CHAPTER 23
MATTY
Creak.
The sound that woke me wasn’t loud…just the soft click of the door to my room opening.
But it sliced straight through sleep.
My eyes snapped open.
Moonlight spilled across the room, catching the edge of the dresser and the mess of clothes on the floor. Ophelia was curled against me, her face tucked into my shoulder, her breaths puffing softly against my skin.
For half a second, I thought I’d imagined it—until I saw him.
A figure stood in the doorway. Black hoodie. Gloves.
The Sphinx mask glinting in the dark.
My pulse skyrocketed.
He didn’t move at first…just stared at me. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he tossed something onto the bed—a crimson envelope that slid across the sheet and stopped against my thigh.
“Who needs porn,” he murmured, voice muffled and mocking behind the mask, “when I’m assigned to Matthew Adler?”
I was on my feet before I could think, muscles tight and ready to break something.
But he was already gone. The door hung open, the hallway empty.
For a long moment, the only sound was the faint hum of the air vent and Ophelia’s quiet breathing.
I looked down at the envelope. Same crimson wax. Same seal. Same sick feeling in my gut.
It had to be the same bastard who’d been in my closet the other night. Asshole. He was just lucky Ophelia had been covered up, or he would have been dead.
My jaw clenched.
We needed a security system. Cameras. Motion sensors. Something. Because clearly, door locks didn’t mean shit around here.
I picked up the envelope, the paper thick and smooth under my fingers. I didn’t have to open it to know what it was.
My next Sphinx trial.
I tore it open carefully, the seal snapping with a crack. A single sheet slid out, crisp white, the message printed in clean block letters that made my stomach tighten.
VOL NAVY DOCKS. ONE HOUR. COME ALONE.
Of course.
The docks on the Tennessee River weren’t just some random meeting spot. Everyone on campus knew them. The Vol Navy had been a Tennessee tradition since the sixties—hundreds of boats docking near Neyland Stadium on game days, the river choked with orange and white, beer, and noise.
But right now, it was the middle of the night. The boats would be gone. The docks empty. Quiet.
The perfect place for the Sphinx.
I exhaled slowly, glancing toward the bed. Ophelia hadn’t moved, still tangled in the sheets, the faint rise and fall of her chest catching in the moonlight.
She made a small sound, half sigh, half whimper, and her face scrunched like she was fighting something in her sleep. A second later, her hand reached out, searching blindly across the empty space where I’d been.
My chest tightened.
Even asleep, she noticed when I wasn’t there.
She might not have said the words yet, but she didn’t need to.
She totally loved me.
And I’d get the words out of her someday.
I found my sweatpants on the floor and slid them on.
Hoodie. Shoes. Phone. Wallet. Keys. The motions felt automatic, muscle memory taking over while I went over potential things the Sphinx could do to me.
Just as long as it doesn’t involve dead bodies, I thought, once again thinking of Parker’s trial. I could probably handle anything but that.
By the time I stepped into the hallway, my pulse had leveled into almost a game-day calm.
I pulled out my phone and typed out a text to Parker and Jace.
Me: Got a Sphinx trial. If I’m not back in two hours, try to find me.
Me: I forgot to take my bracelet off, so I’m making it easy.
Me: Parker, if you see this text first and can’t figure out how to track me, ask Darla.
I hit send, hoping one of them would see my texts.
The friendship bracelets had started as a joke freshman year, Jace’s idea, naturally. He’d handed them out with some dramatic speech about “binding our brotherhood in unbreakable thread” or some crap like that.
It wasn’t until Parker’s trials that we’d figured out the truth: Jace had built tiny trackers into them. Because apparently, in his mind, best friends didn’t just check in—they ran covert GPS surveillance on one another.
I’d been meaning to take the damn thing off ever since.
But after years of wearing it, I barely noticed it anymore.
And maybe tonight, that was a good thing.
I tightened my hoodie strings, locked the door behind me, and started toward the car.
The drive down to the river didn’t take long. Campus was mostly asleep, the streets washed in that eerie blue of late-night halogen and frost. My headlights caught the slow curl of mist rising off the Tennessee River as I pulled into the lot overlooking the docks.
The moment I stepped out of the car, the cold punched me.
Wind knifed across the water, biting enough to sting my eyes, and the air smelled like metal and wet wood.
The docks stretched out below, long wooden fingers reaching into black water. Everything was silent except the slap of waves against the pilings.
I scanned the docks, breath fogging in the cold, trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next. Then something caught my eye near the end of the middle dock.
I squinted.
Was that…a package?
Of course it was.
I huffed out a laugh that turned to steam. How original. A secret society and a mysterious package. Never would have thought of that.
I was obviously being sarcastic.
Jamming my hands into my hoodie pocket, I started toward it, shoes thudding softly against the boards. Each step creaked.
When I reached the end, I crouched, frowning as I picked up the box. It wasn’t heavy, just wrapped in plain brown paper, no markings.
“This better not be some kind of—”
A sound behind me—soft, quick.
I started to turn.
A bag dropped over my head, blinding me.
“Hey!”
Hands grabbed me—rough, fast, everywhere at once. I twisted, slammed my shoulder into someone, but there were too many of them.
Cold air hit my chest, and I realized, too late, what they were doing. Fingers tore at my hoodie…my sweatpants. Fabric ripped, scraped down my legs, until the night air hit bare skin, and my stomach lurched.
“Seriously?” I snarled, fighting to break free. “What the—”
Someone yanked at my ankles. My socks went first, then my shoes, ripped clean off as I tried to kick them away.
Rough hands caught my wrists, jerking them behind my back. Rope bit deep, pulling tight until the burn shot up my arms.
The world tilted sideways, the dock slick under my bare feet.
Before I could catch myself, a brutal shove hit between my shoulders and sent me flying.
The breath left my lungs in a grunt, and before I could even swear, I was airborne—then crashing down, the river swallowing me whole.
Cold exploded across every nerve as I hit the water, the shock punching the air straight out of my lungs.
Not water—ice. That’s what it felt like.
It slammed into me, stole everything…air, thought, sound. My lungs seized, burning, while the current dragged me under.
The bag clung to my face, slick and suffocating.
Don’t panic.
Easier said than done when your brain’s screaming up, up, up, and you don’t even know which way that is.
My arms were useless, bound tight behind me. I tried to kick, but the rope cut into my wrists, throwing off my rhythm, dragging me down faster with every frantic movement. The water roared in my ears, pressure crushing.
Think, Matty.
I twisted, rolling my shoulders, trying to feel for slack in the rope. Nothing. The knot bit deeper. I kicked again, harder this time, feeling the drag shift, the faint pull of bubbles rising somewhere above me. That way.
I followed the pain in my lungs, the instinct that screamed for air, angling my body toward where I thought the surface might be. My foot struck something solid…the riverbed.
Wrong direction.
I bent my knees and shoved off with everything I had left, forcing myself up, the bag rasping against my face, each second stretching longer than the last. The cold was eating me alive, turning muscle to stone, thought to static.
My chest convulsed as a trickle of river forced its way in, burning down my throat. I jerked my head, shaking the bag loose, rubbing it against my shoulder until the fabric finally shifted just enough to pull away from my mouth.
Light flashed behind my eyelids…and then I broke the surface.
I gasped against the soaked bag, coughing and choking, dragging in oxygen like it might vanish again.
The bag still clung to my head, heavy and waterlogged, every breath a fight. My arms were bound, but I kicked hard enough to keep myself barely afloat.
Don’t stop.
The current was pulling me downstream now, away from everything. My limbs were heavy, numb, shaking from cold and adrenaline.
Somewhere behind me, a voice called out, distant and distorted. Someone laughed.
Motherfuckers.
I didn’t try to turn toward them. I just kept kicking, lungs shredding, every thought reduced to one brutal command: Live.
By the time my chest scraped the riverbank, I could barely feel anything.
I shoved myself up the muddy slope, kicking and rolling, using my shoulders for leverage.
The ground was rough and frozen in patches, raking against bare skin as I dragged myself forward.
Every muscle screamed, my lungs heaving like I’d swallowed knives.
The cold had gone past sharp. It was bone-deep now, a heavy, crushing numbness that made it hard to tell if I was even moving at all.
When I finally collapsed onto solid ground, I just lay there for a second. My body convulsed in shivers. I couldn’t stop. My fingers wouldn’t close.
Move.
The word echoed, slow and far away, like my brain was shouting from another room.
If I stayed on the ground, I’d freeze.
I rolled onto my side and fought to sit up, my breath coming in ragged bursts.
The bag still clung to my face, plastered against my skin.
I dug my shoulder into the dirt and rubbed hard, twisting until the fabric snagged on a rock and tore.
One final jerk, and it came free, ripping off with a gasp of air.
The air hit like fire.