Page 22 of Sour Lollipops and Sweet Nightmares (The Society #1)

Georgia

E veryone has moments in their life when forced to do something they don’t want to. Most of those moments for me came from my mother’s attempt to make me more social. None of which had the desired result.

The eighth-grade dance she dressed me up for was a complete disaster.

I spent the entire night hiding in the bathroom from anyone who might try to talk to me.

Including Karl, the neighbor’s son, whom Mom paid to take me.

He, however, got to second base with one of my classmates, so at least Karl had a good time.

And he made fifty dollars while doing so.

That summer was when I attended my first sporting event. Mom’s second husband was a big baseball fan, and she thought it would be a great family outing. It was not. Baseball had to be one of the most boring sports ever invented.

There were other events. Homecoming, dinners, unwanted sleepovers, and the school fair. Thankfully, I managed to escape the nightmare that was senior prom. Dress shopping alone would’ve made me consider jumping into traffic.

The ironic part was that Mom made me do these things because she thought they would make me happy. I only did them to make her happy.

While I wasn’t currently standing outside a frat house because she talked me into it, I couldn’t help but think of how she would smile at this turn of events. It wouldn’t matter to her that I was only here to retrieve my bag—no one turned it in.

Meaning my only other option was Issac or one of his friends, all of whom were part of the same frat. Mom would see this as an opportunity for me to make friends. God forbid I be happy with a solitary life.

My eyes trickled over the black title on the roof, as I whispered, “This is a bad idea.”

The building didn’t appear ominous at all. It was oddly normal—a big white house with black shutters, reminiscent of what one might find in a gated community. But there was something about it that sent a shiver up my spine. Maybe it was the mundaneness of the building that I didn’t like.

Dangerous things tended to blend in. There was a reason why, when the authorities caught serial killers, none of the neighbors ever said, ‘I knew that guy was carving people up in his basement.’

Humanity in general feared the abnormal.

In my opinion, it should be the things that seem too normal that we should be leery of.

And this place, with its neatly mowed lawn and clean deck, looked plucked right out of Pleasantville.

It was too welcoming. Even the air was sweet and crisp with the scent of fresh-cut grass.

Underneath all of that were hints of the rotten core.

Faded handprints on one of the windows on the second floor, a high heel shoe forgotten in the garden on the left, what looked like scratches in the paint on the deck railing, and three small spots of dried blood on the walkway, only inches from the toe of my left shoe.

Any one of these things was odd, but when they were all put together, it painted a nefarious picture. Mind you, Mom watched a lot of Law and Order , so my opinion may have been biased.

“It’s fine,” I told myself. “It’s just a house.”

There was nothing suspicious about it. The door wasn’t going to grow teeth and bite me when I knocked.

The people on the inside were what I was worried about, and I didn’t mean just Issac and his friends.

I was standing in front of a house full of boys.

My overall opinion of the male students on campus was not favorable.

In the short time I’d been here, I had interactions with exactly five guys. One made sex appointments, and another one violated me in the cafeteria while the other three watched.

And now I was staring at a house where four out of those five lived. What would the other dozen or so guys be like? I didn’t like crowds of any kind, but going into this place felt about as safe as walking into a bear’s cave.

With a tight breath, I eyed the three steps leading to the dark blue door I wasn’t sure I wanted to knock on.

Was a bag really worth it? I could get another one. Maybe not exactly like it, seeing as Grandma wasn’t around to remake it, but there were a lot of bags out there. None of those were graduation presents, however. And I’d have to give up the tiger’s eyes necklace Mom made for me.

The bag meant something to me, but not as much as the necklace. I gave Mom the tiger’s eye when I was eight. She surprised me with a necklace before I left for Renfrew.

When she fastened it around my neck the night before, she said, “Whenever you feel out of place, I want you to look at this necklace and remember that passion comes in all forms, Georgia. You aren’t weird, you are brave enough to follow your passion.”

My mother—the former beauty queen—not only held on to a rock I gave her as a kid, but she was proud of my accomplishments that had nothing to do with my looks. I honestly never thought that day would come. That was what that piece of jewelry represented.

My mother’s acceptance. How could I let that go?

The short answer was, I couldn’t.

“Damnit,” I grumbled as a guy in a varsity coat strutted up the walk.

“Don’t be upset,” he gave me a sly grin, which wasn’t at all sly. “Jimmy is here.”

Who was Jimmy? Should I know this?

The way his gaze swept down my side made me want to take a step back.

“You’re cute, in a frumpy way.”

My brows knit as he nodded in some kind of weird approval I didn’t ask for or want.

“Jimmy likes it.”

Wait, was he Jimmy? Was he talking about himself in the third person? Did people do that?

“What do you say we take this conversation upstairs to Jimmy’s room?”

Now I was totally confused. Was he Jimmy, or was he talking about someone else named Jimmy, whose room he for some reason wanted me to go up to? Who was Jimmy? A question I was about to ask him, when he reached out and tried to put his arm around me.

As I twisted away from his arm, panic took over my mind, scrambling the words coming out of my mouth into a loudly squawked, “jurkflbabug.”

Jimmy—or not Jimmy—pulled back with a lifted brow, as if I was the problem here. “You okay?”

No, I was not okay. Who the hell was Jimmy? Not that I said that to him. I didn’t say anything. I just stood there blinking back at him.

After a few minutes of very awkward silence, he threw his thumb over his shoulder, “Jimmy’s gonna head in.”

After which, he slowly backed away. I’d obviously scared him, which did make me feel better about going in that house.

“Don’t worry,” I waved at him. “Georgia’s not a serial killer.”

Great, now I was talking in the third person. Why did I even say anything? Now Jimmy—or not Jimmy—was going to come back and talk to me some more.

Thankfully, that wasn’t what happened. I’d creeped him out enough that he wanted nothing to do with me. The only response I got was a skeptical side eye as he tiptoed into the house and closed the door. Quiet and slow, like one would do in a horror movie.

Well, this is off to a fantastic start.

I wondered if the other members of Alpha Lambda Theta would be so easily detoured.

The frat name made me shake my head. The acronym was ALT, which denoted a version of something intended as a challenge to the traditional version.

That was oddly fitting considering who lived here.

Fraternities were supposed to be a brotherhood, and Issac and his friends presented a twisted version of that.

Although I would argue that their motto should be “Only true friends' assault together,” instead of “Through brotherhood we reign,” but that could work too.

If anything, I could look at the motto as a good sign. Maybe the other guys were decent and wouldn’t let Issac hurt me. It was possible. After all, one couldn’t reign if they were in jail.

Provided the police would listen to me, that was. They didn’t exactly take me seriously about Issac, so the chances of them listening to me about someone else were pretty slim. Especially, if said person was in the same frat as Issac.

Not every guy in that house could be evil, right? And at least one of them was afraid of me, so there was that. I could totally do this.

Filled with new confidence, I walked up to the door, and instantly wanted to run away.

“No,” I shook my head. “I will not give in to fear.”

I was going to knock on this door and get my stuff back. That bag and everything in it were mine. Issac had no right to take it.

Lifting my hand, I prepared to knock, then stopped.

Did I knock, or did I walk in? What was the proper decorum here? With dorms, one walked in. But they were set up like apartments with a lobby area. This wasn’t a dorm. It was a house, complete with a front door and a brass lion head knocker. If it had a knocker, then I should probably knock.

All I managed to do was graze my fingers over the knocker’s handle before dropping my hand.

What was I doing? Even if Issac did have my bag, how was I going to get it back from him? I seriously doubted he would simply hand it over. I needed a plan. Or a backup. I shouldn’t have left Rachel behind.

That was no easy task, by the way. She insisted on walking me to every one of my classes. I didn’t ask or want her to, but when one would end, I’d step outside and there she would be. It was incredibly annoying.

The last thing I needed was her yipping in my ear about how evil Issac was while I tried to convince myself to confront him.

So, when we got to my last class, I told her I had to stay late.

We were due to meet outside the lab in an hour.

At least she would know something happened to me if I didn’t show up.

Wait… Did Rachel make me feel safe? When did that happen?

Whatever. I didn’t need Rachel. I could do this all by myself. I was an adult, sort of. I was not going to let some asshole rob me of my belongings, regardless of what he’d done.