1. Pandora #2
"Sure," I answer, lifting up on my toes so I can brush my lips against his. "But if there's even a hint of whiskey dick, I will step on it."
Asch lets out a surprised laugh, but his eyes crinkle with amusement. "I'm not worried." He glances across the room, and following his gaze, I realize that we've been watched. "How interesting do you like it, Pandora?"
"I've been known to be adventurous," I answer, my eyes not leaving the figure across the room, even as he starts walking towards us.
Blaze.
Blaze Bouchard.
His photo was plastered on the frat's website, highlighting exemplary frat brothers. He'd written several articles for their website about Greek life and brotherhood, blah blah.
That's not the interesting part about him.
No, it's the Bouchard name. The Bouchard Syndicate, run by George Bouchard. Everyone knows that George Bouchard is utterly ruthless. He’s the most powerful crime lord in the south, with his hands in every type of black-market deal.
Weapons, drugs, people? He sells it all.
And he doesn’t tolerate competition. Anybody who tries to encroach on his territory ends up as a bloody mess or disappears entirely—wrapped up and fed to alligators in the swamplands outside New Valence, no doubt.
And Blaze is the Bouchard Syndicate heir.
His family funds Dyschord University, and his name is plastered all over it. He and his family might not be the most powerful people, on an individual level, here at the University, but no one can deny that his family just about owns everything about it.
That also makes him my top suspect.
"Asch," he greets easily. "Who's this?"
I roll my eyes. " Or you could ask me. The person who you want to know about."
He smiles at me. It's a nice smile. Charming. Friendly and welcoming.
Yet another deceptive face.
"Sorry," he says smoothly. "I thought you knew you were included in that. My name is Blaze. And you are?"
"I'm Pandora," I answer cheerfully, giving him a wide smile. We both can hide our shark teeth behind pretty smiles.
"Pandora? As in, Pandora's Box?" Blaze glances from my eyes to my crotch. "Is your box as deadly as the myths?" he asks, not breaking eye contact with it.
Asch groans, elbowing him hard in the side. "For fuck's sake, Bouchard."
I burst out laughing. "Oh my god. That's the worst joke yet. I mean, I thought I'd heard all of the Pandora's box jokes, but why would my cunt be deadly? You think I've got some sort of vagina dentata situation going on?"
Blaze frowns at me. "No, it was just — never mind." He shakes his head, looking back at Asch. "You wanted something?" he asks.
"I did ," Asch remarks dryly. "But I guess Pandora and I will have to go enjoy ourselves alone."
"In all fairness," I point out, "You joked about roofie-ing me."
"Okay, fair," Asch says with another boyish smile. "But you're still gonna give us a chance, right?"
"It's an us now, is it?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.
I've never slept with two guys at once, but the idea intrigues me.
I give Blaze another once over. He's certainly not hard on the eyes.
Maybe an inch taller than Asch, with dark blond hair and a fit figure, though not quite as muscular as Asch.
Sleeping with him would be one way to get close to my top suspect.
And the Bouchard Syndicate.
"If you want it to be," Asch replies, stepping into me until my back is pressed against the wall. He leans in, his lips hovering over mine. "We can definitely show you a good time."
I open my mouth for him, tasting the cheap beer, and pull him towards me. He's not a bad kisser, and that gives me some ideas of what else his mouth could be doing.
When my eyes flutter open, the first thing I see is Blaze watching from beside Asch.
His expression is dark and hungry.
He's definitely into this. Whatever this is.
I wonder how many times they've done this before.
"Want to take this someplace more private?" Asch asks, running his hand lightly down my arm. "Or are you even more adventurous than you let on?" His voice has a hunger that makes a shiver run down my back. God, he has a sexy voice.
"Aren't your frat brothers going to complain, if they see you having fun without them?" I ask, pushing away from the wall, which brings me even closer to Asch.
I don't care if people see me, but I don't need to gain a reputation before classes have even started.
I should lay low for at least a week, right?
Blaze winks at me. "They'll cheer us on. They know that good brothers celebrate each other’s successes."
"And school spirit, et cetera," Asch drawls with a laugh. He takes my arm in his, then glances at Blaze. "We'll take you to the suite instead of the peon's quarters."
I wonder if The Suite is where the leader — Zayden — sleeps. How many The Suite s would one frat house have? I follow the two of them, letting them fondle and kiss me on the way there.
By the time we arrive at the door, Asch has my bra unfastened and the straps are halfway down my arms. "Right this way, m'lady," Asch says, his expression brimming with mischief and arousal alike.
"Do you own a fedora?" I tease with a laugh.
All of my good cheer vanishes the moment Blaze opens the door.
There's already a woman on the bed, half naked and disheveled. She's struggling to try to move, unable to lift her limbs which keep falling back onto the bed.
"What the fuck?" I yank myself away from Asch and Blaze, hurrying over to the side of the bed. "Hey, are you okay?" I ask her.
The woman looks at me with half-lidded eyes. "Where… Where am I?" Her voice hitches in the question. Fury engulfs me, clawing its way through my guts.
"Is this some kind of sick fucking joke?" I snap at the two guys as I turn to them. They're both still standing in the doorway.
Blaze holds his hands up. "What? No. This isn't my room. We didn't know she'd be here." He glances at Asch before looking back at me. "We could go to my room instead. It'll be a little more cramped?—"
My mouth drops open in shock. "What? You want to just leave her here like this?"
I turn back to the woman. She has thick black hair that at some point earlier had been in a neat braid, but now much of the hair had come loose. "Hey, what's your name?" I ask, brushing some of the strands away from her face. "I'm Pandora."
The woman tries to sit upright, but she's still too weak, too uncoordinated to even get herself up. "I'm… um… I'm Carly. Where's… I thought…"
She's seriously out of it, and my blood is absolutely boiling.
"Look, just let her sleep it off," Blaze says from behind me. I imagine he must think he sounds soothing or encouraging, but he mostly sounds condescending. "She had too much to drink, and someone helped her lie down."
"You can't be serious," I hiss.
"Do you think we should call someone for her?" Asch asks. He sounds less certain, more concerned. At least it's not condescending. "Hey, Carly, do you have someone who can take you home?"
Carly's eyes water. "I was… I was with… Did he…?" she looks at me, then down at herself, finally seeming to realize that she's mostly naked and lets out a sob.
I quickly grab a blanket off the floor to pull around her shoulders. "Hey Carly, I'll take care of you," I promise. "You stay right here while I find your shirt and shoes. I'm not leaving the room, okay?"
Carly doesn't nod, but she clutches the blanket tighter around herself as best she can.
"I guess those roofies weren't a joke," I spit at the two guys as I turn around to start looking for Carly's clothing.
Asch at least has the sense to look concerned. "I've never… I didn't think any of the guys would. None of us need to. There're always plenty of willing women?—"
"That's not the flex you think it is," I retort .
"I'll take her home," Asch offers. "You can come with us, make sure she gets there safely and all."
"Let Pandora handle it," Blaze says with a sigh. "Let's go back to the party, Asch."
Wow.
Just wow. I'd known the charming, suave face had been a lie, but I didn't expect the facade to fall this fast. A roofied woman in his frat house and all he wants is to go back to partying like absolutely nothing happened. He needs an immediate case of fatal testicular torsion.
"If I check the other rooms, will the women be conscious?" I snap. "I guess what they say about Kappa Beta Omega Bullshit is true."
"Kappa Alpha Omega Sigma," Blaze corrects immediately, as if that’s the most pressing issue. He picks something off the floor and throws it at me.
I catch it, ready to throw it back at him, when I realize that it's a women's sweater.
I hand the sweater to Carly and get in front of her so that the guys can't see her put it on.
It reaches halfway down her highs. I wrap the blanket around her a few times like a makeshift skirt, then tie it as securely as I can.
"What are you doing with Carly?" Asch asks. "I can help, too."
I flip him off and turn back to Carly. "Where do you live, Carly? Are you in a dorm?"
Carly nods slowly. "Yeah, I… I moved in today." It takes her another few seconds to tell me the dorm, and luckily, it's the same building I'm in.
"You'll want to get her into the shower when she gets back," Blaze says as I help Carly into her shoes.
Anger rushes through me again, and I stand and turn to face Blaze. "You mean, so all the evidence gets washed away? That's what you frat guys do, right? Help cover up crimes?"
A part of me realizes how hypocritical this is. I know what my family is, what they’ve done.
But Carly reminds me of Rachel .
Maybe Rachel was passed out in some loser's bed with nobody willing to help her before she ended up in the trash.
Maybe Rachel was carved up and packed into trash bags in this very building.
I'm hyper-aware of my lucky charm in my pocket.
"You Beta Omega Losers think your brotherhood protects you? Well, screw you," I declare. "If I find out about any other woman getting mistreated here, I'm going to pay it back tenfold."
Even knowing exactly where I am, and exactly why I'm here, I'd somehow forgotten who I was talking to.
I'd forgotten. Until Blaze smiles at me again. This one isn't the warm, charming, smile from downstairs. This one he'd learned from his father, the leader of the Bouchard Syndicate. This is a smile that is worn by someone walking through a room full of body parts.
The one worn by someone who knows he's untouchable. That they all are.
It sends a shiver down my back.
I can't forget who they are. I can't forget what they are.
"You don't have to assume the worst of us," Asch protests, jumping into the silence that lasted a little too long. "Chances were, someone just brought her here to sleep it off. It was probably dumb, not malicious. I'm trying to help, but you keep yelling instead of letting me."
"Tell you what," I say, smiling wildly. "Sure, if you want to help, you can. I won't even hold your poor taste in friends against you."
Asch looks between us. "It'll take like fifteen minutes, okay? Pandora can't get her back to the dorm by herself."
I probably can, but I'm not going to pass up this opportunity.
Blaze glances from Asch to me, then back to Asch. "Fine."
He disappears without another word.
"Carly, do you think you can walk?" I ask, turning back to her and extending my hand.
It takes her a few tries, but she manages to get up off the bed.
She's leaning heavily against me, and I realize that she's actually tiny.
I always feel like a midget in my family of giants—even my mom at 5'11" is taller than my 5'8"—but Carly is a good few inches shorter than me and at least ten pounds lighter.
It wouldn't have taken much to roofie her, or to get her knockout drunk.
I look at Asch. "Well? Are you helping or not?"
"Yeah," he says, getting on her other side and taking the majority of her slight weight against himself. "Let's get her outside, then we can figure out how to get her to the dorm. The air will probably be good for her."
We get her outside, and once we're clear of the party I realize that Carly is sobbing quietly to herself.
"You guys are a real piece of work," I tell Asch as we start towards the dorms. It should only take ten minutes, but it's still ten minutes with Carly in this state.
"You could have held off until at least a month in.
How are you going to fly under the radar if every one of your parties ends up with roofied women? "
For the first time, Asch looks irritated.
" I didn't do anything wrong, Pandora. I'm not the one in charge of the parties, I'm not responsible for everyone at the parties.
In case you haven't noticed, I've been taking your bullshit while trying to help you — and her — when anyone else would've told you to fuck off already. "
My head hazes with rage. It's too much. It's one thing too much, too far.
It's never anyone's fault.
Never anyone's responsibility.
Rachel.
Carly.
Whatever poor woman happens to be next.
I don't even realize my hand is reaching into my skirt for the knife that I always keep on me until I have it flipped open and pressed against Asch's throat. "It's never anyone's fault," I say cheerfully .
Carly yelps and backs away from us. "What… what are you doing? "
I grin widely, my eyes still on Asch's. I know that they're wide and wild. Manic. "Don't worry, Carly! Nobody's touching you ever again."
Asch grabs my wrist and twists my hand, shoving me away from him in one smooth motion that tells me he knows how to handle himself. "Jesus! You're fucking crazy."
Crazy.
"Yeah," I answer, laughing. "Yeah, I might be."
I swipe at him with the knife, and he moves to block me, but I still get a slice on the inside of his arm. I back up a few steps. "Tell your frat brothers about me, Asch. They'll want to watch out for the vengeful bitch."
His eyes flick to Carly, then he looks back at me. “Watch yourself, Pandora,” he warns me. “You really don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
I stand my ground, but Asch shakes his head and jogs off, back to the party for him and Blaze to find some other hapless woman to fuck.
He's wrong.
I do know who I'm dealing with.
These are the people who murdered my best friend. Somewhere in that frat house is the clue to finding out what happened to Rachel. Why she ended up in a dumpster right outside of New Bristol.
I'm going to find out who did it.
And I'm going to destroy them.
They think they're untouchable.
They're not.
I reach for my lucky charm. "It's fine," I whisper. Maybe I shouldn't have pissed them off right from the start. "We'll figure it out. This is just a teeny, tiny setback. And like Papa says, there's nothing you can't solve with a bit of violence. "
If the charm could talk it would be encouraging me and telling me that I can handle anything.
I smile at Carly, who's staring at me in horror.
"Come on," I say, holding my hand out to her. "Let's go."