Chapter 15 #2
“What are you guys talking about over here?” Wes cuts in, looking pointedly at Asher’s grip on my wrist. Asher lets go and I quickly pop the pill into my mouth and wash it down with a drink.
“Sloane’s poor decision-making,” Asher grits out, looking at me.
“I’d say,” Wes remarks, still looking at Asher heatedly.
Asher meets his gaze. “Do you have something you want to say, Wes?”
“No,” he replies coolly.
“Then can I talk to Sloane in private?” Asher asks.
Wes gives me another pleading look before turning and walking away. I watch him go, and Asher turns my chin up to him, backing
me up against the wall and closing in on me. “Go to the bathroom and throw up that pill,” he says, with only seriousness in
his voice.
“What? No.” I jerk my head away from his grip.
He grabs me again, this time a bit harder, turning my face back to his. “Then stop drinking.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say defiantly up at him.
“Sawyer, I’m not watching both you and Peterson tonight. I’m telling you now, I will leave you to deal with him yourself tonight
if you get too fucked-up.”
“That’s not our deal,” I say, and I can already feel my body starting to relax.
“You’re right, our deal was that we both stay sober. Now you’re about to be double fucked-up. Where did you even get that?”
“I needed it to relax, okay? You’re the one constantly telling me to, so now I am. Don’t be such a buzzkill.”
Asher steps away from me with his hands raised. “Fine, do what you want. Don’t forget we’re meeting Sam by the founder statue ten minutes before midnight. And be coherent.”
At eleven thirty I tell my friends that Asher and I have a party we have to stop at real quick. Annica scoffs in annoyance,
saying a group costume means we need to be together as a group. But I’m three drinks and a Xanax deep, so I only smile and
pat her on the head, blissfully uncaring.
Asher and I walk up to Sam, who stands at the base of the founder statue with his arms crossed, looking around. He hands us
two masquerade-looking masks.
“Oh, cute,” I say, putting mine on.
Asher just holds his and looks back at Sam. “No one is supposed to know who goes to these parties,” Sam clarifies. Asher sighs
and puts it on.
“And the blindfolds?” Asher asks.
“Just put your hands on my shoulders and close your eyes. I’ll lead you in.”
Sam starts to lead us, looking back occasionally to make sure our eyes are closed. I know that only because I’m squinting
just enough to still see a little bit. He leads us to the back of one of the campus buildings, though I can’t tell which one,
and through a door, then down a set of stairs and a hallway until we’re stopped under a stone archway. Sam unlocks the door,
and it opens to darkness.
“There’s going to be a lot of stairs,” he says.
“Can I open my eyes to go down them?” I ask.
“In a minute,” he says, leading us in and closing the door behind us. “Okay, go ahead.”
I open my eyes fully to see stone stairs that descend in a spiral.
Sam uses his phone light to guide us down.
Five minutes later we’re at the bottom. The staircase opens to a hallway, lit by torches.
Armored knight uniforms stand before the stone, as if they’re guarding the place.
I grab the mask of one as we walk up and move it as if he speaks.
In my best British accent I make it say, “Welcome to the Knights of Pembroke secret socie—” Its arm juts up to grab my hand.
“Ah!” I jump back to Asher.
Sam laughs. “Good one, Kane.”
Kane laughs too, lifting the helmet. “I’ve been getting people with that all night.”
I glare at him as we pass through the threshold. We enter a sitting room with plush red couches, and mahogany bookshelves
lining the walls. A wet bar sits in the corner and a flat-screen tv hangs on the wall opposite.
“Where’s the party?” Asher asks.
“Through here,” Sam says, pulling down a red book on one of the shelves, causing the bookcase to open.
“Now that’s cool,” I say, thoroughly impressed.
A party is in full swing beyond the bookcase. Strobe lights flash all around the open space and it’s crowded with people dancing.
“This literally looks like a dungeon,” Asher says. It makes me wonder what this place was originally built for. What it was
meant to keep down here . . .
I spot Bryce almost immediately, dressed in some kind of toga situation and mask, talking to two girls on a couch across the
room.
“He’s here!” I say. I would normally feel relieved, but since I haven’t felt an ounce of stress all night, it’s more of a statement.
“You guys hang out here for a minute,” Sam says. “I’ll be right back.”
“Ooh, refreshments.” I spot what looks like a fountain of alcohol. Grabbing one of the goblets set out on a table, I fill
it with the liquid from the fountain, taking a sip. I don’t recognize the taste. It’s part punch, and part something else.
Maybe black licorice? It’s not bad, I determine, drinking the rest of what I poured and getting more.
“What is it?” Asher says, grabbing a cup for himself.
“Some kind of punch,” I say. I take another gulp as Asher fills his cup and Sam comes back.
“Oh, I wouldn’t drink that,” Sam says to Asher, not seeing the cup in my hands or my squirrel cheeks holding in what I just
drank. “It’s like ninety percent absinthe, ten percent shrooms.”
My eyes go wide as I swallow what was in my mouth. Asher’s eyes look from me to my empty cup.
“Great,” he says.
“Absinthe and shrooms?” I ask Sam. “Like the stuff that makes you hallucinate?”
“Yep. We always serve it. If you stick around until three or four a.m., shit will start getting real strange down here.”
Asher looks worried, but I still feel like I’m floating on a cloud. One where nothing bad happens to me ever. And I love this
cloud. I want to stay on this cloud forever.
“Oh my god, I love this song. Let’s dance.” I grab both of their arms.
“I don’t dance,” Asher says.
“You two have fun with that,” says Sam. “Just keep the masks on.” He disappears down another hallway off of the open stone room.
“I’ll just sit and watch.”
Asher takes a seat on one of the couches that surround the dance floor, but I don’t care if he won’t dance with me. Strobe
lights flash and dry ice pumps smoke onto the floor as I spin around, moving my hands up my body, into the air, feeling carefree.
I almost don’t even remember why we’re here. When I open my eyes, Asher is watching me dance. My head starts to feel fuzzy,
my inhibitions at an all-time low as another masked man comes up behind me and pulls me to him. I almost shove him away, but
when I glance back toward the couch, there’s a girl talking to Asher. To hell with it, I think, as I dance with the stranger.
When the song is over, I feel Asher’s hand wrap around my arm.
“Bryce isn’t in here anymore,” Asher says.
I look all around to find that he’s right.
I took my eyes off him and he disappeared.
Asher grabs my hand and leads me down the same dark hallway Sam disappeared through.
There are doors all the way down the hall.
Some are locked, some aren’t. Asher opens one that contains glass cabinets of alcohol.
Most of it absinthe. We pass more people in costume as we walk farther down the hall.
When someone in a Darth Vader costume walks by, I turn my head to follow.
Asher doesn’t seem to notice. Am I imagining it?
The person turns their head back to look at me, and it’s the same voice-changing helmet that Miles has, I’m sure of it.
I grab Asher’s arm as he opens another door to a room hosting a full-blown orgy.
We both stand there wide-eyed as men and women fornicate before us.
I don’t know if I’m hallucinating now, or if that’s really Sam in the back of the room with two other men.
“Will you two be joining?” someone near the door says to us while a girl’s head bobs up and down in his lap. The whole thing
feels wrong to look at but I can’t stop looking.
“Sorry.” Asher closes the door. We take a moment to process before he clears his throat and we keep moving. I wanted to tell
him something before that, but now I don’t remember as we get to the end of the hall and there’s another sitting room similar
to the one we entered through. It’s decked out in Halloween lights and cobwebs. There are more knights in armor and other
relics inside.
“Oooh,” I say, taking out my phone and recording around the room. “I love the dead birds they hung from the ceiling for this.”
“Those are paper bats,” Asher says, walking around the room. “And you can’t post any of this. Sam will kill you.”
But I don’t listen to him as I film down the wall over what seems like hundreds of photos of the society since it originated
in 1910. I walk past a curtain to a small room with only a little table covered in white powder. A bloody body impaled with
a sword sits in a chair next to the table.
“This looks so real,” I say, reaching out to touch the prop, but my arm feels like it’s moving through molasses.
Asher comes in after me and gasps. “Sloane, don’t touch it!” he yells, and I startle, dropping my phone. He pulls me back
behind him. “Fuck.”
The room spins around me—colors and shapes collide and separate. “What is it? Don’t even try to tell me this is another paper
bat.”
“No, this is Bryce Peterson.”