Chapter 18
18
I walk forever in darkness. The only clue to my path is the changing landscape beneath my feet. Sidewalks, then cobble stones. More sidewalks and then through some sort of doorway and down a sloping path that smells like wet grass and soil. Then a long, long stretch of stairs. It feels like forever, but it's probably only ten minutes before the hood is yanked back off of my head and I'm gasping air in a dark room.
It's a...tunnel. A giant tunnel. A tunnel big enough to house an airplane. Are we at a secret airport? The barest hint of the arch of the ceiling sits maybe twelve feet above my head. A tang of damp and mold permeates the air and hits the back of my throat—kind of like an abandoned subway with hints of grease and metal mixed in.
The men drop my arms, then stride down the corridor, confident I'll follow them. I don't enjoy being stuck in the dark in creepy tunnels alone, so they're not wrong. I scramble to follow, my footfalls echoing off the stone of the floor.
“Where are we?”
The guy closest to me flicks a look over his shoulder. “Steam tunnels.”
“Steam…tunnels?”
As if he’s used to conducting tours of the dark and nefarious parts of the campus, he nods. “After coal, some of the campus converted to steam heat. All the radiators in this quadrant were fed by this tunnel.” Maybe he’s a history major here. Even the henchmen have genius IQs.
I look around with renewed interest. “Fascinating.” Now that I know what I’m looking for, I see pipes branching off of the ceiling every few feet before catching myself. "Okay, interesting as this may be, why are we in steam tunnels?"
No one answers me. We walk in complete silence until I realize there’s a hum beneath the silence. At first I think I'm overhearing someone's cell phone—the voices distant and tinny like a speaker-phone pocket dial. But as we approach a branch in the line, I realize I’m hearing people talking down the darker of the two tunnels.
The hushed fervent tones of the conversation reach my ears in snips and snatches. “It's your job to handle her!”
Some muttering and then something that sounds a lot like “I'm handling it!” In a tenor that I have a sneaking suspicion I recognize.
“You aren't handling it. I got a visit from campus authorities.”
My stomach drops. The other voice is Kendall's father.
Our group shifts and starts toward the dark part of the tunnel, one guy scuffing his feet as we approach. Clearly, he's warning Kendall and his father that we're within hearing distance.
“Do. Better.” Kendall's father bites out the words, and then... silence. Just the swish of the guy’s pants fading away, and my own racing heart. We continue down the new tunnel thirty feet or so before the henchman in front of me stops so suddenly that I careen into his back.
“Oof,” I say and I bounce off him. I sprawl backward onto my ass on the cobble stones. “Ow.” I state, my hands and tailbone stinging with the impact. I see why we stopped. There, bracketed by warm light in an open door, is Kendall. Arms folded, staring at my sprawled form with his typical arrogant sneer.
The guy in front of me helps me to my feet and I expect Kendall to join our procession. Instead, I'm pushed toward Kendall and the door. I say door if one can call a large metal grate with hinges on it a door. Probably some sort of mechanical space. It's the absolutely perfect room to murder someone in, if I'm being honest.
Kendal's father just told him to handle me. He doesn't actually mean to kill me, right? I hate that I can’t entirely rule it out. What if they're going to rub me out for being a liability or for the campus police involvement? I have fully emerged from my cocoon. I’ve gone from being a normal political science student to being a liability to a secret society.
“Please don't kill me,” I say to Kendall. He’s already motioned the goons to leave. Which they did without any statements on my behalf. The door grates shut with a grinding squeal, leaving us... yep, in a mechanical room.
My ears pop, shifting from the echoey sound of the chamber to the closer, muffled sound that this concrete box affords us. Lit by a single hanging light that looks like something straight out of a horror movie, I see pipes and gauges lining the walls, all of them rusty and dusty. No big deal, so it's an abandoned mechanical room in a secret tunnel and no one will ever find my body.
I find Kendall’s cool gaze on me when my eyes finally fall on him in my perusal of the room. He raises an eyebrow. “I'll admit you're a pain in my ass in more ways than I can possible enumerate, but I'm not here to kill you, Helena.” He sighs. “I'm here to help you.”
Exactly what a murderer would say. I cross my arms across my chest and take a step back. “Help me do what? Starve in an underground tunnel? Not into that version of weight loss, thanks.”
He looks up like he's praying for patience. “Helena, I swear to God. We have like twenty minutes to get you changed and we don't have time for this. You're going to have to trust me that I'm?—”
“You’re, what? Handling me?”
That stops him, and he narrows his gaze in calculation.
“I heard everything,” I lie, hoping he'll spill so I have some sort of leverage.
“Then you know,” he emphasizes while staring steadily at me, “that my father has made you a personal test for me.”
I snap my mouth closed, which reveals that I have not, in fact, heard everything.
“That's what I thought,” Kendall says, rolling his eyes. He digs in his coat pocket. Probably for his gun, or whatever people in secret societies use. Poison? A dagger cane?
He produces a roll of duct tape.
Yep. Definitely going to kill me. He tosses something sparkly and black at my head, and I catch it out of instinct. Death by... I study the piece of gathered material in my hand... silk and sequins? Well, that doesn’t track. I gape at him. “Is the test to see if you can strangle me with luxury fabric?”
He pauses and his jaw flexes. I don't understand all the things that flit across his face. “If I can get you through to the final test, he'll trust my...” for a second I think he's going to say "taste", but instead he parries the words “commitment to the process,” like a weapon.
Well, that sounds more like Kendall. Assigned to help the underdog as a punishment. Boohoo for him. “I don't want your help.” As much as I would love a leg up for this next test, help from Kendall feels wrong, wrong, wrong.
“Believe me, I don't really want to help you either. I tried to get you to go home earlier, but now you’re here.” He takes a deep breath like this fact pains him. “So. I took the challenge from my father to help mold your application.”
“You don't think I'll get granted my scholarship again without your help?” Ew. “I would rather fail on my own than cheat, Kendall. We might not have been close, but you should know that about me. I would rather go home than do whatever this is.” I motion between us. Playing into some secret challenge his father has for the underdog feels ick.
“Okay, so tell me what you know about tonight.”
The topic change throws me for a loop. “What?”
“Tonight. This event. Tell me what you would have done.”
“I...” I scan the room, searching for a camera as if I’m being Punk’d. “Show up and serve things? Just like always?” I mime serving drinks, then motion to my outfit.
He rolls his eyes at my antics. “Yes, exactly, Helena. You dressed like a hostess to serve drinks, but this is an interview.”
“A test?” My spine straightens.
He waffles his head. “Yes and no.”
“Cut. The. Absolute. Bullshit.”
He looks me dead in the eye. “It’s not a full test, but it’s important to do well. Fail tonight, and it’s like failing a test. It's an interview. To make it to the next test, trust me that a little coaching is essential.”
“It's a...secret interview, disguised as a party?”
“It's a way for our benefactors to meet our applicants.”
Benefactors. That sounds slightly ominous. “So, what is wrong with my outfit? The app says I'll be serving drinks.”
“You will be. You’ll just be serving them in this.” He motions to the ball of sequins I hold in my hand.
I release my stranglehold on the wad, unfurling it into a tight black cocktail dress.
“No.” The dress looks like it will barely clear my butt.
“Try it on.”
“I don't want to look like a cheap whore. If that's what it takes to win your bet, you can think again.”
“You could never—” he says as he steps closer, “—look cheap.”
I crane my head up to look at him. That strange magnetism sparks between us, made of hate and secrets and an anger I don't fully understand. “You don’t get to choose,” I whisper. I don’t want to give him the power.
“Fine.” His fingers reach out, and I think for a moment he's going to tuck the hair behind my ear in some bizarrely satisfying display of tenderness. Instead, his hand hovers before dropping to my chest.
I suck in a breath as his fingers play with the top button of my shirt. Then, with a quick flash of violence, he rips the button right off. Before I can stop him, the next two buttons suffer the same fate.
“What the fuck?” I sputter, hands coming up to cover myself.
His eyes are locked on where my boobs spill out of the front of the shirt. His jaw clenches. “And now,” he growls, taking a step back, “your options are to go like this—” he waves to my gaping shirt, “—or wear the dress I brought you.”
“You're an asshole.”
“I'm aware.”
“Yeah, wonder where you got it. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? Did your daddy teach you to beat up innocent Mathematics majors as well?”
“He had it coming,” He growls, not even bothering to lie about Dominic. I swear Kendall might explode. Blotches appear high on his cheeks, and he rakes his hands through his already- mussed hair. I’m shocked when his eyes fall away from mine. Is that…shame? “We don’t have much time for you to choose,” he says finally, addressing the wall just slightly over my left shoulder.
I regard the bandage dress like a venomous snake. The dress has nothing resembling shapewear or support. It's literally a silky sleeve of sequins. “I'm not wearing a bra.”
He swallows and nods meaningfully. “I'm aware.”
We’re locked in a brief stare-down. The earlier shame is gone. He meets my gaze, immovable. I throw my hands up, which is a dangerous thing to do if one's boobs are a hair-trigger away from popping free of one's destroyed shirt. “Okay, fine, you win. Whatever.”
I turn my back to Kendall, angrily unbuttoning the rest of my shirt. Wishing I’d brought some Crisco down here with me, I wedge myself bodily into the bandage dress. Holy hell, the sequins hurt. I hiss as the dress scratches its way down over my chest. It's so tight I'm not sure I can get it over my pants. I’m very aware that Kendall is no gentleman, and hasn’t turned his back to me. And I can’t bring myself to be vulnerable and disrobe in front of him on purpose.
“You could have found me upstairs and I could have changed in my room,” I growl, locked in a death match between my pants and the skirt. No one is winning.
“I wanted to give you the opportunity to succeed on your own. I saw what you were planning to wear and had to intervene.”
I roll my eyes. Finally, the tight skirt fits over my hips and I peel the pants off with a maximum of effort. This thing is exactly my size. I realize bandage dresses are forgiving, but how on earth had Kendall a) found this dress and b) produced one exactly my size from his coat pocket?
“La Voila,” I say, chucking my pants at his head. He bats them away with a hand I see has bruises and abrasions across the knuckles. Proof of his crime.
“Better.”
“Skimpier, at any rate.”
“Better,” he emphasizes before raising his hands and ripping off a chunk of duct tape.
“Is that for my mouth?” I'm only half joking.
I swear his eyes darken as he stares at my mouth for a long beat before yanking his gaze back to mine. “We could start with your wrists, if that’s your pleasure. I’d prefer that mouth of yours remain open.” I think he’s teasing, but I’m not sure. His eyes are like deep pools, and I think the idea of having me immobile at his mercy is exciting to him. Scenes from our little tryst in the library surface in my brain, but this time my hands are above my head, attached to the book shelf. Imaginary Kendall between my knees. Imaginary Kendall grinding into my body against this wall. Imaginary Kendall leaving me powerless as he?—
Wait. What the fuck is wrong with me that right now? Kendall is probably going to tie me to a radiator and leave me to die in something destined to become a cold case on NCIS, and I’m turned on? I have got some serious shit to cover in therapy. “Probably better cover my mouth, too. I bite.” I mean for it to sound like a warning, but he looks pained for a moment like he'd enjoy that.
“This,” he continues, as if we haven’t swerved into dangerous waters, “is for your chest.” He rips the duct tape in half lengthwise.
I take a half step back but he reaches out to stop me.
"I'm sorry, what? I can wear a skin tight dress but you want to make me wear duct tape pasties?"
"You can't wear a bra with that dress. The tape is all I could find to help..." he motions with his hands, "give you some lift."
I cross my hands over my chest. "The girls are plenty fine, thanks."
"Just let me do my job," he growls.
"I am not going to let you duct tape my breasts."
"Do you know how to?"
"Gonna say I missed that class in high school, but I'm mighty curious how you think you know."
"You'd be surprised what I know how to do," he says.
We're quiet a moment and I realize he's waiting for permission.
"Do you want to continue in the brotherhood?" He asks. "Do you want the payout from this test?"
"I'm not sure on the first one, but yes to the second," I grudgingly admit.
"Then let me," he reaches out and sets his hands lightly on my shoulders, thumbs running over my collar bones like I'm a delicate sculpture, "do my job."
I nod briefly, and his hands palm my shoulders before sliding down my clavicle, into my dress, and cupping my breasts.