14. Pandora
PANDORA
Handle with care! This side up!
I clutch the box tightly against my chest, trying to suppress my grin while I wait for the elevator to open. I’m bouncing from leg to leg, and I’m tempted to press my ear to the box even though I know I won’t hear anything.
The door finally dings open.
Samantha is on the other side. She sneers as soon as she sees me.
I only grin wider. This is perfect. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to enjoy my delivery with Samantha in the suite.
“Hey, Sammy,” I say as I step into the elevator. “Have a great day at class or wherever you’re going.”
She huffs and lifts her nose as she walks out. I don’t bother to taunt her; I’m way too impatient right now. I hit the button for my floor.
“Almost there,” I tell the box.
I practically jog to my suite once on my floor. It’s dumb that I’m this excited, but Papa ended up being so slow in sending it to me .
Once I’m in my room, door safely locked, I take my knife to cut all the tape to finally reveal my prize.
In the middle of a bunch of packing paper is a medium sized bag. I lift it out and open it up to reveal a small, red-and-beige spotted snake. A blood python.
My blood python. This is the daughter of my first snake. Papa had found a male blood python to pair her with, and the clutch hatched early in the summer. I picked out my favorite, and Papa watched over the baby snakes to make sure she thrived before he sent her to me.
I quickly send a text to Cry Me A, then get back to the snake.
Pandora
I’ve got something to show you.
“Hi there,” I say to the snake as I lift her out of the bag.
She’s sluggish from the travel but perks up quickly.
Papa must have been handling her a lot, because she doesn’t immediately start panicking.
She does attempt to strike me, and I laugh and boop the top of her head once she pulls back again.
“What a cutie you are!” I carry her to the desk on the far wall, well out of sight of the door, where I’ve set up the snake enclosure. It had taken me an entire weekend to get everything right, and Samantha had side-eyed all the deliveries I was getting.
Besides the snake enclosure, I also got a mini freezer to store baby Echo’s food. Defrosting the food without Sam noticing will be a problem, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
I’m not really worried about her tattling to the school administration. What would they do? Kick me out? Get on my Papa’s bad side?
Yeah, right.
I grab the mister and spritz the plants in the enclosure again. The bioactive setup should help keep smells down and humidity up. I’ve got springtails and isopods in the substrate who will take care of leftover food and decomposing bio matter.
The whole enclosure takes up more than half the desk, but it’s not like I was using it anyway. If I need to study, I can do it on my bed or in the library. Or out in the kitchen, to annoy Sam even more.
I lean down so I can peer into the hiding spot. Echo is keeping low, but blood pythons are ground-dwelling snakes. I’ll wait a few days to give her time to settle before I feed her.
I send Papa a quick text to thank him and to let him know that Echo has arrived safely, then scroll back to my conversation with Cry Me A.
No response. I’d say he was in class and busy, but when I scroll up it’s all one-sided conversation. He’s been ignoring me for the past few days. Even when I asked about the commotion I heard about—something about a fist fight between a Kappa Loser bro and a Hellion—he’d said nothing.
I take one more look at Echo in her enclosure. “He doesn’t get to ignore me, does he?”
Echo says nothing, but I’m sure in her tiny blood python brain, she agrees with me.
Time for me to play stalker.
I check River’s schedule, and what luck, he does have class right now.
He’s going to be trapped for another forty minutes at least. I make note of the building and the room number, then grab all my essentials—knife, phone, charm, card key—and stuff them all into the large pockets of the light hoodie I’m currently wearing.
At the last second, I grab my backpack too, just in case.
A quick ten-minute jog to the engineering building and wandering through the halls lost, I finally find the lecture hall.
I’m in luck: I spot River’s familiar silhouette near the aisle. Less lucky—he’s halfway down the lecture hall, so it won’t be as easy to slip in unnoticed.
Ah well. I don’t mind being noticed.
I heft my backpack and carefully push the door open, trying to make as little noise as possible.
Unfortunately, it’s not actually feasible to make zero noise, and entering in the middle of class will always draw attention. The professor gives me a nasty look, but I slide into the closest seat and take my tablet out so I can pretend to be a studious person who definitely belongs here.
River never turned around to look. I text him again.
Pandora
Come sit with me.
I see his shoulders tense, and he glances back at me. His expression is dark, and the glare he shoots in my direction is every bit as nasty as the professor’s had been. There’s a pause, then I get an answering text.
Cry Me A
No.
I debate my answer, then type back.
Pandora
If you don’t come here, I’ll have to go down there.
The bubbles indicating he’s typing pop up immediately.
Cry Me A
Stop making trouble. I’ll meet you after class.
I smile at the text. That’s cute. It’s like he doesn’t know that trouble is my first, middle, and last name.
I pick up my things and casually walk down to River’s row, plonking myself right next to him.
The professor stops his lecture to glare at me. “Is there a reason you’re disrupting my class?”
“Sorry, Sir,” I answer glibly. “I was having a hard time seeing from back there.”
He rolls his eyes and gets back to teaching, something about the principles of electricity or physics or maybe he’s making up words.
I lean closer to River and whisper, “Hi.”
He lets out a quiet, frustrated sigh. “You have not changed a single bit, have you?” he mutters.
I set my tablet out in front of me, then place my hand on his thigh under the table.
“No,” he answers himself. “No, you have not. If you get me kicked out of class, I’m going to be pissed.”
“Mr. Rivera,” the professor barks. “Do you have something to say to the class?”
I bite my lip to stifle a laugh.
“I’m really enjoying your explanation of how robotics is critical in mechanical engineering,” River says promptly. “I was just telling my friend here that I’d get her the notes after class for what she missed.”
I nod along. “River is helpful like that,” I say, while I squeeze his upper thigh.
The professor gives us an unimpressed look, but he goes back to the lecture.
“What do you want?” he asks in a lower tone. “And why the fuck can it not wait thirty goddamn minutes?”
I raise my finger to my lips in a shushing motion. River rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to the professor.
I let go of his thigh and move my hand to his lower back, getting it under his shirt so I can explore. He’s so warm, warmer than most people I know. I find a scar and trail my finger along the raised flesh.
His breath catches, but he goes back to his laptop. I can see what he’s typing.
Stop that.
I use my other hand to type N O on my tablet screen. Then I drag a single nail down his back.
A shudder runs through him, and I briefly wonder what the people directly behind and to the side of us must be thinking .
His cheeks are getting flushed, though I don’t think it’s from anger.
I will fucking strangle you.
He quickly erases the words, like he thinks someone will use them as evidence if he went through with it.
I grin and move my hand lower, this time slipping it past his pants and boxers. I press down on the flesh of his ass?—
River hisses sharply, jolting away from me.
My hand slips out, and I stare at him, concerned. That wasn’t a good reaction.
I type,
Are you hurt?
“No,” he snaps.
“Mr. Rivera!” the professor snaps. “If you insist on being disruptive, you can do so outside of the classroom.”
River flashes me a dark, angry look. “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“You and your girlfriend can handle yourselves elsewhere,” the professor replies. “Out.”
The rest of the class stares at us as River gets up, packing his laptop as his cheeks flush redder and redder. I grab my laptop and stand up too, stepping out into the aisle. I reach for River, but he storms out, not waiting for me.
I turn to look at the professor. “Don’t hold it against him, sir. It was all my fault. I’ll take the full hit to my grade.”
I hurry after River, not answering when the professor asks what my name even is. I find River waiting for me outside the lecture hall, his expression furious.
“Oops,” I say with a small smile. “Sorry.”
“No,” he growls, taking a step closer to me. He’s trying to be menacing, but I just find it hot. I hold my ground. “You fucking aren’t.”
“Yeah, not that much.” I run my hands along his arms. “But what was that reaction? I didn’t even pinch you.”
River glowers at me, and he’s the one who takes a step back. “Your friends are fucked up, that’s all,” he says, crossing his arms against his chest. “Drop it, Pandora. Now what do you want, that you had to get me kicked out of class?”
“You ignored all my texts,” I point out. “How else was I going to get your attention?” I try to get a better look at his ass, but the jeans cover everything, and they aren’t even particularly tight. “Fucked up how?”
He lets out an exasperated sound. “None of your fucking business.”
I scowl. “Wait, what? You can’t keep secrets from me. Not when it’s about the people who might have killed Rachel.”
“Yes, I can, if you want me to get into the frat,” River says steadily. “You don’t get to know everything, Pandora. You’re better off not knowing any of this anyway.”
He should know by now that the more he tells me no, the more I want to know.