camera in the room somewhere. You know that Julius flushed them down the toilet before I got a chance to read them.”

She smiles tightly, “right. Well, you are no longer a student in this building. You have been promoted to a test subject. Attending school is no longer necessary.”

I furrow my brow together, “OK. Where do I get another folder? What is the experiment I’ve been selected for?”

She glances towards Mary again, worry outlining her features. Mary grabs my arm and pulls me away from the elevators, allowing them to close. She spins on me, “are you crazy?”

“What?” I ask innocently.

“You can’t just speak to members of the council that way, Victoria. You will get yourself killed.”

My body ices over. “I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I wasn’t aware she was in the council.”

Mary nods, “next time before you decide to ask questions, maybe run them by me first, OK?”

A twinge of annoyance rushes through me, “OK.”

We spend the rest of the afternoon in and out of the shops on the ground floor. Mary is

mostly quiet as I browse, buying a whole wardrobe in the process. She offers to hold some of my bags as we stand in line at the coffee shop, but I politely decline.

Once we receive our orders, she starts to head towards my table; the table. The one with my name written in Arthur's perfect handwriting. “Not there,” I say, stopping her in her tracks. I can hear the panic in my own voice, so I clear my throat and start again. “There’s a nicer view of the people over this way.”

Once we are seated, she sips on her cappuccino, eyeing me over the lid. She straightens, “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I want us to be friends, OK?”

“OK?”

She sighs deeply. “Look, I know I’m not good at this.”

“Good at what?”

“The whole making friends thing.” She waves her hand in the air dismissively. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that you seem like you’re going to need a friend.”

I scoff, “I know I’m a normie living on a floor full of Golden’s. Julius made it perfectly clear how I’ll be treated.”

Her eyes slightly widen and she lets out a laugh, a genuine laugh! “Oh no, that’s not what I meant. Not at all. Julius seems to have his own perception of us Golden’s. He is really the only one of his kind.” She laughs again as if she finds that thought amusing. “No, what I meant was your Julian’s roommate. A lot of girls are going to hate you just for simply being.”

“Great,” I mumble sarcastically.

“So friends?” She asks hopefully. “Trust me, you’re going to need one.”

I seem to debate it, but I don’t see the point in making enemies in my new life. She tips her coffee cup towards me and I tip mine back. “OK. Friends it is.”

We continue our outing with Mary in a much better mood. She is not very talkative and I like that about her.

When we get back to the Golden floor we part ways and I slink back to my room, my head clouded with exhaustion from a long day of shopping.

After I move Julius’s clothes to the right side of the closet and place mine on the other side, I take a long hot shower before crawling into bed and closing my eyes tightly. Thankfully, the apartment was empty when I arrived and I do believe it was the happiest moment of my day. I don’t think I would have had the energy to put up with Julias for the afternoon.

I feel movement in the bed and I sleepily open my eyes. It’s dark outside and the moon casts a shadow over the kitchen counters. I move closer to the wall. “What are you doing Julius?”

“Uhm…I’m going to sleep, Victoria?” He asks stupidly like he didn’t know what I meant.

“Yes, I get that, but why are you in bed with me?”

He sighs deeply, “I thought we had gotten past you being a prude.”

“I’m not a prude.”

“Oh yeah?” He takes his hand and moves my hair to the side. He begins to trace a circle on the back of my neck, his finger barely grazing my skin.

I wiggle away from him. “Is that supposed to be sexy? Quit it! That tickles!”

He lets out a low chuckle, dropping his hand in the process. “Oh trust me babe, you haven’t seen me be sexy.”

I roll my eyes at the wall. “Did you at least shower?”

“Of course. I’m not an animal. I always shower after sex.”

“Well, that’s comforting.”

“Isn’t it?” He asks, amusement in his voice. “I like to think so. Plus, today, with her-” he laughs again like he’s laughing at an inside joke, “well I didn’t have a choice but to shower. She was-”

“You’re disgusting Julius. Stop it. I don’t need to hear about your love affairs.”

“Aww is someone jealous?” He pinches my cheek and I slap his hand away.

“Whatever, if you promise to keep the details of your extracurricular activities to yourself, I don’t mind if you sleep here.”

“Like you have a choice.”

We lay in silence for a few seconds as the gears turn in my head. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Ask away,” he says, his voice still playful.

“What do you do in the experiments? What are they?”

His body stiffens.

“I know that you have a partner but-”

“I don’t have a partner,” he says tightly.

“But Mary said-”

“I don’t have a partner,” he reinforces. “He died.”

“Oh,” I lamely say. “Can you-”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Yes it was painful, but it was over a year ago. I’m over it.” He rolls over pressing his back against mine, and I decide not to push any further.

I yawn. “Goodnight Julius.”

He doesn’t respond.

When we awake the next morning, the door is locked…again.