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Fear is for the guilty. That’s what they tell us. Seventh Society instills guidelines for the betterment of all. Rules are made for everyone’s safety.

I just wish people followed them.

Then we wouldn’t have any issues like Delta Pi Alpha initiates shooting up my family’s restaurant in a turf war.

“You’re driving too fast,” I say, clutching the door handle of Hunter’s Porsche. Echoes of my heartbeats jar my insides into a tumultuous rhythm. My foot presses on the floorboard as if I could slow us down.

He scoffs. “You said to get you out of there. I’m doing that.” Then, quieter, through a gritted jaw: “Can never do anything right with you.”

The beats inside move to my guts as my throat constricts with nausea.

He’s upset and it’s best not to test him when he’s like this.

It will only start another argument. Or finish the one we had at Luminescence over his flirting with that Sigma Lambda Psi sister.

At least not bring it up while he’s operating the vehicle that could kill us both.

“I gotta stop and take care of some business.” He says it like a command—like there’s no room for disagreement.But I do anyway.

“You shouldn’t go to the warehouse again. If you get caught, not only will you be expelled, but the entirety of Beta Kappa Eta will be sanctioned?—”

“Enough, Olivia! God, your voice could make a straight man gay. I can’t take the nagging anymore tonight. You give me such a headache sometimes.”

Tears sting my eyes with his frustrated sigh that follows. He blows cold air over my body like a chilled blanket and horror rises up inside of me. Like I’m drowning in fear.

He can’t leave me. Who would I be then? Who would I get appointed to? Who would even accept me?

I cannot be alone.

It’s my fault. Despite the fact he’s breaking every Northview University law, I shouldn’t have tested him when he’s already on edge.

Turning my face away so he doesn’t see me cry, I stare out the glistening window watching the Brutalist buildings whizz by in a blur of grittiness. “Fine. Could you drop me off first?”

“No. We’re already here,” he says curtly, pulling up to a large metal structure deep in a black hole of an alley. When he throws it in park, the leather of his seat squeaks when he turns to me. “You coming or what?”

With a glance at his light eyes, I pause. Why would he even ask? I would never put myself in that position. “No.”

“Stay in the fucking car until I’m back.” He checks himself in the rearview, runs a hand through his dirty blonde waves, then pulls the keys and jumps out.

It’s dark. Quiet. My fingers shake as I dig through my beaded evening bag, pulling out my father’s knife. The one he gave me on my sixteenth birthday, inscribed:

For the daughter who wields both steel and silence: may your blade speak when your voice cannot.

I’ve never had to use it and hope I never do.

We’re in the bad part of town. The side that doesn’t appreciate university students like us.

“Richies” like us. Hunter’s Porsche sparkles in the dim light like a homing beacon, I’m sure.

Especially with his license plate—H4RTG0D—declaring to everyone he’s a Remington, destined for med school to follow his father’s footsteps.

For someone so interested in the organ, he usually lacks one.

A buzzing notification almost makes me lose control of my weapon, but I quickly snag my phone from my bag and check the text.

Ryan

Are you safe? U okay?

Olivia, shit’s going down. Text back now.

Aiden

O, where are you? Need me to send someone?

Henry

I didn’t get shot at all. I’m safe.

Ryan

I’m fucking standing right here, dumbass. I know.

Aiden

O???? Where r u????

Don’t make me bring Dad into this. You know what that will mean.

A slight chuckle escapes my lips and I relax, knowing my overprotective brothers always have my back.

Me

I’m safe with Hunter! Enjoy the party!

Even as I send it, my bottom lip finds its way under my teeth.

Am I safe with Hunter?

A scream wrenches from my throat at the sound of metal clanging against metal. It’s too close. Too… deliberate . My breathing halts in my chest. Did someone want me to hear the sound?

Whipping my head around, I expect to see a person there. Perhaps a shadow moves, but it’s almost impossible to see. Damn the rear window! It’s especially difficult to see out of when it’s covered in a sheen of rain.

My breath seeps out in tiny pants. Eyes dart through the ebony midnight. It’s moments before I can relax again. Maybe a game on my phone will distract me.

How long has he been in there? When I glance up at the rusted metal door inlaid into the side of the building, there’s no light seeping beneath it. If something happens, I could just dash inside and yell for help. I’m overreacting.

As my eyes crawl to my lap, they perceive a movement. Was that another noise?

The rearview mirror catches a darkened figure rushing through the alleyway about twenty feet behind the car. More than one? I’m not sure.

I twist around and look, but there’s no one.

I’m not waiting around to get murdered while thieves take this car to the chop shop.

With a grip on the handle of my blade and nails digging into my bag, I thrust my body from the car, ready to scream or fight.

Not that I’d know how, but I’m prepared for whatever may come.

It’s only a few feet to the warehouse door and I rush through, slamming it closed behind me to prevent whoever it was from entering.

I stuff my knife back in my bag and straighten my shoulders, teetering on a stiletto to face the eerily lit hallway. Fluorescents hum every few feet, a bowl of shadows engulfing the space between them.

Unfamiliarity settles in and I take a step into the wide space that feels too cramped for a warehouse. The cinder block walls only hold two doors half way down. Which one Hunter went into, I’m not sure.

My gait falters when one of them flings open, my pulse skyrocketing to extremes. A hand flung out to the side steadies me as my fingers dig into the concrete.

Bryce Holloway, the Beta secretary and official fix-it man for President Hunter Remington, exits a room with his phone pressed to his head.

When he sees me, his bloodshot baggy eyes light up.

A red tint to his nose lets me know he’s been partying hard despite the interruption in our festivities earlier.

Which means his jabs will make me the punching bag.

“Thick Livvy!” He pauses and speaks into his phone. “I gotta call you back. Yeah, as soon as Hunter tells me what he wants. Just hold your balls.”

Attempting to ignore him, I stroll up, ready to enter where he came from, but he steps in my way. “Where you going, girl?”

“I heard a noise and am going to see Hunter. Is he in there?”

With a sly motion, he presses his forearm on the wall above me, blocking me in. “Has the president of Omega Nu Epsilon broke bad? Come to play our game for your sisters?”

Shaking my head rapidly, I glare into his light brown eyes as they scan my breasts. Inadvertently, I slide my palms down my gold sequin dress, tugging on the bottom to lengthen it. With a sneer, I mock him. “No. ONE doesn’t need help with grades. We earn them.”

I duck under his arm as he makes some denigrating remark I ignore.

The metal door slides with a groan, opening into a cave-like space only lit by the blue lights of monitors lining a narrow wall. Wires, carts filled with computer parts, dust, cords… Everything is askew. Messy. Dusty.

Each facet on my dress sends a prism around the small room as it catches the glow of electronics. Like I’m a mirror ball in a cyberpunk crypt.

Hunter sits next to a man wearing a black hoodie, facing the displays. “Thought you were staying in the fucking car, Olivia.”

As I open my mouth, Bryce sticks his head in. “Hunter. We need you. There’s that, uh, problem , still hanging about.”

Hunter’s still, but I can sense his frustration. “Give me a fucking minute.”

Bryce shuts the door and I wander in closer to the only empty seat, a metal folding chair near a rickety shelf filled with crumbling cardboard boxes. Hunter’s eyes dart over to me like I’ve interrupted his speech, but he continues his conversation with the man sitting next to him.

“The payment was already made.”

Velvet pours from the throat of the figure covered with black clothes head to toe. His voice is smooth and practised, like he’s used to making people listen. When he turns toward me, the shadows swallow his face whole. No features. No eyes. Just darkness staring back. A mask?

“It’s not enough. Not for how much work I’m doing to ensure Beta’s grades are where you want them to be.”

“It’s the same price as last semester!”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have recruited people with room temperature IQs, then. More work, more payment. Take it or leave it.”

Hunter sits back with a huff and I know he’s raging inside. No one denies him without consequences. With a sudden shift, he stands, shoving the metal chair beneath him back. “I gotta find more cash. I’ll be right back.”

My legs twitch to follow him as he leaves, but I freeze when he pauses at the door. “Stay here, Olivia.”

I don’t like that this hacker knows my name.

But when I glance over at him, he’s focused on the computer, typing away in some code I don’t understand.

Green prompts flash as the tick of the keyboard sounds monotonously while flickers of different scenes pop up on the screens next to the one he’s working on.

When I have the thought to pull out my phone, I stop myself. He could try to hack it or something. Best to leave it in my bag. With my fingers, I comb through my long, dark hair, trying to fix the mess it became on the way over here.

The changing images on the monitor catch my eye.

First, it’s a shot of the empty street outside the warehouse with Hunter’s Porsche parked just outside.

It rotates to a park setting… The one on campus behind the cathedral.

Another view is of fraternity row. More of campus.

Admin building. Library. Sorority row. Then Omega house.

My heart skips a beat at the next image of the back of Omega house. Perhaps taken from the lake? The top right window is my room. Shifting in my seat, I swallow. It’s far enough away, it could just be monitoring our back patio, but why is this hacker watching all these places?

The next image rips the breath from my lungs. My balcony. My fucking balcony. The angle is too high for a person. Too close for a street camera. Where was this taken from?

My limbs tighten, fingers twitch to grab my bag, my knife…something. But I freeze as the screen flickers.

Another image. This one closer.

Yet another. The lamp next to my bed glows behind the curtains.

If I was standing there right now, could he see me?

Every hair on my body stands erect. A chill stiffens the air.

My eyes dance with worry and I think about running to Hunter for help, but before I can move, the figure stops his fingers from dancing across the keys.

Silence stretches the atmosphere into a strand of atoms. My ears buzz at the lack of sound. Heart beats thud against my rib cage.

The hooded man turns to me and speaks behind his mask. “You’re beautiful when you sleep. I can’t wait to see you when you’re awake.”

Terror overtakes me. Stabbing me in the gut with horror. What does he mean?

Before I can run away, Hunter and Bryce burst into the room arguing about something, breaking the force of electricity between me and the hacker.

Hunter stands behind the hacker as if he’s going to intimidate the scariest man in the room. “I’ll pay you next week. You know I’m good for it, Vanq.”

Bryce dances from foot to foot and brushes the end of his nose with the back of his hand. “We just got a new shipment in and will be selling that off?—”

Without looking at the two of them, Vanq cuts in. “I’ve already done the work so payment is due now. If it’s not already wired to me, then that’s a complication I don’t think you want.”

For once, Hunter is speechless. The nervousness in his eyes makes my stomach drop. How can we get out of this?

“Fuck!” Vanq’s outburst startles me. One of his monitors flickers to black and he stands abruptly, the scrape of his chair against the concrete like a wailing cry breaking the stiff air. After inspecting the back of it, he swears again under his breath.

“Anyone have a knife? I need to tweak this wire,” he says with an outstretched gloved palm.

Bryce sniffs. Hunter lifts his finger and points at me with his voice barely above a whisper. “She does.”

“No, I?—”

I feel the hacker’s stare behind his mask as he turns his hand out toward me, fingers beckoning to hand over my knife. It’s more dangerous to be disobedient. That’s what they tell us.

Heaving a sigh, I dig in my bag and lay my father’s gift in his glove. I feel naked. Exposed and alone. The cold steel is the only thing left between me and the chaos unfolding in front of me.

Hunter shoves his hands on his hips in a vain attempt to assert control. “Vanq. Come on, you know Beta and, hell, my father are good for any payment. We’re at your service whenever. Midterms were hard on us and Terror Tuesday is next week and?—”

“There.” Vanq ignores him and straightens his posture, my knife now a dangerous prop in his hand. Facing my boyfriend, he tilts his head slightly to address him. “Your character was built on farces and excuses. Ask me what I want instead.”

Hunter’s mouth closes. The bravado fades from his face, replaced by something darker. He glances back at Bryce, who shrugs.

“What do you want?” Hunter asks, his voice tight.

Vanq wafts my knife through the air like a showman. “Entertain me.”

When Hunter’s face flushes red with fury, he crosses his arms in defense. “Look, I don’t speak your language. What are you asking for?”

The room holds its breath as Vanq turns toward me, then Hunter, then Bryce. In my half squat to a stand, I pause as my dress rides up my thighs until I feel defenseless in a way I never have before.

With a tilt of his head, the hacker responds, “I want your boy to make me a movie.”

Hunter swallows, then tension in his throat thick. “What kind of movie?”

The hooded man flicks the knife at me like a homing beacon and says, “The kind where she’s on her knees, sucking you off.”

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