Felix rubs his forehead. “Shut up. All of you.”
He sighs out loud, audibly burdened by the responsibility of taking care of a bunch of psychos. “From now on, all of you stay on campus until I say so.”
We all collectively erupt into a protest.
“What?” Ivy gasps. “But that’s not fair. I don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Cecilia says.
Levi folds his arms. “Fuck that, that’s not an option.”
“But if one of us is in danger, we’re all in danger.” Max squeaks.
“Exactly,” Felix says. “And I don’t want any of you to go to jail.”
So we’re all just gonna be stuck here on campus?” Heath scoffs. “Boring.”
“How long?” Atlas asks.
“As long as needed,” Felix replies.
“Weeks? Months?” Cecilia asks, her voice fluctuating in tone from desperation.
Felix stares at Sunny. “That depends on whether the killings stop or the police catch their perp.” It’s almost as if he shoots lightning from his eyes. “And it’s totally up to you which one it's going to be. But I can tell you one thing. Your parents aren’t going to bust you out of jail. Not this time.” His hands are balled into fists.
“So where is the culprit?” Sunny asks.
The dean narrows his eyes. “Excuse me?”
“The cop that’s got this place locked down,” Orion fills in for her.
“In his newly made office directly below mine, on the second floor. Lord fucking knows what he’s planning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have actual fucking work to do, and you’ve got your studies. So stop trying to kill each other and stop playing midnight vigilante. It’s time to get to fucking work.”
He marches off and slams the door closed behind him, and the entire Skull & Serpent Society shakes like an earthquake just happened. I swallow and stare at the rest of my extended family and all of our friends. We’re only so close because our moms and dads are friends, but I can tell from the way everyone is looking at each other that another rift is forming. Only time will tell if it’ll end up in another explosive war we’ll barely survive, or if we’re going to lose another member of our family.
Sunny is the first to walk out the door. “What are you all waiting for? These killings won’t make themselves stop,” she says, all cheerful like nothing’s going on.
But the way everyone looks at her is making my heart race. They must be one comment away from physically attacking her and pinning her down.
“No?” Sunny says with a smile. “Alright then, suit yourselves. TTYL.”
The door slams shut, leaving an air of arrogance and heat that I’m not willing to take. I jump off the table I was sitting on and walk out the door too, leaving the rest of them to fume among themselves.
I don’t care anymore if this burns bridges.
All I care about is seeing whatever vengeance Sunny wants to enact come to a crescendo. Because with every dark step we take further into hell, the bigger the smile on her face becomes.
And that’s the only reason I exist.
Sunny
I waituntil nightfall before I make my move.
I pull down my mask and head out the window of my sorority, making sure to wait on the balcony for the lone cop to pass on the streets before I climb down. They’ve got a guard stationed at every door, but I’m not dumb enough to use those. I’ll take thefucking scenic route if I need to. No one will stop me from going where I want to go.
I crawl down the vines and jump down onto the streets, then zigzag past the trees and houses toward the main campus building, where I sneak in through a side door that leads to the auditorium. I had a spare key made after I found Aspen last year, just so I could potentially use this spot as a place to commit murder. Or have kinky sex.
Either way, the key comes in great use now, and I run past the seats and down the steps toward the exit, which leads straight into one of the many sprawling hallways in this old university.
