“It’s out!” she shouted again, voice cracking slightly. “The List is out!”
For half a heartbeat, the dining hall was completely still. Then chaos erupted.
Chairs scraped, silverware clattered, and the air filled with shrieks and gasps as students surged toward the doors in a mad stampede.
I turned back to my table, heart pounding. My friends stared at one another, their half-eaten meals forgotten.
“Should we go?” Cherry asked, her voice barely audible over the commotion.
Jeremiah slouched back, trying for nonchalance but failing. “We can just check it later,” he said. “It’ll be crazy out there right now, and it’s not like any of us will be on the List.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Ginny said, brows dipping in a frown. Her eyes skated over my face, and I registered a flash of concern in them. “I mean, we never thought one of us would end up on it last year, and then—”
She abruptly cut herself off as Dylan gave her a warning look.
“I think we should look,” I said in a low voice. “The anticipation’s going to drive us crazy if we don’t.”
“Agreed.” Cherry rose to her feet, her chair screeching back. “Let’s go.”
We joinedthe clamoring crowd outside, heading toward the eastern quad. I could hear snippets of conversation rising above the rush: names, speculation, laughter edged with fear.
“I bet my roommate is on it. She’s totallyobsessed.”
“So the Selection’s actually real? I thought you guys were just trolling me.”
“My roommate swears her cousin never came back.”
As we reached the heart of the crowd, I saw it: the Selection List, nailed to the notice board on the outer wall of the Artemis Building. It was printed on a single off-white sheet of parchment, edged with crimson wax seals.
Just beyond the edges of the mob, half-shrouded in fog, stood several masked figures in black cloaks. Men from the Dionysus Club, acting as silent sentinels to ensure no one attempted to photograph the List, tear it down, or copy it into a notebook.
Jeremiah edged forward, and the rest of us waited with bated breath as he craned his neck to look over the crowd. His hand suddenly flew to his mouth, clamping over it as he jerked backward. Then he went dead still.
“Jer?” Dylan called out, voice almost lost under the noise. “What is it?”
Jeremiah finally turned to face us. His gaze instantly locked on mine, panicked and hollow. “It… it’s happening again,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry, Vee.”
My stomach dropped.
No. It can’t be…
Adrenaline surged through me, and I pushed my way forward, Cherry right beside me. A girl at the front let out a strangled scream before bolting, shoving people aside as she fled across the lawn.
Cherry slid into the spot the other girl had left open and grabbed my wrist, yanking me toward the parchment. “Vee,” she breathed, eyes wide as saucers. “Holy shit.”
My gaze followed hers, landing on the final name.
Violet Jayne Calloway.
The letters blurred before me as my pulse roared in my ears. The air around me seemed to have thickened, pressing against my chest until it hurt to breathe.
“Th-that’s me,” I said woodenly, as if I’d somehow failed to introduce myself to my friends when we first met.
“I know, babe,” Cherry murmured, squeezing my hand. “I… I can’t believe it.”
Another burst of adrenaline suddenly shot through me. Heart hammering, I slid my hand out of Cherry’s grip and stumbled back, shoving through the wall of bodies until I broke free on the outskirts of the mob.
I could hear my friends following, and I blindly reached for Cherry’s arm again as my knees threatened to buckle.
