Page 58 of The Honor Society

And it’s here.

I creep as quietly as I can out of the room. And pad into the kitchen. It’s pitch black except for the light of a phone going off next to where Proctor’s sitting. I can see the outline of his head. His mask is off. Brave of him. He’s drinking more wine. Another bottle is open. Do I announce myself or just yell at him for stealing Axel’s phone.

Did he really hurt him?

Anxiety washes over me.

I take another step and then look down at the phone in my hand.

“Axel, it didn’t bounce back, are you okay?”

The phone buzzes in front of Proctor.

Slowly, he leans down and reaches for it. Son of a bitch! I’m going to kill him. I’m ready to run at him and greedily search for a knife in the kitchen when I see it.

The light from the cell reflects on his face.

No, not Proctor’s face.

Axel’s.

He stares at the phone, his look empty. And then he fucking breaks the phone in half with both hands and tosses it onto the table.

Axel is Proctor.

Proctor is Axel.

I’ve been with him this whole time.

Rage consumes me as I slowly back my way into the room and crawl into the bed. Minutes later, the door creeps open and Proctor walks in, mask in place.

I pretend to be asleep despite my heart hammering out of my chest. And when he slowly leans down and touches my cheek, I want to scream.

Instead, I keep it inside and let him touch me.

And internally swear, I’m going to make him pay.

Miss?

Not this time. Not this time.

17

Ten Days Until The Convocation

AXEL

Idon’t think I’ve ever hated the mask more than this moment. I check my messages and note that Lilah is safely in Rhodes’s clutches and that Jude has temporarily moved into his dad’s compound while this all goes down. I barely slept all night and Charlie kicked me at least a dozen times as if to remind me that she was in fact still pissed about so many things and only I held the answers. I would laugh if any of it was funny, but after seeing all the texts she sent, I felt even more sick. So I barely slept, because she missed him, me, whatever. All of it sucked. I needed to focus on the positive.

The chips are all falling like they’re supposed to. The only thing we need to really find out is who’s still after Death and trying to pull votes. It means they know exactly how the rules of The Honor Society work. If you have enough votes for The Proctor to be forced to be unmasked it’s not only a ninety-nine percent certainty that they’ll vote to kill me since my influence would also influence The Horsemen as a whole because of who I am and how close I am to them, but it pushes into effect an immediate vote to remove the sitting Chancellor or nominate someone to take their place and since I’m unmasked my vote no longer counts. So really, it’s complicated and it’s not. We have to find who’s hunting Death and since Dorian is dead and used to work for Famine my vote is still Death pulling strings somehow and not intimidated by what I have, or it’s someone on Edward’s side. Hell, it could even be someone below them ready to off them and step into their place. Fuck. This really shouldn’t be that complicated and I’m still curious who pushed this into effect.

Because it started with The Dean’s List. It started the minute I got it from Juliette. The minute she died and my life as Axel Mercer turned into The Proctor for The Honor Society and it hasn’t ended sense. I thought maybe just maybe by bringing Jude into my circle giving him Lilah, healing what his mom always wanted, he would naturally step into his role, he would want revenge, he would help, instead, he wants nothing to do with his dad and I know they’re both still pissed at me, not understanding what’s truly at stake, not like I can just peel off my mask and explain it without getting a bullet to the head.

But, I think for a minute. It’s possible it goes back years before I was even pulled into the fold. My head pounds which isn’t helping and again the kicking from Charlie, not helping. Charlie looked like she fake slept more than anything last night and when I asked her if she was okay this morning in an attempt to see if she remembered assaulting me, she just snorted, glared, and stomped off.

Whatever weird mood swing she has going on right now, I can’t focus on it. I have people to keep alive, myself included, and a mystery to solve.

Does it hurt she hates me? Yes. Does it hurt more that she was texting Axel, aka me, last night? What was her diabolical plan? To tell Axel that The Proctor kidnapped her, kissed her senseless, made her steak and what? Didn’t take advantage of her? It’s not like she has a man to return to anyway.