Pandora
Sex with River was nice, but he left in the middle of the night. Apparently, he wanted to get back to shower and sleep in a real bed where he wasn’t pressed up against me.
How unromantic.
I stare up at the ceiling and watch the blood seep from one corner.
This is kind of bad.
At least the blood stain doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger.
I turn onto my side so I can stare at Echo’s enclosure. She’s hiding though, which means I’m staring at nothing but rocks and leaves and tree bark.
“Don’t you want to help the walls stop bleeding, Echo?” I ask.
She does not answer.
I close my eyes to try to sleep, but now I can hear the blood drip, one drop at a time.
Fucking hell.
Okay, clearly, I’m not getting any sleep right now. I throw off the blankets and go over to the closet.
I was going to wait at least another night, but anticipation must be literally killing me or things wouldn’t be this bad. You would have thought that watching River get beaten by a hot, muscled woman would have distracted me, but nope!
I pull on my black sweater and wrap the black scarf around my face. I layer on tights as well as black jeans. December in this area? It’s freezing cold. At least I won’t stand out if anyone spots me on security cameras.
The gloves and beat-up backpack are the last of my accessories. I mean, I’ve got the knife and my lucky charm too, of course. I’d love to be able to lift a full grown man the way that fighter—Bobbi?—had done, but since my arms are noodles compared to hers, knives will have to do.
My phone says it’s close to three a.m. I leave it on my desk before I sneak out of my bedroom. Samantha’s door is closed, and I hope she’s sleeping soundly.
She used to wake at the slightest noise even before she’d been kidnapped, though.
I tiptoe out and make sure to turn the latch as I close the door to our dorm to minimize the chance of Samantha hearing.
The halls are mostly quiet. I hear moaning through one door, which means whoever it is must be fucking in their little kitchen. I hope she’s having a good time with her guest.
Once I hit the stairwell, I sprint down the stairs.
Nobody stops me. I mean, why would they? They don’t know what I’m about to do.
I go to the closest parking lot and find a model I know how to hotwire.
It’s harder these days to find instructions online on how to do it, unless you know the right people—and good thing I know the right people.
This one is a simple hatchback. I check the glove compartment to find out whose car it is.
“Okay, Theresa. Sorry about this. I’ll bring the car back, I swear,” I say to the air.
I’m not hallucinating Theresa.
I drive the car over to the science labs. This part is going to be trickier, but I’m committed.
I’d scoped out the entire place earlier, watching which TAs were going into which labs. I managed to swipe poor, frazzled Elliot’s keycard. He’d been ranting on and on about how underappreciated he was. Not in so many words, but I could tell he was not a fan of his supervisor.
His supervisor is going to really hate him too, after this.
I use the keycard to let myself into the graduate biology lab, keeping my head down so the cameras can’t see my face.
It would have been smarter to call up Anastasia and have her help me disarm the cameras, but that would have been a future-me problem, and tonight-me is itching for action.
There’s no camera in the lab proper, which seems like a security issue. I guess they don’t want any corporate espionage though. The greenhouse doesn’t have cameras either, only some easily bypassed locks.
I find an animal carrier in the storage closet and take it over to the large rat cages. Almost all of them are white, and they’re sleeping adorably in their individual cages. Most have labels on the cages, mentioning what they’re being tested for.
“Hey, buddies,” I say to sleeping rats. One of them hears me and pops its head up. The label says it’s being used for some genetic testing, which means it probably doesn’t have a highly virulent disease that will mutate when transferred to humans and turn us all into zombies.
That would be kind of funny, though.
I open the cage and take him out to put him in the carrier.
Actually, I feel kind of bad about how uncomfortable that carrier probably is. I go and find a towel so the ratty can rest while I gather up more of its friends.
I would love to take every single one of these rats with me, but in the end, the carrier only holds about ten or so. The rats start squeaking at me, and they really, really don’t like it when I lift up the carrier.
“Don’t worry,” I say to them. “I’m not feeding you to a snake. You’re too big for Echo anyway. You could probably take her in a fight.”
I carry them out of the lab and out to Theresa’s car. They fit nicely into the passenger seat, and I even hook the carrier in place with the seatbelt to prevent the rats from being jostled as I drive.
“I’ve got a secret mission for all of you,” I say to the rats. “I know you’re all domesticated and you’re docile from all the handling, but if you could please, please bite a few people? That’s all I ask.”
A few of the rats squeak in response. Or maybe they’ve been squeaking the entire time.
“These guys, they’re total assholes. They’ve got horrible videos of me and other women. They expect the world to be handed to them on a silver platter. Oh, and they were mean to Blaze. That’s worth a few bites alone, right?”
I grip the steering wheel tightly.
Blaze can handle his own battles, I know, but he can’t seriously expect me to sit around and do nothing when Ezio is back in town and rallying a few frat douchebags to his cause.
These were Blaze’s friends! Or not friends.
Whatever. They suck, and if the walls are going to be dripping blood, it should at least be their blood, or accompanied by their terrified screams.
I make my way off campus and toward one of the nearby neighborhoods. Like Blaze, Asch, and River, several of the frat douchebags rented a house together after the Kappa asshole shack mysteriously burned to the ground.
This one houses Keegan, Holden, and Brock.
Keegan’s been hiding from me. That’s the only reason I can think of that I wasn’t able to find him on campus these past few weeks.
For some reason, nobody wanted to tell me where he was living. But he played his hand, showing up with the other two losers.
I park down the street, out of sight of the house.
“Let’s hope they’re all asleep,” I say to the rats. “Otherwise, I’ll have to stab somebody.”
I heft my backpack and the rat carrier, then walk through the cold air to Keegan and the other douchebags’ house.
My breath fogs in front of my face, and gosh, it’s really cold. I’m surprised it hasn’t snowed yet.
Maybe we’ll get snow for Christmas. I’ll have to snuggle up with Blaze and Asch and River—
Wait.
Are they coming home with me over winter break?
We haven’t discussed it, but where else would they go?
New Valence doesn’t have snow, and River hates his parents anyway.
My place is superior to the alternatives.
Surely even the presence of my parents wouldn’t scare my men away from a nice, cozy winter break with me.
The front door to the douchebag cave has a simple lock, which I have no trouble picking. There’s no alarm system either, which is a nice win.
The house is pretty similar to Blaze’s, making it easy for me to navigate. It was probably built by the same development company.
I make my way upstairs, cringing when I hit a creaky step. I don’t hear any reactions though, so that’s a good sign.
The first door has Holden in it. I consider him, but he’s not really the ringleader here. According to Blaze, Holden is more of a follower. The next room has Brock, but I pass him over too.
The primary bedroom is Keegan’s. Of course the third year gets the biggest room.
I should have done this so much earlier.
Keegan was the one who suggested the bottle.
His room is almost as messy as Asch’s room. I step onto the discarded laundry and pause next to the bed.
Keegan sleeps soundly, his snores disturbing the quiet of the night.
I wave my hand in front of his face, but he doesn’t stir.
Perfect.
I set the rat carrier down. They squeak again, so I quickly throw some of Keegan’s clothes over the carrier to muffle the sound. Then I open my backpack and take out my special goodies.
Chains and cuffs.
Keegan’s headboard doesn’t have any convenient bars, but that’s okay. I thread the chain around one leg of the bedframe and carefully snap it around one wrist.
Keegan groans, but he doesn’t wake. Phew.
Maybe I should have drugged him first? But then it would take forever for him to wake up, and I don’t want to stick around that long.
I creep over to the other side of the bed, and very slowly pick up Keegan’s free wrist so I can get it closer to the other side of the bed. He grumbles, but I manage to get him chained to this side too.
Good thing he isn’t as light a sleeper as Samantha.
I mean, he can wake up now, but I don’t want him to wake the other two so I grab one of the discarded shirts and tie it around his mouth.
That’s what finally gets him to wake.
Keegan makes a muffled sound and tries to sit up, only to run into resistance from the chains. His eyes go wide and he casts a look around the dark room until he spots me.
I wave to him.
“Hi, Keegan,” I whisper. “Sorry to do this to you. I mean, absolutely not sorry.”
Keegan struggles against the chain. I pull his duvet off of him, revealing that he’s sleeping in just his t-shirt and some boxers.
When I get closer, Keegan tries to kick me, but I grab his ankle and slam it back down to the bed.
“Yeah, none of that,” I say as I snap cuff number three around his ankle. He fights me as I tug on the chain so I can fasten it to the leg of the bed. Securing his other leg is easier, since he has less leverage.
When I have him spread eagle and immobilized, I step back and smile.