30. Blaze #2
The gym has enough mattresses for all of the brothers who stay in the frat house, and the school arranged for basic toiletries. I file into one of the showers—nobody dares try to get ahead of me in line—and wash all the dirt and grime off.
There’s a long scratch along my side. I trace the red mark, trying to remember when it had happened. Right before the fire? But Pandora was up against the wall. I don’t think she could have scratched me… Before, then, when I was carrying her, or maybe when we were facing each other.
Why are my memories so hazy?
Fucking smoke inhalation.
I finish washing myself, put on the t-shirt and sweats emblazoned with the school logo, and walk back out to the gym.
Half the fraternity is there, not just the guys who live in the house.
Somebody brought sandwiches and drinks, and I find a vegetarian sandwich for myself before taking the mattress next to Asch.
River sits down on the mattress with me. I catch Zayden glaring at River, but once again, I give zero fucks what Zayden thinks.
“I tried calling her again,” Asch says. “Straight to voicemail.”
“But she’s definitely fine,” I repeat. “They didn’t find her in the building.”
River is strangely quiet.
Asch gives him a sidelong glance before sitting down on the mattress next to mine. “What’s that look for?” he asks.
River shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Everybody’s mumbling to themselves, and I’m ready to fall asleep again, when Zayden steps into the center of our mattress layout.
“So we need to find out who did this to us,” Zayden announces.
Everybody stares.
Tate coughs and says, “Wasn’t it an accident? A microwave on the fritz?”
Zayden shakes his head. “An accidental fire? After we get attacked by some masked assholes? This was an attack on Kappa Alpha Omega Sigma. Somebody is out to get us.”
I groan, because if I weren’t so tired, I would agree with him. All of our appliances are new, and the school requires us to do maintenance checks once a year.
“Was somebody burning candles in their room?” another one of the guys asks. “That happened to a friend of mine. His girlfriend lit candles without a holder, and they burned all the way through to the plastic cabinet they were on and everything went up in smoke.”
“Nobody has girly scented candles here!” Zayden bellows.
“I don’t know,” Keegan says. “Blaze had some chick in his room. They were loud enough to hear across the fucking house. Maybe she had some girly candles.”
All eyes turn to me, and I can see the absolute fury in Zayden’s eyes.
“Who was with you, Blaze?” he demands.
I shrug nonchalantly. “God, I don’t even remember her name anymore. She snuck out before the fire though.”
“You don’t remember her name?” Zayden repeats, and I wince as I realize how unrealistic a lie that is.
“Wasn’t it Pandora?” one of the other guys says. “I heard Blaze asking the fire team about her.”
Fuck, fuck. I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m not in the mood for any of this crap.
“Yeah, fine, Pandora was with me. Either way, she snuck out before the fire. I’m too tired to get into this shit now. You want to ream me out for having banging sex with a hot as hell chick, do it tomorrow.”
“Pandora’s that psycho bitch who stabbed Declan, right?” another of my oh-so-helpful frat brothers chimes in. “What if she’s the one who set the fire?”
“She didn’t!” I snap at them. “It was the masked guys, if anyone.”
Except now that they’ve said it, deep down, I know.
Pandora absolutely would set fire to our frat house.
She’s always said she hates us. She has some ulterior agenda, something to do with that Rachel girl.
Asch and I had tried to find out more, but nobody knew anything about her.
Some of the older guys thought she looked familiar, but none of them even knew her name.
“She doesn’t have a reason to go after us,” I say anyway. “She got her revenge on Declan, and that’s all she cared about.”
But I notice River is stock still beside me.
Asch meets my eyes, then looks at River.
Zayden must realize something is up, because he approaches River and looms over him. “You know something, Rivera? Was she trying to get back at you for breaking up with her?”
“What?” River asks, but there’s a defensive edge to his voice. “What are you even talking about?”
Zayden rolls his eyes. “Come on! We all know you’re dating her too. It’s fine if you don’t care about having Bouchard’s sloppy seconds, but if you made that crazy cunt decide to come after us…”
I see red, and I don’t think it’s from the smoke inhalation.
“Zayden, shut up about Pandora,” I growl. “You don’t want to piss me off right now.”
Zayden backs up a few steps, but he shakes his head. “Or what? You’re gonna cry to your slut girlfriend so she can take care of business for you?” He laughs and does a theatrical sweep. “What happens to guys who flout the Kappa Alpha rules, brothers?”
Everybody hoots, “Expulsion!”
Asch looks at me, then at Zayden. “Look, I’m sure this is some kind of misunderstanding,” he says, ever the voice of reason even though he doesn’t sound as calm as he normally does.
“I’ve been sitting here, watching you act like a fucking idiot because of Pandora,” Zayden says, and several of the frat brothers shout in agreement. “Doing her bidding, giving Rivera special treatment because she asked, letting her get away with what she did to Declan, and?—”
River inhales sharply .
“Her brother attacks us! But you knew that, right?” Zayden sneers at me.
I stare at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean, her brother attacked us?”
Zayden starts laughing. “Sure, play the idiot. But I got my own sources. Her brother Kratos was one of the masked guys.” He holds up his phone, and there’s a photo of a guy on a motorcycle, holding one of the white masks.
It’s a social media post, I realize.
Pandora’s brother was stupid enough to post a photo online.
I catch sight of River’s face, noting that he doesn’t look as surprised as either me or Asch do.
“River?” Asch asks cautiously.
River grits his teeth. “Even if that’s her brother, there’s no proof he was behind anything. And that doesn’t mean Pandora set a fucking fire.”
There’s grumbling all around us, until Tate says, “The fire started in my room.”
The dread pools in my stomach. “How could you know that?” I ask.
“Because the fire was strongest in the back of the building,” he answers. “And I heard the fire team talking about it.” Tate glares at me. “I know you had it out for me, after… After. You told Pandora about that, right? That’s why she did it.”
“I didn’t say a fucking word to her!” I shout back, except I know.
River had gone to Pandora that night. River had been near tears, and then they’d had a fight, and what does Pandora do except avenge people?
And River knows something he’s not saying.
If it wasn’t for Zayden’s overbearing ass, I’d be grilling River for information.
“There’s only one thing to do,” Zayden says viciously. “We gotta get back at that bitch. Right, guys?”
Everybody except me, Asch, and River holler in agreement .
Zayden notices our lack of enthusiasm. “If you don’t help us, we’re cutting you out,” he says. “We don’t need pussy-whipped cowards like you in Kappa Alpha.”
All the guys shout suggestions of what they want to do to traitors. Even the few guys I thought were softer are cheering along. Zayden smiles the entire time. I narrow my eyes when I notice he’s texting somebody.
“You know the Kappa Alpha creed, Blaze!” Keegan yells. “You, River! Recite the number one tenet! Prove you’re one of our brothers!”
River tenses up, but he says, “Loyalty to my brothers above all else.”
That elicits another cheer from the collected brothers.
“Loyalty! That’s bros before hos, Blaze!” somebody shouts.
I grit my teeth and turn to Asch. “Give me your phone.”
Asch hands it to me without hesitation, and I storm off as I dial my father.
He picks up but doesn’t say anything.
“Dad, it’s me,” I say. “Blaze.”
“Yes, I know,” my father says. “I was wondering when you’d call.”
Shit. He already knows what happened. The school must have called him.
“I need you to do something about Zayden,” I say quickly. “He’s going to cause some shit here. He wants to go after Pandora Pavone, and?—”
“I gave him my blessing,” my father says. “Whatever the Pavones are doing, I don’t want them sniffing about our business.”
I freeze in my tracks, alone in the hall outside the gym. “What?”
This is who Zayden was texting. Fuck.
“You heard me. Take care of Pandora Pavone. Send a message to her father. I refuse to tolerate somebody who attacks my fraternity. The amount of time and money I’ve invested in it…”
“It’s a bad idea,” I say flatly. “The Pavones won’t stand for it.”
My father sighs loudly. “Did I stutter the first time? Send a message. If you’re too cowardly to do so?—”
Coward .
“I’m not!” I snap back, my hands gripping the phone tightly. “I’m not afraid. I just think we can be smarter about it.”
“And let them believe that they can get away with this? No. Either you do it, or I send somebody else to take care of it. And I might decide there’s no reason for you to stay at Dyschord. I don’t need everyone knowing my son is a cowardly little pissant.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. After a breath, I growl, “I’ll do it. Pandora is my responsibility."
“That’s what I thought.” He hangs up on me, and I stare at the phone.
I’m tempted to throw it against the wall, but it’s Asch’s phone and it’d be a pain to replace it when my own phone is probably destroyed in the fire.
I rest against the wall and go through it in my mind.
Pandora used me. She seduced me to get into the house; she practically begged me to go to sleep with her. She set the fire while I was inside .
She could have killed me. She could have killed Asch.
Her brother attacked us.
She stabbed Declan.
She hurt Asch. She hurt River.
I take a deep breath and steel myself.
She deserves it.
The gym door opens. Asch and River both come out looking grim.
“It’s going to be hard to talk them down,” Asch says. “But if you get Zayden removed…”
“No,” I say. “We’re doing it. We need to teach Pandora a lesson.”
Asch purses his lips. “Blaze…”
“What?” I snap at him. “All of this is her fault. Everything that happened is because of her. ”
“She’s a Pavone,” Asch replies, sounding more cautious. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“She burned all your stuff, Asch,” I say. “Everything you painfully collected, all the money you invested in it. Down the drain.”
Asch’s expression darkens. He takes so much pride in having built so many things for himself, all on next to nothing.
“And she didn’t give a shit that we were both in the building. My door was locked , Asch. If you hadn’t woken me up…”
If Asch hadn’t noticed the fire, or if he’d been in the back where the flames were strongest. I imagine Asch suffocating in the smoke, crying out for help that nobody brings, and my anger burns brighter.
Asch’s breathing is coming more erratically, and his hands fist at his sides. “What’s the plan?”
River looks between the two of us, his expression incredulous. “What do you mean, what’s the plan? We don’t even know that she did it.”
Asch stares at him. “If you really think she’s innocent, I have a bridge to sell you,” he says. “You know she’s guilty. Whatever you told her…”
“I didn’t tell her anything,” River says through gritted teeth.
“Why are you lying for her, man?” Asch asks. “It’s not like she really cares about you. She was using you.”
“You broke up with her, right?” I poke him in the chest. “You went to her that night, after we told you it was a bad idea. So what happened? What did you do that turned her against you?”
“She’s the one who—” River grits his teeth, but he glances past me briefly before leveling his gaze on mine. “I said the same thing I did to get my finger chopped off. I called her a crazy whore.”
Asch’s brows shoot up. “You got your finger chopped off because you called her names?”
I don’t care about the past, though. I focus on what matters right now. “Just for fun, you called her that? You were crying your eyes out to her and decided to call her crazy? ”
I remember that I’d almost called her that once, and River had stopped me before I’d been able to get the full word out.
It’s not something Pandora accepts lightly.
It’s something that hurts her.
“No,” River snaps. “I didn’t do it for fun . I was upset, and she wouldn’t shut up about revenge, and she got Franklin’s name wrong, and like always, she makes it all about her because why would she take two fucking seconds to think about how I feel, or…” He trails off.
“So you did tell her about Franklin,” I say quietly. “And then she trampled on your feelings.”
“Yes,” River hisses.
“Like the last time,” Asch adds. “With your finger.”
River holds up his left hand, the missing finger starkly obvious. He blinks hard, and I don’t miss the tears threatening to spill.
I have one more ace up my sleeve that will push River over to my side.
“She kept it, you know,” I say casually.
Confusion crosses River’s expression, breaking into the anger and the pain written across it. “Kept what?”
Asch must catch on to what I’m doing because he’s the one to say, “Your finger. She kept it.”
River’s head snaps up, and his eyes lock onto Asch’s. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? She keeps it in a jar or something?”
I smile cruelly. “Oh, no. It’s nothing but bone now. She has it all strung together and carries it with her. It’s her lucky charm. Every time you see her reaching into her pocket? She’s touching your finger.”
I half-expect him to accuse me of lying, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he falls silent and stares at his hand again, flexing the four remaining fingers on his left hand. “All right,” he says abruptly. “Whatever you’re planning, I’m in.”
Perfect.
Because I’m not a fucking coward.
I’m not Pandora’s toy.
And I’m definitely not letting Zayden run the show.