Page 41

My phone buzzes against the desk. Jayden, obviously. I grind my teeth and read the text anyway.

Are you back in your room? Say something. Anything. They didn’t do anything to me. I’m fine.

Ah, of course, so it was part of the plan after all. All of it. I’d love to hear his explanation for what I found, and I bet it would sound amazing too, because he’s so good at that. He’d have some perfectly reasonable story, probably something about someone framing him, and he’d say it while looking straight into my eyes, and the scary part is that I’d want to believe him.

Veronica. Please.

My thumb hovers over the screen, and I have to bite down on my lip and remind myself that he’s a member of the fucking secret society that has been terrorizing me. I open his contact, block the number, and sigh.

If Aniyah were here, I’d have someone who’d say that he’s a piece of shit and that she never liked him anyway. Now I’m completely on my own again, and it was probably the point.

Fine. I’ll still go to class, because it’s the only thing at this college that is free from the society and their stupid shit. Hopefully.

THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE the lecture hall fills up fast once the class is over, everyone shoving toward the stairs at the far end, and I weave through people as fast as I can.

“Veronica! Hey, wait!” Jayden shouts, but I ignore him because there’s no way I’m talking to him.

Hell, I don’t even want to see his face right now. He catches up before I reach the stairs and cuts in front of me, so I have to stop to avoid crashing into him. There are shadows under his eyes and his hair is a mess, and a part of me wants to ask if he’s okay, which is stupid because I shouldn’t care. He definitely didn’t care about how I felt.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“You know damn well what’s going on.” I cross my arms and lift my chin at him, and some girls slow down next to us because everyone loves drama.

A big audience is exactly what I need right now. Not.

“No, I really don’t,” he says. “I called and figured out you blocked my number, so I waited outside your dorm, but you didn’t show up.”

“Sounds rough.” I used another exit because I assumed he’d be waiting for me.

He glances around, lowering his voice. “Did they come to your room? Did someone say something to you, or leave you something? Because if the society did anything—”

“They didn’t.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“You’d know better than me.” I narrow my eyes and focus on his face, because his reaction is the only honest answer I’m going to get out of him. “Since you’re one of them.”

His eyes go wide and his lips part. Then he blinks, his face turning expressionless, and he shakes his head at me. But it’s too late.

“What are you talking about?” he says.

“I found your profile in one of the drawers with all the new names and the people they’re considering, and it says you’ve been a member since last year.” I tilt my head at him. “There was a date on it and everything. Should I say it out loud, or do you remember?”

He runs a hand over his mouth and flicks his eyes toward the girls, who are pretending to be interested in their phones but keep stealing glances at us.

“I can explain all of it,” he says.

“Then do it.”

“Not here.”

“Sure. Not here, not ever... because there’s always a bunch of conditions with everything you people do.”

He inches closer. “You found something and you instantly believe it, without even asking me about it. Who says any of it is true?”

“Okay, then explain how you knew where to go. You never asked me which way or if I saw anything interesting on the map, and you passed a bunch of doors without checking any of them and headed straight for that one.” My voice rises, and I don’t care who hears me. “And the guards who weren’t there? Lucky, huh? So fucking lucky.”

“You wanted to go down there, so I went with you.”