Page 29 of Rule the Night

“Definitely not that.” I’d had exactly three hookups — all of them from online apps, none of them lasting more than a month — since my two-year relationship with Noah Larsen in high school.

She frowned. “What then?”

I didn’t blame her for being confused. We didn’t keep secrets from each other. Or we hadn’t until I’d started hunting the man responsible for June’s murder. I’d kept a lot of secrets since then — Bailey just didn’t know it.

I drew in a breath and spilled it: the hours I’d spent stalking my target, the underground game I’d heard about from Hannah, my deep dive into the Hunt, the price I had to pay for losing.

The only thing I left out was my failed assassination attempt on the man I blamed for June’s murder, and then only because I didn’t want Bailey to be implicated as an accessory if the cops ever figured out it was me.

When I was done, Bailey just stared at me like I was a complete stranger. Which, fair.

She shook her head. “Wait… you’re saying you let these guys hunt you through tunnels and now you have to be their… their…sex slave?”

“I didn’t say sex slave.”

“What else does it mean when three guys force you to move in with them as some kind ofservant?!”

“Can you just… keep it down?”

Bailey was getting loud and the walls weren’t exactly thick between our unit and Mrs. Carr’s.

“Keep it down?” She jumped up from the couch and started pacing the room, rubbing her forehead like she had a migraine coming on, which was possible. Bailey had been getting migraines since we were fifteen. “Keep it down. You’re going to be a slave to three guys you don’t even know and you want me tokeep it down?”

Okay, now she was just sounding hysterical.

I stood. “I don’t expect you to understand, but this is just…” I took a deep breath. “This is just something I have to do. For June.”

“Chris is in prison!” Bailey practically shouted.

“And that’s where he belongs,” I said. “But he’s not the only one responsible. You know that.”

Bailey’s shoulders sagged. “You can’t go after every misogynist in the manosphere.”

“I’m not. Just one.” I started up the narrow flight of stairs to my room on the second floor.

Upstairs, I entered the bedroom that had been mine since I’d moved in with Bailey during community college and pulled my suitcase from the closet.

“You can’t do this,” Bailey said, appearing in my doorway. “This is crazy, Maeve.”

“I know it seems that way,” I said, pulling a stack of clothes from my dresser and crossing the room to put them in the suitcase.

She sat on the edge of my bed. “How else would you describe moving in with three guys you don’t know after playing a game to get them to kill for you?”

I returned to my dresser for my underwear, bras, and socks. “Okay, it’s a little crazy, but I’m doing it for June.”

“June is dead,” Bailey said.

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?” It came out harsher than I’d intended, but I didn’t need to be reminded that my sister was dead.

And right on cue, June’s voice was in my head again.

Chill, Maeve. Jesus.

Bailey’s mouth was drawn into a tight line somewhere between hurt and anger.

“I’m sorry.” I sat next to her on the bed and took her hand. “I just… I have to do this. Ihaveto, okay?”

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You do know that, don’t you?”