Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
But I still push him away. “What if they see us?”
“Then let them.” He hovers so close I can taste his breath. “They’re not the only ones who can have you. You belong to all of us.”
As he leans in to kiss me again, my eyes land on the diary lying right next to the drawing he made of me in the cemetery. My nightmare immediately flashes through the front of my mind again, and I push past him to grab it.
“We haven’t touched it since the posters, I swear,” he says, following me.
“I just … there must be something inside that I’ve missed.”
I sift through the pages again, turning it upside down and inside out, pondering like crazy. At the end is a soft piece of ripped paper at the seam, barely noticeable. Could more than one of the pages have been ripped out?
“Where is this page?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Ali replies. “It wasn’t us.”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“Believe me,” he says, and he grabs my hand to press a kiss on top. “I would hurt anyone who’d try to harm you like that.”
I swallow. Maybe he’s right. Maybe they didn’t do it.
But no one else touched it, which means the paper was already ripped out before it got into my possession.
Could it still be in her old room?
My eyes widen.
“The fire,” I mutter.
And I immediately run off to the door, clutching the diary tight.
“Where are you going?” Ali asks, catching up with me.
My lips part but pause midway.
If I tell him the truth, he’ll stop me.
“Felix expects me back,” I lie as he grabs the door. “I was just going to go to the bathroom, that’s it.”
His eyes narrow. “You sure that’s the truth?” He leans in with a wicked smirk on his face. “Or are you just trying to run away from me?”
A blush creeps onto my cheeks because his kisses are definitely seared into my mind. But I have to stop myself from thinking about that. More important things are on my mind.
“I need to sleep,” I say. “They were very clear about that.”
He frowns and points at his own comfy-looking bed. “You can sleep here with me.”
“If Felix wakes up and finds me missing, he won’t take it well,” I point out.
Ali takes in a deep breath and sighs. “All right, if you insist.” But before I can run off, he grabs my arm and slams his lips on mine again, the kiss making my head spin. When his lips slowly unlatch, butterflies fill my body. “So you’ll remember me.”
Don’t fall.
Fuck.
No wonder my sister wrote that in her diary.
It wasn’t just some rambling … it was a warning.
And I didn’t take it to heart.
I swallow and nod at Ali, after which he releases me.
“Good night, Penelope,” he says as I make my way down the hall.
When I glimpse over my shoulder, his door closes, and I run back to Felix’s room only to sneak inside and grab my bag. Luckily, he’s still sleeping. I walk toward the nearest stack of clean clothes in his closet and steal some pants and a jacket. Then I grasp a pair of sneakers that are just the right size, so I’m fully dressed and ready to head outside.
There is only one place on my mind, and I need to be well-dressed and prepared for the worst.
I can’t wait until Felix and Dylan wake up to help me. What if they don’t want to? Besides, they might not even let me leave. And if I don’t do this now, the evidence might be gone tomorrow.
Whoever lit that fire in my sister’s room had a reason, a purpose … a target.
Me.
Which means they’re trying to fucking hide something.
And I’m going to find out what.
PENELOPE
The moon lights my path as I make my way back to the sorority, knowing full well I’m not welcome there. But I need to know why they set fire to her old room.
I shiver from the cold and quicken my pace, hoping my muscles will keep me warm enough until I get there. I yawn, still tired from the lack of sleep, but if I wait until morning, the evidence might be gone, and I can’t risk it.
When I’m finally at the building, I look up. All the lights are off, and it looks like a ghost house. Definitely no one inside. They must’ve all accepted the dean’s offer and stayed at a hotel.
Guess they won’t know I was here.
I locate the fire escape at the back of the building and jump up to grab the lowest bar. It costs all my energy to pull myself up to the second bar and latch on with my feet. But I finally manage to make it up the stairs to the second floor, where her window is.
I move along the balconies and crank open the broken-down window. The glass is already shattered with a big, gaping hole in the middle. Not something that just a fire would cause.