Nowhere To Hide

Prologue

Violet

“It’s out!”

The words tore through the dull midday hum of the dining hall like a gunshot.

Every head snapped toward the entrance, where a petite brunette stood, chest heaving and eyes wild with hysteria.

“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, a hundred voices colliding into one deafening roar of excitement and dread.

They were all desperate to know who’d ended up in the Selection this year; to know which girls would spend the next twenty-four hours being relentlessly hunted by the ruthless men of the Dionysus Club.

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. An uncomfortable silence followed.

I swallowed hard before sitting up straight. My throat had gone totally dry. “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.”

The fall air hit us like a slap as we spilled out of the dining hall and into the courtyard. A thin fog had rolled in from the ocean earlier this morning, and it was still clinging to the ground, swirling between the old stone buildings around us.

The rest of the Blackthorne Harbor University campus stretched before us; a labyrinth of spires and columns, where light gray gothic buildings rose beside Greek-inspired facades of pale stone and fluted pillars.

We started running to catch up with the throng moving across the quad.

Dried leaves scudded over the cobblestones beneath our shoes, and the carved faces of gargoyles leered down from archways as if they were judging us for our curiosity.

In the distance, the bells from the old clock tower tolled twice, resonant and solemn.

We joined the clamoring crowd, and it moved like a single organism, pulling us 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 totally obsessed.”

“So the Selection’s actually real? I thought you guys were just trolling me.”

“My roommate swears her friend’s 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.

A chill crawled up my spine. Even from here, I could feel the masked men’s eyes on me. On every single one of us.

Jeremiah, the tallest of our group, 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 with 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.

“Guys… what the hell am I supposed to do now?” I asked, voice coming out in a choked whisper.

Cherry’s voice shook as she answered. “There’s only one thing you can do,” she said. “Run.”