Page 92 of Burn Bright (Cobalt Empire #1)

BEN COBALT

T he frat house is trashed from the all-day football tailgate that’s switched into a drunken afterparty. Remixed hits blast through the first floor. Sloppy hands glide down my shoulders in greeting as I weave through the college students and step on so much trash .

Beer cans, Solo cups, empty liquor bottles, pizza boxes, paper plates, plastic silverware—I almost grab a garbage bag to clean up and separate recyclables from waste. No way will they go through the effort.

I had to personally buy a recycle bin for the frat house because “it’s not in the budget”—which I understand, but barely anyone uses it. Most treat it like it’s just a second trash can.

If I go through initiation, maybe I can gradually change their habits. Maybe I can have a better, greater impact, and honestly, the thought makes me second-guess if I’m choosing the right path. If I’m doing good by de-pledging, or if I’d do better by remaining here.

The vein in my temple is throbbing as I overcomplicated this. In and out. I need to get in and out. My brothers are waiting in a noticeably expensive SUV, and I’m hoping no drunk idiot bangs on their tinted windows to figure out who’s inside.

In and out.

“Ben, man, buddy, you gotta see this!”

“Later, Reggie!” I call out to one of the Kappa brothers.

“Hey, Ben!”

“Ben!”

“Ben!”

I politely bow out of the interactions and ask around for Leif. Getting conflicting answers.

“I think I saw him upstairs.”

“He’s been in the backyard.”

“Basement, I heard, bro.”

I’m about to cycle through each spot when I run into a freshman pledge in the kitchen. Iggy mops up what looks like piss all over the sink with a sponge. Thank fuck Beckett isn’t in here. I should also be a grunt-working pledge, but they’ve treated me more like a trophy they don’t want scratched.

“Hey, Ben,” he up-nods.

I nod back, about to pass him into the backyard just as he asks, “You see your sister yet?”

I freeze to solid ice. “What?”

“Your little sister.” He drops the sponge on the counter. “She’s been here for at least fifteen minutes.”

I can’t process fast enough. “Audrey Cobalt? At this frat house?”

“Red hair. Blue eyes. I think she said she was surprising you.”

I’m instantly starved of oxygen. This can’t be real. While I take out my phone, I glance up at the ceiling. Toward the second floor where the bedrooms are, then I think, they’re fucking with me. This is a sick joke.

I send Audrey a text.

Ben Cobalt

Are you at the KPD house?

Then Iggy adds, “She brought you a whole thing of cookies. She even demanded that no one eat them until you got here.” He snorts like there’s no chance that happened.

It feels like a Mac Truck just slammed into me. Audrey’s love of baking cookies isn’t so widely known. He’d only mention it if it were true. She’s here. I dial her number, my pulse racing so far ahead of me, I can’t see straight. While it rings, I ask, “Iggy, you know where she is?”

“I just saw her come inside. Not where she went.”

Fuck, fuck. I’m about to storm upstairs, to the bedrooms, but she suddenly answers, “Ben?” Her voice sounds weird. Woozy?

“Where are you?”

“Don’t be angry?—”

“I’m not angry. Please just tell me where you are, please .” I’m suffocating under distress. I whip my head around, trying to see if I can find her. She’s not in the kitchen, so I bolt back into the living room where the music pierces my eardrums.

“I’m at your frat house,” Audrey confirms with a very slow, very strange breath. I plug one of my ears to hear her say, “The basement.”

“I’m not far. I’m coming to you. Stay there.” I’m running. Sprinting. For my sister. Down the creaky wooden steps into the dank, tuna fish smelling Kappa basement.

Why she’s here is a thousand-leagues deep in my brain. I’m not diving for those answers. It does not matter right now. All that matters is that she’s safe.

As I rush into the basement, all I see are guys. Way too many fucking guys. And my sister—she’s on the plaid couch, lying on the cushions with her cheek on the armrest, and Leif is on the other end. She’s coherent. Her blue eyes just barely meet mine as I charge for the Kappa president.

“Get off the fucking couch!” I scream at him. Confusion and alarm startle him off the sofa, but I’m already yelling, “SHE’S SIXTEEN!”

“Whoa, Ben. Ben. ” He raises his hands. His eyes huge.

I am guarding the fucking couch from every single one of them. I swear, I will lay them on the fucking concrete floor if they so much as inch toward her.

“It’s not what you think?—”

“She’s the only girl down here with half the frat—don’t fucking tell me I’m overreacting.

” I come closer to Audrey and check on her with a quick glance, trying to keep an eye on the guys who easily outnumber me.

I’m six-five. I’ve never been physically weak, but if they wanted, they could restrain me and do whatever they wanted to her.

Make me watch. Nausea is scorching my throat.

I want to think better of them, but right now, I am cycling through the worst possibilities.

“Let’s just talk about this, okay?” Leif says, knowing these accusations in the frat could damage Kappa’s reputation. The whole chapter might be punished if it gets back to the dean. Not to mention, my sister is famous. There is no rug big enough to sweep this under.

I squat beside Audrey.

She’s petrified, staring in stark, wide-eyed horror at me. I don’t understand why. I can’t make sense of this. “I’m getting you out of here.” I’m about to pick her up.

“Wait.” She catches my wrist. “I’m…I’m okay?”

“Why is that a question?”

“I…” She glances around, as if reevaluating this basement, these people. “We’re at your frat, Ben. These are your friends.”

Is that why she’s here? To befriend my friends?

I smear a hand over my mouth. Don’t puke.

“Just…can we talk first?” Audrey asks, not wanting to make a scene in front of these older guys, probably.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Leif says stiffly, trying not to be hostile. I shoot him a glare.

I am confused beyond belief, but I know one thing. I need my brothers. With my phone concealed at my side, I send a group text with one hand.

Ben Cobalt

Need you. Audrey is here. Basement.

Then I turn back to her. “Audrey?”

“She came down here herself,” Leif says civilly, trying to dig himself out of this ten-foot ditch. Several frat brothers corroborate while munching on football-shaped, perfectly iced cookies from a Tiffany Blue tin.

“Did you?” I ask Audrey.

“I did.” She struggles to sit up and just abandons the effort. My ears are ringing with adrenaline. I am a malfunctioning, broken computer. My system is completely crashing. I normally can read body language like I’m AI, but my intelligence has spun back to the Jurassic period.

“I was looking for you,” she explains with panicky eyes.

“You found me,” I say, not sure how to calm her because I am going out of my mind.

“You…you mentioned you’d be at the party, remember?”

“Yeah.” Yeah. I told her about the football party. I said I’d be stopping by the Kappa house tonight. Did not tell her I was dropping out. Did not tell her when I’d be here. When she asked for further information, I just said, probably late, around midnight.

It’s around midnight.

“I wanted to surprise you…I took a rideshare.” A fucking rideshare?

“I just thought I could…make friends with your friends. And you’d invite me over more.

” Her eyes glass, her nose flaring with emotion, and she leans closer to whisper, “They are your friends? Aren’t they? ” Her terror is terrifying me.

She trusted them because of me—because she believes I trust my friends.

The urge to vomit is surging rapidly. I feel violently ill.

Do not puke.

“Ben?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I nod, unable to tell her the truth. That, no, I wouldn’t even trust Dalton Academy’s hockey team alone with her—and I knew them for fucking years. I just met half these guys in this basement eight weeks ago.

She tries to relax. “Okay, so…we’re okay.”

We are not okay.

I am not okay.

I look her over frantically. Trying to reboot myself.

Her frilly burgundy dress has a high neckline, long-sleeves.

A gold locket lies against her heart. Burgundy.

Gold. MVU’s colors. Her clothes aren’t torn.

Blood drains out of my face when I see her bare feet and the lacy white stockings on the floor.

“Where are your shoes?” I sling my death-decaying glare at Leif.

“Who the fuck took off her socks and shoes?”

“She twisted her ankle coming down the stairs.” Leif rakes a nervous hand through his brown hair. “Believe me, we were just trying to help her, man.”

“It’s true, I tripped.” Audrey intakes a weird, slow breath. She reaches for her foot but doesn’t wince.

“We were icing it for her,” Leif adds, pointing to the Miller can that fell off the cushion. They were icing her foot with cold beer. Her right ankle is a hundred percent swollen and puffy.

Audrey has this questioning, anxious look in her eye.

“Did they do anything?” I whisper under my breath to her, still in a squat beside the couch. “Audrey, you can tell me.” I’m just barely hanging on right now. It feels like a monster is trying to rip out of my ribcage.

She attempts to shake her head, but it’s weaker. Her cheek lies back on the armrest. “They’ve helped…I think.”

“You think?” My brain pounds. “Did you drink a beer, vodka, anything?” Did they roofie her? I start thinking about Winona, and I want to collapse to my knees and scream.

“No, I didn’t.” She didn’t drink anything.

“She couldn’t put weight on her foot,” Leif explains. “She was in a lot of pain. So I told her to take a seat on the couch and wait for you.”

I see blood-red. Fury incinerates me . “Where’s the text telling me my sister showed up?! Where’s the text telling me she got hurt coming down the stairs?!”

“Yeah, you’re right, I should’ve texted.” Leif shifts his weight uneasily, his hands threaded behind his neck. “Ben. Look, we’re all brothers here.”