31. Pandora
PANDORA
Cry Me A
I need to talk to you
Pandora
Sure! Where are you?
Cry Me A
Gym. Asch and Blaze are here too
We’re having late dinner
I’d heard the entire fraternity got moved to the gym after the house fire. It’s a shame the entire house is unusable right now.
There might have been a miscalculation on the amount of fuel and accelerant used. In my defense, Ares had been unclear in his instructions.
Or maybe extremely clear, and I’d gone for the biggest fire anyway.
My plan worked though, because River is texting me again! I knew he’d appreciate the flashy show.
There’s no problem a bit of blood—or fire—won’t solve.
I hope Tate understands that this is his fault. If he hadn’t hurt River’s friend, River wouldn’t have gotten mad at me.
I spot River waiting for me by the entrance to the gym. Blaze’s fancy convertible is parked nearby, as are some other nice cars. If one of those belongs to Tate, I should slash the tires, too.
Nobody else is out here though. I guess it makes sense, since it’s almost 11 p.m. and the gym is usually closed by now.
“Hey,” I say, going up to River. “You feeling better?”
River smiles, but there’s something off about it. “Yeah. I figured we could talk about it. Come on.” He turns, leading me into the gym.
“Sorry I missed your call earlier, by the way.” I knock my shoulder against his arm. “I was in the middle of something.”
In the middle of disposing of evidence. I’m all for flashy shows, but there’s no sense in making it easy for the “proper authorities” to trace everything back to me.
“I was worried,” he says, though he doesn’t look at me when he speaks. “Blaze said you were in his room, and no one knew where you were.”
That lights a small fire in the void inside my chest.
“Oh. I didn’t mean to worry him,” I say earnestly. “Blaze looked so cute, all fucked out like that. I didn’t have the heart to wake him.”
I wasn’t worried that he’d get injured in the fire. Blaze’s bedroom was on the opposite end of the house as Tate’s, and he’s resourceful. I’d even locked the door so he would try the window first—and so nobody else would open it and let smoke into his room.
“I wish you had woken him,” River says, leading me into the gym. “He and Asch both inhaled a lot of smoke.” He turns and looks at me. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I want to tell him. I want to confess right here, and have him thank me, and we’ll kiss and fuck against the gym walls.
But I have just enough sense to know that I shouldn’t openly confess to a crime, not in public. The other frat members are inside, too.
“I heard about the fire,” I say. “It’s just… awful.”
“Yes,” River says, and he reaches out to grab my wrist. He tugs me in the direction of the gym. “Blaze and Asch are waiting.”
I follow along, imagining the three of them fucking me in the bleachers or the gym floor.
The doors open to more darkness. I squint, trying to see beyond the large structures of the bleachers.
“River?” I ask. “Are we playing a game? Because you know I’m always down for some fun. Just tell me what you want.”
“What I want,” River repeats. “I don’t know, Pandora. I’m not sure you know how to do what someone else wants. I think you only know how to do what you want, everyone else be damned.”
There’s a long shadow in the middle of the shiny gym floorboards, one that’s reaching for me. It looks like a hand, except it doesn’t have enough fingers.
I wrap my arms around River’s neck and let him fill my vision. I don’t need the shadows.
“But you want what I want,” I point out, smiling. “It’s always been that way between us.”
He doesn’t reply to that, instead stepping back and shaking me off before taking another step backwards, into the darkness so he’s partially obscured even this close to me. “No. It hasn’t.”
A harsh light suddenly turns on and shines directly at me. I raise my arm to cover my eyes.
Sneakers squeak on the smooth floor, and footsteps echo in the large room.
“River? What’s going on?” I ask.
“ River? What’s going on? ” a male voice mocks me. “Stupid cunt can’t figure out when she’s being played.”
Played?
I step out of the light, but before I can get far, somebody grabs me and shoves me back.
“Whoever did that is going to regret it,” I say viciously. I reach into my hoodie pocket and pull out my knife .
Before I can get it unsheathed, another person grabs my hand. I stomp on their foot, but they only pull me closer.
The cologne reaches my nose. I look up, and the light silhouettes his profile.
Blaze.
“None of that, Panda,” Blaze says. “You don’t need the knife tonight.”
My lips break out into a grin. “Is this a sex game? Do you want to go back to me pretending I don’t want you?”
Someone else reaches into my pocket, and even though I try to twist in Blaze’s grasp to stop them, he has a tight hold on me.
One hand wrests the knife away from me, then another hand delves into my pocket.
My lucky charm.
River’s bones.
Someone’s holding it up, and it doesn’t take me long to realize that it’s River. River, whose expression is twisted in anger; River, who doesn’t even look like himself right now.
“Give that back,” I hiss, struggling against Blaze. “Those are mine!”
“Actually, I think they belong to him,” another voice I recognize speaks up, sounding deadly calm.
Asch.
“Unless you’ve taken someone else’s finger,” he continues.
“No,” I protest. “But River gave those up for me. They belong to me. It’s not like they can re-attach to him at this point anyway. Really, River, you don’t even need the pinky bones.”
What am I saying?
That’s not going to make River calm down.
River laughs, a low, ugly sound. “Maybe I should take yours, then. See how much you like being down to four fingers. Your knife is sharp enough to do the job, I bet. Your Uncle Slayer wouldn’t have given you something that wasn’t. ”
“Would that make you calm down?” I ask. My pinky twitches, but maybe it’s a good compromise.
Yes. He can take my bones, and I’ll have his. That’s a fair trade!
“What do you think, Pandora?” River asks. “That this is some twisted love story? Because it’s not .”
Somebody else steps closer, and my eyes have adjusted enough that I can see there are at least ten other people here. It isn’t just Blaze and Asch and River, but a number of frat douches.
I spot Tate. I hadn’t even known his face before this morning when I looked him up on socials but I wish now I’d waited until he was sleeping in his room before I lit the damn thing.
“You burned the house down,” Blaze growls at me. “You tried to kill us. You and your fucking family maimed River. You think we can forgive that?”
I shake my head. “Nobody died! There’s been enough murder, and murder isn’t… isn’t the solution to everything.”
River had said that, too. He didn’t want anyone else to die. So I hadn’t killed them. That has to count for something.
And it’s not like they have proof I set the fire, anyway.
“You could’ve killed Blaze,” Asch says, sounding considerably more agitated than he had before. “Do you understand how many lives you put at risk?”
The shadows that swirl around us lunge inside my mouth, forcing me to swallow them. I pant, trying to breathe through the sudden constriction.
My chest creaks from the strain of having something trying to fill the void.
“I didn’t do anything,” I protest, my voice lower now. “I’m willing to let this all slide, guys. A big misunderstanding.”
Except the other people, the ones watching. I won’t forgive them.
“A misunderstanding?” Blaze shakes my arm. “A misunderstanding would be me finding you in bed with another guy. You trying to destroy everything I care about? That’s not a misunderstanding, Pandora. ”
I let out a small giggle. “See, I was right. It’s a misunderstanding. None of this is about you at all, Blaze. Nobody was trying to destroy Asch. Or River. You care about River now? That’s really sweet. I like that.”
One of the frat douches coughs. “She’s basically confessed already,” he says. “Is that good enough for you?”
River is looking down at my charm, his fingers smoothing along the finger bones like I’ve done so many times. “I can’t fucking believe you. You know, I called you a crazy whore when I was upset and hurting. I might’ve apologized, except…” He huffs out a laugh. “I’m not wrong.”
Crazy .
It’s a rush of needles in my chest, and the shadows slither inside every single puncture, filling my lungs and my veins, icy cold.
Asch hands the knife— my knife how dare he dare he —to Tate.
I tense and ready a kick, but River knows me so well, he helps Blaze hold me in place while I struggle and yell.
“I’m going to fucking murder you,” I say to Tate as he approaches.
“If you so much as touch me, you’re going to end up burning to a crisp.
It’ll be agony. Your skin will bubble and rupture and I’ll make sure there’s no smoke, just the agony of the fire, and maybe I’ll be nice and chop your dick off first so you can watch it roast in front of your eyes?—”
“That’s enough,” Asch interrupts sharply, and while he looks unbothered, Tate looks nauseated. “None of us want to hear about your sick fantasies.” He takes a step back. “Go ahead,” he tells Tate. “Be careful. She likes being cut. Wouldn’t want this to be good for her, now would we?”
My sick fantasies.
I start laughing, going slack in River and Blaze’s arms.
Tate’s hand is a lot more unsteady as he grips my shirt to start cutting it away.
He’s an idiot about it, unsure of how to handle the knife and doing a piss-poor job of it .
“It’s not meant for cutting fabric,” I say cheerfully. “You’re going to have to stab through it first.”
Tate looks at Blaze, unsure, and I can hear Blaze’s exasperated sigh.
“Anybody else want to give it a try?” Blaze asks.
The guys grumble, and apparently, they’re all unsure about approaching me.
I burst out laughing. So much for big, tough frat guys. They’re just little pussies after all, except my pussy can handle more than any of them.