CHAPTER 153: CELIBACY GONE WRONG.

"I saw them heading to the clinic," Alex said when he returned. He had been sent to check if Principal Valois and Mr. Slade were around. "We can go ahead and break in."

"Are you sure?" Hailey asked, needing some assurance that it was safe. They were hiding behind the house next to Mr. Slade’s. Her relationship with her elder sister was already strained, and being caught in such a situation would only make things worse for her.

"Alex is smart. He wouldn’t have said so if it wasn’t true," Taros replied, trying to ease her worry. Hailey gave a weak smile. Taros added, "Slade got a spare key from the house masters’ room. He’ll use it to open the door."

"I will never get used to that name," Hailey muttered. Every time Beta Slade was mentioned, her mind always went to Mr. Slade, the teacher.

"Then I’ll start calling him Beta Slade," Taros said.

"That would be better."

Slade glanced around, making sure no one was watching, before marching toward the house. Alex kept watch while he worked the lock. To his surprise, the spare key turned easily, and the door creaked open on the first try. He signaled for the others, and they hurried inside.

"Shouldn’t I stay out here and keep watch?" Alex asked.

"No, I’ll do that. You should go in with them," Slade said, stepping aside. "If Mr. Slade returns, I’ll lock the front door and you all can escape through the back. That way he won’t even know someone broke in."

"Good idea," Taros agreed, though his tone carried a warning. "Be careful."

Slade shut the door after them. A cold shiver ran down Hailey’s spine. The house was silent and dark, but they could not risk turning on the lights. The curtains were too thin to hide their shadows, and anyone outside would notice.

"Do you really trust him?" Hailey asked in a low voice, surprising the others. "He carries that strange name and I’ve only met him today. At least I’ve known Alex for a while now."

"I don’t trust you either, yet here we are working together," Alex said honestly. He didn’t mean to hurt her, but he also couldn’t hide his unease. "You’re Miss Valois’ sister. If she pressures you, you might talk. None of us can say what you’ll do."

"That’s not true," Hailey shot back. Her chest tightened at the thought of being doubted. She would never betray them just to stand by her sister’s side. "My sister is the one who can’t be trusted. Renn himself has said it over and over again."

"Did they really date?" Taros asked as he switched on the torchlight in his hand. They were now in the living room. Two brown chairs sat at the center, and on the table between them was a bottle of wine with a glass half filled beside it.

"I don’t know for sure. You should just believe what Renn says," Hailey replied, her heart thumping hard in her chest. She hated lying, but she had no choice. Renn would never forgive her if she told the truth.

When she first heard about Renn, she had not even known he was her nephew. Miss Valois told her the truth seven years ago, back when Renn himself didn’t know that Miss Valois was his mother. When he later found out, he was not heartbroken but filled with anger. He felt betrayed by everyone who had kept it from him, and since then, he had seen Hailey as part of that betrayal, another enemy in his eyes.

"Mr. Slade has been drinking," Taros said, pulling her out of her thoughts. He noticed the television was still on. A trash can sat nearby, filled with crumpled tissues, some of them stained with spots of blood.

Alex reached for the remote on the table and pressed a button. The sound that came from the TV froze him in place.

"Yes... yes, harder," a woman’s voice moaned. On the screen was a young woman, her body bare, her curves moving with each rough thrust of the man behind her.

"Dammit, Slade," Taros muttered as he walked quickly to the TV and switched it off. "He was watching porn?"

"It seems so," Hailey said, letting out a nervous laugh once the shock passed. She had never expected something like this in Mr. Slade’s house. "Well, he is young and too handsome to stay celibate. I used to tell my sister that he wouldn’t last, but she insisted he was strong enough to go through the process."

"At least he isn’t hurting anyone," Alex said quietly, finally finding his voice. He tried to push the image out of his head, but it lingered stubbornly. "The tissues were probably used to wipe off his..."

"His swimmers," Hailey finished for him, folding her arms across her chest. She turned to look at him. His face was flushed red, and she couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first time he had seen something like that. Maybe it was. The thought surprised her. "But I don’t understand why there are bloodstains. That’s disgusting. Do you think he’s sick?"

Taros shrugged and said, "If you ask me, I’d say he has mental issues. But blood coming out of his private part... that could mean he caught some kind of infection."

"Celibacy gone wrong," Alex muttered under his breath, and the others burst into laughter. "Maybe we should give him a test."

"That’s actually true," Taros replied, and they all turned to him in surprise. "I’m a doctor. It doesn’t disturb me the way it does you."

"I wasn’t serious about the test," Alex said quickly, trying to cover his words as he started walking around the house.

"If he’s sick, then we’ll find some test results or at least something that can tell us what’s wrong," Hailey said as she headed to the kitchen. She searched the counters and the cupboards, but everything looked ordinary. When she returned to the living room, Taros was flipping through the books on the shelf.

Hailey went into the bedroom to meet Alex and joined him in searching. There was nothing under the pillow, the drawers were empty, and the wardrobe had nothing unusual. When Alex suggested looking under the bed, Hailey thought he was being too fussy. But he dropped to his knees anyway and saw a carton hidden beneath.

His eyes widened. "There’s something here." He dragged it out and opened it. The box was filled with all kinds of medicine.

"What the hell is this?" Hailey gasped as she dropped to the floor and began pulling the boxes out one by one. "Taros, can you come here?"

"I found something too," Taros said as he rushed in with a paper in his hand. His face was grim. "Mr. Slade is sick. He has a sexually transmitted disease...a deadly one."

Hailey froze, staring at the pile of medicine. Alex’s mouth hung open. "Look at all these drugs," he said, still in shock. "Who would have thought he was going through something like this? He looks so healthy, so young."

"The test results explain everything," Hailey said softly, her voice heavy with disbelief.

"I also found out something else," Taros continued. "Mr. Slade is a doctor."

"What?" Hailey looked at both of them in shock. "That’s impossible. If he was, my sister would have told me. Are you sure?"

"Yes. It’s written here," Taros said, showing her the paper.

Alex frowned deeply. "If Slade is a doctor, why isn’t he working in the clinic? Why isn’t he teaching biology? Instead, he’s in the technical department, only teaching computer science."

"Exactly," Taros said. His tone carried unease. "Why is he hiding it? Something big is going on here. I have a feeling we won’t like what we discover next."