A prickle ran down my spine. “What is it?”
“Every year on October 31st, a list is posted at two o’clock on the eastern side of the Artemis building at BHU. No one’s ever seen who posts it, because campus security blocks off the area all day. But people who’ve gotten close enough have seen men in black robes and ceremonial masks doing it.”
I raised my brows, pulse ticking faster. “What’s on it?”
“Names,” he replied. “Fifteen to twenty female student names, to be more precise. All juniors or seniors.”
My stomach tightened. “What happens to them?”
“As soon as the List is up, anyone on it has twenty-four hours to run and hide while members of the Dionysus Club hunt them.”
I blinked. “Huntthem? Like… to kill them?”
“No, they’re just supposed to capture them,” Cherry replied.
“For what?”
“None of us have any idea, to be honest,” she said. “I used to think it was some sort of sex-related thing. A lot of people think that, actually. But I don’t anymore.”
“Well, getting away from them doesn’t sound too difficult,” I said, frowning. “I mean, it’s only one day.”
“Yeah, but the societymakesit difficult. They start sabotaging escape attempts before the List is even announced, because they obviously know who’s going to be on it,” Jeremiah said. “List Girls will suddenly find their car tires slashed,passports flagged, and bankcards mysteriously not working. That makes travel very difficult. Andthatmeans the society has their prey cornered from the very start.”
“They track phones, too. And they have the police around here in their pocket, so they won’t help the girls either,” Ginny said. “Also, no one knows if they’re going to be on the List, so they can’t exactly prepare for it, can they?”
“I guess not.”
“Anyway, the girls are apparently put on the List by whichever society member has chosen them. So technically, they should only be hunted by one man,” Dylan said. “But in practice, the hunters all help each other. If one of them sees a colleague’s target, he can grab her and keep hold of her until the other guy arrives. I’ve also heard rumors about cases where a hunter changed his mind partway through, nabbed another hunter’s girl, and refused to give her up in the end.”
“So in the end, all the girls are being hunted by all the guys,” I said.
“Yup.”
I shivered at the thought of having not just one buttwentymen after me.
“Some girls get away,” Jeremiah said. “There was a girl in my programming class in sophomore year who wound up on the list. She literallyranall the way over to the Thruway and sneaked onto the back of a truck she saw parked at a diner. Left her phone and purse behind, just in case. All she had was the clothes on her back and twenty dollars in cash. She ended up all the way over in Ohio before the driver noticed she was with him.”
“What happened to her?”
“Nothing. She survived the whole twenty-four hours without getting caught, so she was safe.”
My mouth had gone dry. “And what happens to the girls who are caught?”
Jeremiah’s eyes flicked toward the window, as if someone might be listening. “We don’t know,” he said in a low voice. “They’re taken away somewhere; we know that much. But we have no idea what happens to them there.”
“Most of them never return to Blackthorne,” Ginny added.
My eyes widened. “So theycouldbekilling them, then?”
“Oh, no, they don’t take things that far,” Cherry said hurriedly.
“At least… not usually,” Ginny added in a low murmur, casting her eyes downward. “They’re mostly fine in the end, as far as we know. Like Hilary Hendricks.”
I blinked again, certain I’d misheard her. “Did you say HilaryHendricks? As in FLOTUS?”
Cherry nodded. “It’s basically an open secret that she was on the List all the way back in the eighties. Of course, there’s no proof, because people aren’t allowed to take photos of it or make copies of it, and that’s strictly enforced. But everyone knows.”
I frowned, trying to recall everything I’d read about the current president’s wife. “I thought she went to Harvard.”
