“I have a free spot tomorrow around two o’clock,” Cherry said.
“Two works for me,” I replied. “Ginny? Dylan? You guys should be there too, even if you're not coming Friday. Extra sets of eyes on the plan.”
Dylan nodded. “Yeah, absolutely. I want to make sure you three aren't walking into a death trap.”
"So dramatic," Jeremiah said, rolling his eyes. But I could see the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers drummed against the table. He was scared too, just hiding it better.
"Okay, so, my dorm tomorrow at two?" Ginny offered.
We all agreed, and the conversation drifted to lighter topics after that—Dylan's YouTube channel, Jeremiah’s latest coding assignment, Cherry's ongoing battle with her scene partner who kept forgetting his blocking. But underneath it all, I could feel the weight of what we'd committed to. Friday night. The tunnel. The Dionysus estate.
As we finally cleared our plates and headed out into the cool October night, Ginny fell into step beside me.
"Vee?" she said quietly, so the others couldn't hear. "That message on your wall… was it real blood or fake?"
I paused, turning to look at her. “I don't know. The police sent it to the lab, but they didn’t get back to me about it yet.”
She nodded slowly, something flickering across her face. “Well, either way, just be extra careful, okay?” she said. “Whoever left it wanted to scare the shit out of you, real blood or not. And they know exactly where you live. That’s terrifying.”
“I know,” I murmured, shoving my hands deeper into my jacket pockets. “Believe me, I know.”
She squeezed my arm once, then hurried to catch up with Dylan to tell him something about a comment she’d seen on his latest YouTube video. I hung back for a moment, looking up at the clock tower spire silhouetted against the night sky.
For what felt like the millionth time since I arrived on campus, the back of my neck prickled. But this time, I didn’t whirl around to see if someone was behind me. I already knew that somewhere out there, someone was watching me. Someone who knew about my investigation. Someone who wanted me to stop asking questions.
But on Friday night, whether they liked it or not, I was finally going to get some damn answers about the Dionysus Club.
13
Violet
The hostess ledKane and me through the chaos of Revs—past tables of frat guys in Greek letters screaming at the football game on the oversized TV above the bar, past waitresses balancing trays of loaded nachos and buffalo wings—to a booth tucked against the side window.
It was a lot quieter here, though the bass from whatever throwback 2000s song was playing over at the bar still thrummed through the vinyl seats.
“Is this okay?” Kane asked as we slid into opposite sides of the booth, his voice a little too loud to compensate for the noise before he seemed to realize how much calmer it was in our corner. He cleared his throat, adjusting to a normal volume. “I tried to request somewhere we could actually hear each other.”
“It's perfect, thanks,” I said, setting my purse on the scarred wooden table. The window beside us looked out onto the darkening street, streetlights just beginning to flicker on. “You said you and Cal used to come here a lot, right?”
His gaze flicked up to mine from the menu he’d been looking at. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“You said you came here with my sister a lot, didn’t you?”
“Oh, right, yeah. At least once a week.” He smiled faintly. “It’s loud here, but the food and drinks are great.”
“What was her usual order?” I asked, scanning the menu.
“She didn’t have one. She’d always try something different each time,” he replied.
“Oh.” My brows shot up. “She wasn’tlike that when we were kidsat all.Everywhere we went: nachos with extra sour cream. Even at restaurants that didn’t have nachos on the menu.”
Kane laughed. “Thank god she grew out of that phase, eh? It would’ve been so awkward.”
“Yeah, it was,” I said, laughing softly too. It felt good to reminisce rather than just ruminate over Calista’s death. “Anyway… if you came here at least once a week, you must’ve been pretty close, huh?”
“Sorry. One sec.” Kane was craning his neck now, one hand waving in the air. “There’s a server right over there, so I’m going to grab a beer. Do you want a drink too?”
I hadn't planned on drinking, because I wanted to stay sharp and focus on getting information, but something made me hesitate. Maybe Kane was nervous. Maybe he knew something about Roman, or the Dionysus Club, and needed a good bit of liquid courage before he could open up about it.
