7. Pandora
PANDORA
I open the door to my dorm suite, motioning River inside. “What dorm are you staying in, anyway? Not the cheap ones with the shared bathrooms, right?”
Before River can answer, I notice Sam glaring at me from the kitchenette. She’s still in her pajamas and bleary-eyed, like she only just woke up even though it’s noon.
Even her PJs are virgin white.
“Hey, Sammy!” I greet, waving. “Sam, this is River; River, this is Sam. My roommate.”
“It’s Samantha,” she corrects me, turning her disgusted gaze from me to River. “Get out.”
River arches a brow. “No,” he replies.
“No need to be rude, Sam,” I say with a grin. “River’s a childhood friend. He’s harmless.” I run my hand along River’s arm, squeezing his bicep.
River jerks away from me. “Yeah. That,” he says, his voice flat.
“I don’t care if he’s harmless. You’re not supposed to have men in the dorm,” Sam retorts.
I roll my eyes. “To prevent us from having sex? How homophobic. Two women can fuck each other too, Sam.” I glance at River. “It’s not an actual rule, by the way. I checked before I picked this dorm. They ask everybody to respect quiet hours, that’s all. Don’t scream too much when I fuck you.”
“Who says I’d be the one screaming?” River retorts. “Don’t worry, Sam. I’ll gag her to keep her from making too much noise.”
Sam does not look any more pleased at that than she had the rest. “Or you could just leave,” she retorts.
“You want us to have sex in the hall ?” I ask, making a mock scandalized expression. “That would be worse! I’m really not into public exhibitionism.” After a beat, I add, “I don’t judge if you are, though.”
Sam grabs a coffee mug and turns without a word, stalking back off into her own room.
“Wow,” River says as soon as she’s gone. “You got a real winner of a roommate.”
I laugh. “Yeah. I’d be nicer if she hadn’t judged me right when we met.” I lead River to my room and lock the door behind us.
I give the door a suspicious look. “How soundproof do you think this actually is?”
“Not very,” he says. “But you have two doors in between us and your delightful new friend there, so it should be fine. Unless you think she’s going to put her ear against the door and try to eavesdrop while we talk about murder and whatever.”
“You mean like you tried the other day, when you were lurking outside my dorm?” I suggest.
He glares at me, but he doesn’t contradict me.
I go to the desk and open the bottom drawer, pulling out my prized possession. “I guess we’ll have to sit close to each other and talk in low voices,” I say.
When I hold up the notebook—Rachel’s journal— River’s expression changes. “What have you figured out?” he asks, his voice quiet, less confident than it had been.
I get on the bed and motion for him to sit next to me. It’s a double bed, not a queen, so it’s still a bit of a tight squeeze for me and River together. I open the journal to the page that started all of this.
A flyer to a lecture at Dyschord U is stuck onto the page, and Rachel’s note about meeting somebody there is burned into my mind.
“This lecture,” I say, tapping on the page.
“It was sponsored by the Kappa Fuckwits frat. That doesn’t mean whoever she met there was from the frat, but a lot of the frat guys would have attended.
But…” I scoot closer to River. “I did more digging. Uncle Slayer helped, too. There’s this weird pattern of female students going missing from Dyschord.
Not enough to become a national scandal, but…
” I sigh. “And Papa talked to some people too, from his business. There’s definitely something going on with the university.
Papa wasn’t able to get hard details from anyone though. ”
I smile crookedly. Papa had gone on a whole rant about it, about how he needed to kill a few people to loosen lips, but Daddy had convinced him not to cause a huge scene. All of them had told me that I should forget about it.
I get that from Daddy and even Uncle Slayer want to keep me safe, but Papa?
He’s usually the first one to suggest violent revenge.
I’d ignored all of them when they’d suggested I study at New Bristol University instead of Dyschord.
At least they hadn’t tried to stop me. I don’t know what I would have done if they’d attempted to hinder my plans.
“That’s surprising,” River says, and his voice is edged with something bitter. “Usually your Papa gets anything he wants.”
“Apparently he doesn’t run in the right circles for this.” I flip the page back to find an entry about an outing the three of us had gone on. “It’s old money crap. Papa is new money, even if a lot of that money was grandpa’s.”
“People with old money think they can get away with anything,” River replies. “But murdering a high school girl?” His jaw clenches.
He’s pretty hot when he’s angry.
“You’re actually shocked by that? You know what the elite do.
” I seethe inside. “They’re the kind of people who hire the Bouchards and the Pavones of the world.
They need us to do their dirty work. They call on us to…
to… chop up a girl and dump her in the trash, and I’m the only fucking person who ever cared about Rachel?—”
“You aren’t the only one who cared!” River snaps at me. “If I didn’t care, I’d have fucking killed you instead of agreeing to help you.”
“You sure it wasn’t just because you wanted to get your dick wet?” I counter, anger rising inside me.
River’s always been like this.
One moment, I like him.
The next, I want to stab him.
Okay, maybe there was only one specific moment when I wanted to stab him, but I still remember the deep hurt I’d felt.
“I could get my dick wet anywhere,” he retorts. “Don’t forget I’m your only ally right now, Pandora.”
“Don’t forget that I could end you whenever I wanted to,” I say, moving to straddle his lap. “It could have been more than a finger that you gave me, River.”
“Keep reminding me of that, and maybe I’ll forget I agreed to help you before I kill you,” he says. His hands go to my hips, fingers tightly gripping me.
“So you don’t care about Rachel after all.” I lean in and snap my teeth mere inches from his lips. “Are you going to help me get revenge or not?”
“I’m not here to serve your whims, Pandora,” River says, squeezing tighter. “Why do you even need my help to take out some college guys?”
“You think we’re the only mob families in the country?
” I ask, lightly slapping his chest. “Come on, River. You know how things operate. If we can make the cops look away and even participate in crimes with a bit of money, you think some elites wouldn’t do the same?
Blaze has already threatened to destroy me.
He owns this school; his ties to the dean and the cops and whoever make him untouchable. ”
The real threat is the one lurking behind his eyes, though.
The look that says he wants more than to simply expel me or fuck me.
The look that promises utter ruin.
All because I hurt his precious Asch.
River’s eyes narrow. “And you’re going to let them get away with that?” His grip tightens on my waist.
I grin manically. “You know me better than that. Nobody gets away with pissing me off.”
I just have to hurt Blaze where it really hurts.
His answering laugh is dark, but he doesn’t contradict me. If anyone knows the consequences of pissing me off, it’s him, after all. He shakes his head, though, taking a moment before saying, “Step one, I get into the frat.”
“You get into the frat,” I agree. “Step two: we both get close to Blaze Bouchard and Asch Alvarado.”
“Bouchard,” he repeats. “As in the Bouchard family from New Valence.” He leans back against the headboard. “Are those the fuckers who were trying to paw all over you yesterday?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not my fault you aren’t paying attention to anything.” I get off his lap and pull Rachel’s journal closer.
“It’s not my fault you’re leaving out pertinent information,” he grumbles, but he shifts so he can see the journal again. “Are you going to answer my question?
I grin at him. “Ah, so you admit to the stalking. And yes, those two were Blaze and Asch. Blaze is the blond one, Asch with the brown hair.”
“I’m not stalking you,” he mutters. “I was only making sure you were okay.”
I arch a brow.
“All right, so maybe there was a little stalking,” he amends .
“I’m flattered.” I flip the pages again, to the back, past where Rachel had written.
This is where I keep all the new information.
River’s breath hitches. “Are those…”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “The crime scene photos.”
These photos are burned into the back of my eyes. All of Rachel’s body parts, where they’d been found in the trash, as well as the picture from the coroner where her body parts had been placed together like a grotesque jigsaw puzzle.
Some of the pieces were missing, though. They never found her left foot, for one, and a few fingers had been chewed off by animals.
“Fuck,” River whispers. “That’s…”
“It’s disgusting,” I say. “Those monsters treated her like trash.” I unfold the copy of the coroner’s report Uncle Slayer had acquired for me, the one he hadn’t wanted to give me until I’d threatened public violence.
Signs of sexual assault .
I squeeze my eyes tightly and take a breath to steady myself. “I’m going to do worse than this to whoever touched her,” I say steadily. “You know I will, River.”
“I know,” he says, his voice harsh. “And I’ll be right there to help.” He reaches out to take the coroner’s report from me, taking his time to read it over. “Sick fucks,” he snarls when he’s finished reading.
“She fought back,” I say. “She remembered my lessons and she fought back, but it wasn’t enough.”
I wish Rachel had trusted me enough to introduce me to the mystery man she’d met at this university lecture. According to her notes, he had called her ‘very mature’ and had been absolutely charming.
That sounds like an older man preying on the young and vulnerable to me.