21. River
RIVER
Zayden
Frat meeting. NOW.
Peyton
Uh, I’m in class.
Zayden
idgaf. If you don’t show, I’m kicking you out.
I scowl at my phone, turning around. My stomach grumbles, reminding me that I haven’t eaten yet today — which was something I’d been on the way to fixing — but I ignore it. The last thing I need is to get kicked out of the frat over something so trivial.
Pandora would be pissed.
I try to tell myself I don’t care, but I know better.
More than that, though, it would mean that our path to finding Rachel’s killer would be blocked. Like Pandora, I believe the answers can be found in Kappa Alpha. I have an in simply by virtue of being male. She can try to get there by manipulating Blaze and Asch, but I can do more.
I can do better.
Fresh grief and guilt washes over me as I think about Rachel, and I walk faster toward the frat house. She’d been my friend, too, and regardless of what Pandora might think, I do care .
I care enough to put aside my grudge against Pandora to find out what happened to her, after all.
As I reach the frat house, others are heading inside, and I join them. What the fuck could be so important as to call us all here in an emergency meeting? What happened to make Zayden threaten to kick people out if they don’t attend?
I enter the “party” room—the converted ballroom—finding a place against the wall to rest my back against, and scan my surroundings. Blaze and Asch are already here, unsurprisingly, and so is the majority of Kappa Alpha.
It takes a while for everybody to file in. It’s the first time I’ve seen everybody packed into the house at once when it isn’t a party. Even during hell week, not all of the older frat brothers participated.
“All right. Now that we’re all here—” Zayden starts.
Before he can continue, somebody interrupts, “Declan’s missing.”
Declan? I try to remember which guy that is. I think he might have been the one who kept badmouthing Asch, and to a lesser extent, Blaze.
That’s really the only thing I know about him. Not very memorable, I guess.
“ Declan ,” Zayden stresses, “Is currently at the hospital getting stitched up. Which is why I called this meeting in the first place.
I get a bad feeling.
I glance across the room to Asch, who’s watching me in turn. I quirk a brow, and he gives me an unreadable look.
The other guys all break out into chatter. With almost seventy people crammed into the room, they drown out whatever else Zayden is trying to say.
I can see Zayden getting frustrated, and part of me is amused by it all. Let Zayden sweat a bit.
Blaze suddenly whistles loudly. The entire room goes quiet, and everybody looks at him.
“Are you all gossiping old ladies?” Blaze demands sharply. “Shut the fuck up and listen to what Zayden has to say. ”
I see Zayden scowl at Blaze before he puts on a slightly nicer expression.
“Yeah. Thanks, Blaze.” Zayden coughs. “Declan is getting stitched up, because some cunt stabbed him.”
Some cunt stabbed him .
Anger ripples through me because I instantly know which cunt they’re referring to. I want to hurt Zayden for daring to call Pandora that. If she stabbed Declan…
I want to say she had a good reason, but then, this is Pandora. She doesn’t always need a reason to choose violence.
Still, I don’t think she’d have jeopardized her search for Rachel’s killer for nothing. She’s impulsive, dangerous, and yes, a little crazy, but she’s also not stupid.
“The first order of business: stay the fuck away from Pandora Pavone.” Zayden holds up a printed-out photo of Pandora. I recognize it from our high school yearbook, and I want to know how the fuck Zayden got a hold of that picture.
“She’s a crazy bitch, and she’s banned from the house. If you get yourself tangled up in her despite all our warnings, there’s no saving you.” Zayden’s eyes land on me. “Got it?”
I stare back at him.
There’s no way Pandora’s going to accept this as a reason for me not talking to her. If anything, finding out that I’ve been forbidden from seeing her will make her want to do it even more.
I’ll have to talk her down, though I’m not entirely sure how.
Even though others murmur their acknowledgement, it takes me a moment to realize that Zayden is specifically waiting for me to offer mine. I nod.
“Why’d she stab him?” one of the other new pledges asks.
I have to commend him for the set of balls he must have, because no one else has dared ask that particular question.
Zayden grimaces. “That’s the second order of business.” He glares at all of us. “She claims to have found a stash of roofies.”
The entire room explodes into chatter again.
Well, that explains it.
No matter how much Pandora wants to investigate Kappa Alpha, she’d never stand around and do nothing when something like that is involved. I don’t blame her. If I’d found a stash of roofies on someone, frat brother or not, there would’ve been blows involved — fuck the consequences.
It’s no wonder frats get such a shitty reputation. So far, they haven’t done much to prove that they’re really about brotherhood.
Zayden again starts yelling at everybody to shut up, but the rest of the frat brothers are more concerned with saying they knew Declan was shady, or worse, how they wished he’d shared.
I spot Blaze rolling his eyes. He whispers something to Asch, then goes to the front of the room to stand next to Zayden.
The crowd quiets marginally.
“What part of shut the fuck up did you old biddies not understand?” Blaze shouts.
That draws everyone’s attention, and they all quiet down again.
Out of curiosity, my gaze tracks back to Zayden. He looks murderous, like he did the last time Blaze had gotten everyone to quiet down when the leader of the frat hadn’t managed it. He catches me looking at him and scowls again, but I only regard him steadily until Blaze speaks again.
“Fucking finally.” Blaze shakes his head, and I return my attention to him.
“For the record, none of us saw the drugs. But whether Declan did whatever Pandora accused him of doesn’t matter.
She stabbed him, so she’s banned. And my advice to the rest of you is to not leave any incriminating shit anywhere in your room.
How fucking stupid would you have to be to keep roofies in your bedroom?
What if the police get called in for underage drinking? They’d find that shit while searching.”
The police would never be called for the underage drinking, though, and everyone here knows it. That’s something the frat would never allow to happen. It’s not exactly a secret that it happens, but everyone knows not to mention it .
But what really pisses me off is that he’s more concerned about the optics of it all, the idea that someone might be putting the frat at risk when really, he should be more worried about whether his brothers are roofieing women at all.
My lip curls in disgust.
I notice Asch watching me, and I glare at him too for good measure. The two of them might as well share a brain cell, after all, and if Blaze thinks it’s fine for his frat brothers to roofie women as long as they’re not leaving evidence around, Asch probably agrees.
Some frat I’ve joined.
Blaze pauses before he continues, scowling, “And for fuck’s sake, how pathetic do you have to be to roofie college girls? Just smile at them and say a few nice words and you’ll get a willing partner who isn’t laying there like a dead fish.”
Slightly better than saying nothing at all, but not by much.
I remain silent, not wanting to draw more attention to myself. I need to text Pandora, but seeing her will be out of the question for a little while.
She’ll have to understand that and let me do what I can on my end.
That thought almost makes me snort. Right. Like that’s going to happen.
I tune out the subsequent questions, most of them about Declan and how he’s doing.
I startle when somebody taps my shoulder. I glare, but it’s only Franklin. He gives me a wide-eyed stare.
“Isn’t Pandora your girlfriend?” Franklin asks.
The question surprises a laugh out of me. “My girlfriend?” I repeat. “That would involve her actually belonging to someone. No.”
That would involve me wanting her to be my girlfriend, when that implies something pleasant and nice.
None of what I want to do to her is pleasant or nice.
No matter how badly I want to find Rachel’s killer, I haven’t forgotten what will come after that. Once we find out who murdered our friend, I will find a way to make Pandora pay for everything I went through after a fucked-up first time.
The humiliation.
The lost finger.
The subsequent beating when I got home.
The way all of my opportunities within the Pavone organization had gone up in smoke.
All of it.
She’ll pay for it, one way or another, and none of that involves her being my girlfriend .
“She can’t be his girlfriend,” somebody else says. Peyton, I think. The awful faux-hawk is very distinctive. “I saw her sucking off Blaze the other day.”
Another one of the pledges steps closer to us. “You sure? I heard her with Asch. She was fucking loud . Wish I could find a girl that enthusiastic.”
Jealousy and irritation run through me, and I clench my teeth. I shouldn’t care. She’s free to fuck who she wants, whenever she wants. It’s none of my business. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t know she was sleeping around.
“Yeah, well, she’s a slut,” I say. “Too bad you won’t get to find out how much of one she can be, though.” I let out a dark laugh. “I wouldn’t suggest getting too close to her.”
Most of the guys laugh, but Franklin gives me a worried look.
“Maybe she doesn’t know how you feel about her, River.
If you talk to her… Um, with Sandra, she was saying that communication is really important.
So we discuss things, and we work things out.
” He pulls out his phone. “She sent me an article about healthy communication. Here, I’ll forward it to you. ”
Like Pandora is even capable of healthy anything .