Page 90 of Serpentine Valentine

He pursed his lips like he wanted to say more, then hunched his shoulders, thrust his hands in his pockets, and jerked his head at the two quiet friends beside him.

“What about Beckett?” one of them had the guts to ask.

Pierce snorted. “Leave him.”

And they did, walking through the narrow space the warrior women made for them and then disappearing down the lane and around Piedmont Hall.

As soon as they were gone, the leader turned to me, and after a moment of consideration, she pulled off her mask.

Dahlia’s smile gleamed like a knife’s edge in the light.

“Hey, girl,” she said, chipper and giddy. “You sure you’re good?”

I blinked at her. “What the hell is this?”

Another woman took off her pink balaclava and grinned at me too. “We thought we could help.”

I blinked again and wondered if the seconds without oxygen had affected my reality.

Dahlia laughed lightly and moved forward to take my hand in her own. She swung it back and forth between us, like two kids on a playground. “We wanted to make a difference like the Gorgon sisters have. I mean, we know we’re not at the point where we can like find the monster in the dark as it were. But we can patrol campus. We can make girls feel safe after dark.”

Another girl moved closer, and I realized it was Rhea, all done up in black face paint. “Juno set us up with some burner phones, and we’re making new posters. If people want a chaperone home, they can text, and whoever is available can escort them.”

I wasn’t breathing right.

Pierce had done something to my throat, permanently damaging my airway because I could not get enough oxygen into my lungs.

“Lex?” Rhea asked, concern crumpling her fierce joy. “Are you okay? Should we take you to the hospital?”

I shook my head so hard it hurt, but it helped to clear some of the fog.

“Why?” I asked even though it was oversimplified.

Why hadn’t I thought of that?

Why did they decide on this plan of action?

Why were they so brave and good?

Dahlia squeezed my hand and cocked her head earnestly, like she couldn’t understand how I didn’t see it.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “We did it because of you.”

“I mean, yeah,” Rhea agreed. “If you can come back to your crime scene and protect other girls from what happened to you, so should we, right?”

This was what I had wanted without ever being able to articulate it. For all the lonely, traumatized women who bore scars to come together to heal, yes, but also to protect each other. A pack of female wolves on the prowl.

And they’d done this because they were inspired byme?

Lex Gorgon.

A nobody and then a slut, a bitch, a fucking monster.

How could someone like me have inspired such a beautiful, empowering movement?

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and for the first time in so long I couldn’t even remember the last time, they stemmed from happiness and awe.

“Thank you,” I told them as the rest of the girls crowded around me.Thank you for being better than me and doing right by us all.