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I nod, grabbing my backpack, not looking back. My heart beats wildly. Frantically. What if Knox had come in a few minutes earlier? When I was asleep in Miller’s bed? Or God forbid, changing.

Adrenaline pumps through my veins the entire way to campus, continuing after I drop into my chair in class.

I slink down, mimicking the way I’ve seen the other guys sit; legs sprawled, knees wide apart. A girl enters the room with her hair in two knots at the top of her head and her thick bangs are cut blunt across her forehead. Dark lipstick paints her mouth as she talks to another classmate. It takes me a second to realize it’s Janelle. She looks cute, in her own gothy-emo way, but it’s more than just the effort she put into her style today. It’swhoshe’s talking to.

Rat.

A sick feeling swirls in my stomach. There’s something about him I don’t like, something different than the other guys. Miller is dark and wicked, but all he wants is sex and control. Royer a chameleon, and Knox is just all about the fun, but Rat? He’s too into his role as warden.

The uneasiness continues when he tucks a piece of her hair over her ear and bends, whispering something.

Gag.

When she climbs up the stairs, he goes in the opposite direction, sitting with a few other Zeta Sig’s across the room. We’re not to associate with the brothers during the day, not unless we’re summoned. I’m surprised when she stops at my row and sits one desk over.

“What’s that all about?” I ask.

“All what?”

“I thought you said all frat boys were losers.”

She pauses. “He’s in a frat?”

I laugh. “Big time.”

She mulls this over for a second and opens her laptop. “Every rule has the exception.”

I laugh. “You really thinkthatguy is the exception?”

“Hot is hot.” Her eyes flick across the room to where he’s sitting. “He’shot.” She cuts her gaze back at me. “What do you care, anyway?”

She’s right. Theo shouldn’t care that Rat’s a douche with a streak of hardcore asshole. Janelle is closed-minded and apparently a hypocrite. If she wants to go after a dick like Rat, then who am I to stop her? She’ll learn the lesson on her own that her instincts were right all along; frat boys are the worst.

“Is that all you’re getting?”

I glance over at the guy next to me, number seventeen. He’s tall and lanky, having not quite grown into his arms and legs yet. He’s studying my plate as we go through the food line in the main dining hall. So far, I have salad and a piece of grilled chicken. Comparatively, his is loaded with pasta, fries, and something coated in a thick batter that may or may not be meat.

“Um… I don’t eat gluten…” He gives me a blank stare. “It gives me the runs.”

“Ah, right,” he nods in understanding. “That sucks.”

I grab a bag of chips at the checkout counter in an attempt to allay suspicion. Number seventeen doesn’t seem to pay much attention anyway; he’s already stuffed a roll in his mouth by the time we reach the table.

I sit between him and twenty-two, a boy with warm brown skin and a shiny silver watch on his wrist. The table is filled with recruits, all seemingly starving from the way they eat. I pick up my fork, hyper-aware of my choice in food, my mannerisms, and the fact that Andrea and a pack of GE’s just walked in the door.

“Anyone have an idea of what’s going down at midnight?” a guy at the end of the table asks.

“Nope,” seventeen says from beside me. “No clue.”

“I did hear a rumor about last year,” says another kid with a fine layer of white-blond fuzz covering his scalp. “They made everyone drink two bottles of scotch to see who was the last man standing.”

Another guy chimes in. “I heard they made everyone do push-ups and then paddled you according to how many you did.”

Twenty-two winces. “As long as they don’t make us circle jerk like the Alpha Ro’s do.”

Seventeen chokes on his second roll.

“Eh,” the blond-fuzz guy says, stabbing his fork into his mystery meat, “it can’t be thatbad, right? They all survived it. I think they’re just trying to freak us out.”