Page 17 of Massacre Monday

“No. I didn’t ask you to come over. Leave your key by the door when you go.” Didn’t know she still had one.

With a huff, she abruptly stands, rushes to the closet, throws on a trench coat, and dramatically drops her key while maintaining pathetic eye contact. Like I’ll miss her or something.

The door slam rattles everything on the wall, but somehow, it settles my nerves.

As soon as she’s gone, I do what I’ve been longing to do…

Find my partner-in-crime.

The urge to dodge my prescribed life overwhelms me. It’s not so much runningawayfrom the assignments that the unseen forces have doled out for me. No. I’m being pulledtowardthe girl from the forest.

Out my floor-to-ceiling windows, I affix my eyes on the yellow glow of Northview’s cityscape and let the remembrance of her sink in. A hint of her vanilla scent. The way her dark locks flowed in the breeze. Passion filling her eyes as she told me life would get better.

She’s out there somewhere, alive and free, and I want that for myself.

I wantherfor myself.

In two steps, I snag a stool at my dining bar table and lift the lid to my laptop. First, I take a screenshot on my phone of her pretty face kneeling before me, then I run it through a reverse image search on my computer. This leads to some douchebag’s profile on Pixtagram with the usernamenicoinque.

He’s got his tattooed arm tossed over her shoulders possessively, pulling her in for the picture. In the caption, he refers to her as “Pip-Squeak,” which makes me cringe. My jaw tightens at the way she’s looking at him with something like reverence.

My blood stills in my arteries, and I stretch the tension out of my neck. His name...NicoGriffin. Like Apollo Griffin? TheDeltapresident?

Who is this woman?

The stool sways when I stand, grab two more beers and leftover chicken from the fridge, crack my knuckles, then buckle down to work. Every photo of her stabs my guts with a pang of odd jealousy that I haven’t been there with her throughout her life already.

She’s tagged in his pictures, and giddiness overtakes me when I follow them to her personal account. A flood of information makes me shift in my seat as I learn each new fact about her.

Northview University sophomore in Criminal Justice. Ballroom dancer with someBetabitch partner named Mitch. Short videos surface of her hips swaying seductively in a samba, sharpened turns in the tango, and smooth slides in the waltz. The movements cause a thickening situation in my jeans. I add the clips to my bookmarks to study later.

Nico shows up randomly in her shots when she’s looking fine as hell. At a party, the Maned Marauders hangout, and summer vacations. Doesn’t look like they’re together, though. His feed is filled with random women covered in ink and piercings, but no one I recognize from society.

It seems she’s close with her family and from the city of Gnarled Pine Hollow, about an hour from here. Used to be a dystopian shithole, but things changed there about twenty years ago, I was told.

Penelope LynnFreidenberg. That sounds familiar.

She’s a twin and also has an older brother…and a father who was an MMA fighter under the name ofMillionwith bear tattoos inked on his neck. Maximillian Freidenberg of The Freidenberg Foundation, one of the trustees on the Board of NU.

I think I just found my in…

six

My nerves are frayed,and not just from my first week of sleeping in the house. It’s always difficult to change beds, but Gwen also snores, and my noise machine decided to break.

Valencia, my unfiltered cousin, tosses her long, auburn hair over her shoulder and scans my black running shoes in the corner with judgmental eyes. She sits next to me like she’s about to engage in an intervention. “Listen, Pippi. It’s the start of Rush WeekandMassacre Monday is tomorrow. Weneedyou to score big.”

“I don’t think I’ll win anything,” Amelia Joseph says, swiveling in my desk chair, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her.

Gwen cleans my mess like a true friend by shoving the piles of dirty clothing toward my half of the room with a mocked and pointed glare. “Me, neither. I’ll be right there with you, Amelia.”

“Aren’t you two even going totry?” Valencia’s jaw drops, outraged that anyone would dare break a rule.

Gwen shakes her head adamantly. “Nope. Not going to bother.”

At the same time, Amelia nods enthusiastically. “Oh yeah. Of course I’ll try! I want those double points forSigma Lambda Psi!”

“Sly by your eyes!” we all yell in sync.