Page 57

“Are you really not going to tell anyone about this?” I grimace. “I mean, about me?”

“If being friends with Royer for the past three years has taught me anything, it’s that one, he’ll stab you in the back in a heartbeat.” He gives me a tight, knowing grin. “And two, leverage is everything.”

He has a point, and it proves to me that Knox is on the exec board for a reason. He may look like a dumb jock, but he’s playing this game as hard as anyone else. I may be safe right now, but does that mean I will be forever?

I just have to survive through the end of the gauntlet, then none of it will matter anymore.

“So what are you going to do to keep me out of trouble?”

“Oh, sweet thing, I’m not keeping you out of trouble. In fact, you’re in huge trouble for not showing up like you were supposed to. Lucky for you, I’m a little less sadistic in my methods than other members of this frat.”

So I’m still being punished. I figured there was no getting out of that one. I sigh and say, “I’m ready when you are.”

Knox was right.He’s not as sadistic as the others, I think, scrubbing the brush in little round circles, trying to get off the caked grime. But like Miller, his sense of charity only goes so far. He pointed me in the direction of the downstairs bathroom, handed me a bucket, cleaning supplies and a scrub brush, and told me to get to work.

Dozens of frat boys had come in and out of this bathroom for a week. The mud caked in their shoes from the yard is now ground in the white grout. The toilet reeks of urine, their aim woefully off target. It looks like someone may have actually bathed a pig in the sink.

With the scent of bleach already stinging my nose, I’m wondering if I can just douse the room with the rest of the bottle, shut the door and walk away.

“Ah, forty-seven. I’ve been looking for you.”

It’s the tone that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Royer has that way about him, easy but smug. Casual but condescending. I get to my feet.

He leans against the bathroom doorjamb, holding an apple in one hand and a pocketknife in the other. Slowly, he starts peeling off the skin. “You didn’t come back last night after the party.”

“I was with the, uh,” I search for the word I heard Rat use the night before, “chit, and passed out after.”

“Sloppy. Zeta Sigs aren’t sloppy. What if she’d woken up before you and called the police?” The blade pauses over the stem of the apple, and he looks up at me. “We’re collected and controlled all the time, even when someone is sucking our balls. It’s how we’ve managed to slip past the council despite our many traditions.”

I hold back a laugh. Royer thinks he’s slipped past the Council, but he has no idea Grayson can see every moment of this exchange. He doesn’t realize that he’s being recorded right now. God, seeing him go down will be the highlight of my eighteen years.

“I know Miller lets you get away with doing whatever you want, but not this time.”

“You think scrubbing down this bathroom is what I want to do? Do you know how much pee and cum was stuck to the toilet?”

“It’s women’s work,” he says, scoffing. “Appropriate for someone who spends their life on their knees. But I shouldn’t be surprised Miller gave you pussy work.”

“Knox is the one that told me to do it.” I grit my teeth. “I don’t even know where Miller is.”

“Well, lucky for you, I’m here now and I’m going to teach you how to be a man, a brother, and not a soft vagina.” He drops the peel on the floor, right on the clean tile.

There’s a moment that ebbs between us, and I wonder if he knows the truth. If we’re both playing a game of cat and mouse, because his fixation on me is excessive. But then I remember how petty he is, how impulsive and childish. This is about the council pushing ‘Theo Hart’ through the Zeta Sig gate, and Miller daring to go against him by backing me.

This is about him being evil and looking for someone smaller, weaker, and less connected to fuck with.

None of that makes any difference when I see the dark flicker in his eye. It sends a chill down my spine. “I think you need a little bit of brotherly love.” He jerks his head down the hall. “Go wait in the parlor.”

“Brotherly love?” I clutch the scrub brush in my hand, my fingers raw and burning from the bleach. “What does that mean?”

“It means that you should follow an order without talking back for once in your goddamn life,” every muscle in his face tightens, “or things are about to get worse than they already are.”

He pops the rest of the apple in his mouth, then closes the blade shut with a loud snap. I drop the brush in the bucket and wash my hands, caught with a ball of dread building in my stomach. I’m so close to being done with this. So close to catching them. But maybe this is the opportunity I’ve been looking for. The camera is attached to my chest and Royer is pissed enough that whatever ‘brotherly love’ is, may be worth it.

I go straight to the parlor. Miller and Knox are both sitting on the couch. Miller’s legs are sprawled out as he checks his phone. Knox raises an eyebrow. “You finished already, forty-seven?”

“No.” I step over the threshold into the room. It’s an old-fashioned room with painted glass lamps and a stone fireplace against the back wall. An uncomfortable-looking couch and chairs covered in a pale, floral print fill the space, along with a slant-topped writing desk tucked into the corner. “Royer told me to come here and wait.”

Miller’s body tenses, the causal stance vanishing. The two men share an uneasy look.