by Jacie Lennon
“Senior floor, girls’ dorm,” he says, and I flick my eyes to him. “You are on Landry duty.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s new here.”
“She’s not a freshman.”
“We aren’t idiots, dipstick,” Brock growls, typing on his phone.
“Who are you talking to?”
“Don’t fuckin’ worry about it,” he says.
I sit up, spinning the key card between my thumb and forefinger.
“What’s going on with you?” I ask, and Bodhi sits up, eyeing Brock.
“I said, don’t worry about it.” Brock pauses as he looks up and at me.
“We don’t have secrets,” I say.
He scoffs, “We don’t?”
“I don’t even fuckin’ talk to Landry, so don’t bring her into this. This is about whatever secret you are keeping from Bodhi and me, and we are tired of it.” I look to Bodhi for agreement, and he nods. Good to know he’s not in on whatever is going on with Brock.
I lean over and grab his phone, but he clicks it off before I can.
“What the hell, Corbin?” Brock jumps to his feet and gets in my face.
I square off with him, my heart pounding.
“We made you; we can make you fall,” he spits out.
I step forward, and we are almost nose to nose.
“Threatening me, Brock?” I shove his chest, and he comes back at me, swinging with a right hook but I block it.
“Oof,” I grunt, doubling over when his left fist hits my stomach. Running forward, I hook him around the middle and take us to the ground.
Sitting on top of him, I sock his face. Blood spurts from his nose and covers my shirt. Brock’s knee comes up, knocking the air from my lungs, and he twists sideways, dumping me to the floor. He jumps to his feet, rushing toward me as I come up on my hands and knees, struggling to breathe.
“Okay, okay. As much fun as this is to watch, we have to be able to function tonight. Cut it the fuck out,” Bodhi yells from the table.
Brock pauses, and I get to my feet. We look at each other before Brock spits blood onto the floor and stalks away, walking out the door. We are no closer to resolving anything, opening a deeper chasm between us.
“Come on, dipshit.” Bodhi slaps me on the back of the head as he walks past me. “Time to fuck some freshmen up.”
He throws a grin over his shoulder, and I grin back.
At least tonight will be fun.
7
Landry
A noise wakes me. Déjà vu settles in as the knob to our door rattles softly and then turns, the moon coming through our curtains highlighting the figure standing in my doorway.
“Trixie,” I hiss, but the guy moves, stalking across the room and throwing my covers off.
He has a hood on, his face hidden in the shadows, and I shake.
“What the hell? Who are you?” I say loudly, hearing Trixie gasp across the room as she sits up.
The guy doesn’t move.
“Oh!” she exclaims after a moment, scrambling from the bed. “I’m coming too.”
The guy stares her down, and she quickly throws on a sweatshirt over her cami and sleep shorts.
Sliding her feet into some sneakers, she grins. “Ready.”
“What is going on?” I ask, looking between the guy and Trixie.
She peers into the darkness, getting closer to him.
“It’s just Corbin,” she says, turning back to me. “Come on.” She grabs me, pulling me from the bed as I try to cover myself.
I’m wearing panties and an oversized shirt, but I still feel exposed.
“It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.”
My eyes dart toward him, but he’s turned around, not facing me anymore.
She throws a pair of leggings at me and then grabs another sweatshirt. “You’ll need this later.”
Corbin is grumbling behind us as we make our way down the side stairs and out onto the front lawn of the girls’ dorm. Other girls are trickling out in various stages of sleep and disarray. Down the street, I see shadows of what has to be guys exiting the boys’ dorm.
“Now, will you tell me what’s going on?”
“Hold on. I’m pissed.” Trixie turns to Corbin, hands on her hips, and frowns. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“You know why,” he says, the first thing he’s said to either of us.
“No, actually, I don’t know why,” Trixie retorts, still standing her ground.
“You don’t get to disrespect us and then join our ranks,” Corbin spits out, basically reiterating what he said earlier in the commons, while stepping up to Trixie, who manages not to shrink back at the wild look in his eyes. “You are still here because we don’t deem you important enough to get you kicked out.”
Trixie shrinks back at that.
“You don’t deserve Almadale, and you know it.”
At that, Corbin stalks away, leaving a trembling Trixie in his wake, and I wrap an arm around her shoulders, glaring at his retreating form.
“It’s initiation night,” Trixie murmurs.
“Initiation for what?”
“Almadale. Happens with incoming freshmen, but I guess you got looped in with the new girls as well.”
“That, or my lovely new brothers want to mess with me,” I say with a sigh.
I spot Corbin in the distance, standing in a group of guys but he’s facing me. It’s weird how he manages to infuriate and intrigue me at the same time. We’ve barely even talked, and yet I can sense an attraction. I shrug and chalk it up to physical chemistry, which can mean everything and nothing, all at once.
Tearing my eyes from his, I look around, noting that most of the girls standing around look scared.
Some fucking initiation this is. More like hazing.
“Gather round, gather round,” a loud voice booms close to us, drawing the groups of guys and girls together.
I can tell it’s Brock from the cocky gait of his walk. Bodhi and Corbin stand next to him. Trixie and I hang on the outskirts as everyone presses in closer. A herd of cattle marching to their deaths.
“Welcome to Almadale, bitches. It’s time for each of you to prove your loyalty to your fellow man, woman, and one-percenter in the ranks of Almadale alum. Failure to do so will result in immediate expulsion.” He pauses as murmurs break out in the crowd around them. “Don’t test us; you won’t like the outcome.”
At that, all three boys push their hoods back and smile, the bright white of their teeth glittering like fangs in the dim light outside.
“Follow.”
The command sends everyone into a tizzy, pressing to keep up, walking behind the stupid Three Kings of Almadale Prep.
What a joke.
How dumb can people be?
I guess I’m one of those people because I keep up with the pack. We take off across the field Trixie and I crossed yesterday and into the woods. The path seems exactly like the one we took, and I get a sinking feeling in my gut. I grab Trixie’s arm, stopping her as everyone else walks on.
“What exactly happens during this initiation?” I ask, keeping my voice low so no one will know we stopped.
“I don’t want to ruin the fun,” she says with a smile, putting one finger to her lips.
“Trying to escape?” A voice sounds in the dark behind us, causing me to jump and whirl around.
“Fuck,” I say on an exhale as Corbin stands there, grinning menacingly.
He puts one hand to each of our backs and prods us forward. My skin tingles on contact, all my senses heightening as soon as his fingers touched me, and I have the sudden urge to stop, letting him push further into my skin. I want him to quit touching me as much as I want him to touch every inch of me, leave me breathless, aching, wanting.
“Do you enjoy swimming?” Corbin’s mouth is right by my ear, his breath tickling my cheek as he whispers his question.
“Yes,” I whisper back, making the mistake of looking at hi
m.
I watch as his smile grows, teeth open, and he trails his tongue along the bottom of his top teeth. My eyes track the progress as I feel my core clench. It should be illegal to be that damn sexy and infuriating at the same time.
“Do you like plummeting to sudden death?” he asks, and it’s like he doused me with a bucket of cold water.
“Wh-what?” I mumble, and his chuckle has my emotions warring over panic and arousal.
“I’m kidding. It only feels like that for a second.”
This time, I do stop, but he senses it, pausing before running into me. Trixie walks a few more steps before realizing we aren’t with her anymore. I notice that he only kept his hand on me.
“What are you talking about?” I swallow nervously and glance around, noticing Trixie’s gaze as she waits for us to catch up.
“Go,” Corbin says to her.
She tilts her head to me. I give her a nod, and she turns, moving up with the crowd still muddling through the woods. He reaches one finger up, tracing my collarbone through my T-shirt, sending goose bumps down my body before he narrows his eyes.
“Who are you?” he whispers, running one hand across my ear and fisting my hair in the back. He tugs, pulling my head back so I look up at him. His eyes glitter as the moon glints off them in the dark, making him look every bit the villain that he is.
“I’m Landry—”
“No.” He stops me with one word, and we stay like that until he lowers his head, pressing a kiss where my collarbone meets at the base of my neck.
I stand, frozen, as he does it, prey in his hands. I’m overcome by him, his touch, his smell. He lets go of my hair and steps back. I skitter to the side a few steps, off-kilter at the sudden release, and when I regain my footing, I look up.
He’s gone.
Empty woods are around me as I turn in a quick circle. I feel like I dreamed up what just happened, but I know it did. I can feel my pulse where he kissed me, thumping against my burning skin, so I press two fingers there.
I can’t see anyone anymore, but I follow the noise until I find everyone gathered in the clearing Trixie and I sat in yesterday. In the sunlight, the small cliff overlooking the water is serene, but now, in the dead of night, it’s a masterpiece of horror. The water sounds like a torrent below even though I know, yesterday, it was calm and trickling. I hang back at the edge of the trees, not even walking into the clearing, when I hear the sound of the first splash. Part of me already knew what the initiation was as soon as we started walking into the woods, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it.
They don’t know. They couldn’t know, could they?
Heights are my greatest fear. I can’t pinpoint a time in my life that created the fear; it’s always been there.
I start shaking and wrap my arms around my middle, fighting the urge to dry-heave as the nerves take over my belly.
I don’t have to do this. This is insane. What if someone gets hurt?
It’s dangerous to jump into water if you don’t know how deep it is or if there are hidden rocks. Although, if this is what they do every year, I’m sure the water has been cleared, right?
A laugh bursts out of me, part hysterical and part self-deprecating. If I sit here and panic like I’m doing now, they win. And they can’t win. They can’t know that this gets to me.
“What’s wrong, lil sis?”
Too late for that.
Bodhi’s mocking tone grates on my nerves, and I pointedly ignore him. I don’t understand their hot-and-cold routine.
What did I ever do to them?
Then, Brock’s cold voice from the first night I met them flies into my mind. “Tell us what you know about your mother.” And it sends chills through me again.
Have I been so blind to think this is only about me?
Of course they hate my mom; she’s the stepmother to them, wife to their rich father. They probably think she’s a gold digger when that can’t be possible. My dad has money, and she left him. Though I doubt he noticed. He’s still yet to contact me, and it’s been almost five days since I arrived at my new “home.”
“It’s almost your turn,” a cold voice says right next to my ear.
I throw a hand out, connecting with a hard chest. Brock. He presses his fingers to my back, exactly where Corbin touched me earlier, but this time, I don’t get the same sensation. Where there were butterflies of excitement, now there is only dread.
As I get closer to the edge, I start to dig my heels in to slow us down, trying to keep myself from going over, but Brock doesn’t stop.
“Brock,” Corbin cuts in, and he stalls, looking over his shoulder. “Let me,” he says.
I expel the breath I was holding in one long whoosh. I don’t know why I was expecting him to save me, but I’m let down. It shouldn’t please me that he wants to be involved, but even through this fear, the exhilaration is back once he grabs my wrist. This has got to be some sort of syndrome, where I am developing feelings for this guy who doesn’t seem to care about me. Something is wrong with that, but I don’t care right now, not when I feel his skin on mine. It dulls everything around me until my toes hit the edge, and I stare down at the darkness where I know there is water. I’m the last one standing. Trixie is off to the side, watching as the three boys step up to stand beside me.
“Any last words, lil sis?” Bodhi asks, and as soon as he does, I feel it—the push that sends me over.
I don’t know which one shoved me, but I hate them all. To my surprise, Corbin doesn’t let go of my wrist, falling over the edge of the cliff with me, and we plummet together. As we are suspended in the air, I look over, his eyes on me, and it’s the last thing I see before diving beneath the water.
Even then, he doesn’t let go. I’m anchored, tethered to him, as he hits the bottom and shoots up, up, up, pulling me with him. As we break free of the watery prison, I sputter, water caught in my nose and throat, choking me, and he lets go of my wrist. I tread water, raking the hair from my eyes, and I find him swimming for the opposite edge, so I follow.
8
Corbin
“What the hell was that?” Landry sputters as she drags her soaking-wet ass out of the water.
Sitting on the side of the bank, she takes a few deep breaths, but I just watch her.
“Guess I fell,” I say, shrugging.
She looks at me incredulously. “You fell? You want me to believe that? You had a tight grip on my wrist the entire time.”
“Shut up,” I say, stalking toward her. “You don’t know what you felt, heard, or saw.” I get in her face, pinning her with my gaze.
I wish I could say I didn’t know why I did it, but I do. Seeing her standing there, obviously petrified, made me think of myself and the terror I used to feel at being helpless, small, and how no one was around to take care of me. I can’t openly say it, but I did what I could to take her mind off of it.
I don’t usually have these types of visceral reactions to the students here, but she’s different. She makes me different, and I’m not sure I like it. I don’t want to try and figure this out, but each interaction I have with her puts us on another level where, eventually, I’m going to have to.
“Why do you act like you hate me one minute and then take care of me the next? It’s very confusing,” she says, standing up, water dripping off of her and onto the ground.
“I didn’t. I fell.” I stick to my story.
We spend the next few moments in a stare-off. I don’t lower my gaze until she finally looks away, conceding defeat.
“Come on,” I say over my shoulder, not waiting for her before I start making my way back across the hidden bridge and onto campus.
I can hear her short breaths behind me as she follows, but I don’t pay any attention to her. I don’t know who is out there, who could be watching. I shouldn’t be giving Brock any more ammunition against me, but God, when I saw her face, I had to make it better.
As we walk out of the woods, the guys are waiting. They look
bored, but I can tell by their posture that they are angry. Trixie hangs off to the side but rushes to Landry when she comes off the bridge behind me.
“Saving the damsel in distress?” Bodhi asks as soon as we get near.
I level him with a glare. “She grabbed me, took me over,” I say, gritting my teeth, and fortunately, Landry is far enough behind me that she couldn’t hear what I said.
“Maybe, next time, you shouldn’t stand so close to the siren; they like to drag their prey underwater,” Brock says lazily, throwing me a shirt.
I unfold it, recognizing it as the hoodie that Trixie grabbed for Landry. Brock watches me look at it. I pull my shirt over my head, using the hoodie as a towel, sopping up the water droplets trailing down my abdomen before I throw it in the dirt at my feet, not looking back as I walk forward with the guys.
Landry can get back to the dorm from here with Trixie.
“They are getting braver,” I say, lounging on my bed in our shared dorm after I found some dry clothes to put on.
We kicked our RA out of his large end-of-the-hall bedroom and took over, the three of us staying together.
“Who is, dipshit?” Bodhi throws a grape up in the air, catching it between his teeth, and then lowers his head to grin at us.
“The fuckin’ mob. Who do you think? The girls at Almadale think they can approach us now.” I twirl a pen through my fingers as I talk. “I think we have become a little too understanding, laid-back even.”
Brock sits up, clapping his hands together and rubbing them. “I think you are right, C. I’ve got a plan.”
“Already?” I raise my eyebrows at him, and my stomach sinks. This can’t be good. I know I suggested it, but it was more to get the heat off of me. I didn’t think they would latch onto the comment with such enthusiasm. I should’ve known though. What else do bored rich kids have to do?
“Oh yeah,” he says, smiling. A sight I don’t normally see on Brock’s face. I’m instantly on edge. “But for now, get some sleep. We’ve got a long weekend ahead of us.” He winks and leans over, flipping the light off and bathing us in darkness.
