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)
My cheeks flush with heat when I stare right into the eyes of all the other people still partying up ahead in the hallway.
“You couldn’t fucking stay away, could you?” Felix growls at me. “Fuck, you’re just like your sister. This is on you.”
Just like my sister?
Why the fuck would he bring her into this?
“Hey, I didn’t ask you to fucking carry me out of the house like this!” I say, incensed he’d even go as far as to accuse me.
“If you don’t move, I’ll make you,” he retorts. “Simple. Effective.”
“Embarrassing,” I add as everyone who stays behind in the house to party practically laughs at us from the porch.
“Lesson five, Penelope … Actions have consequences. And I will be the one to fucking punish you for misbehaving.”
SLAP!
I yelp as his flat hand lands on my ass.
“Wow! And in front of all of these people too!”
“I told you, I don’t care who sees,” he replies. “And I don’t fucking care how loud you scream. You’re coming with me now.”
“I can walk,” I growl back.
He snorts. “I’m sure you can. You’ve been walking in my way for days.”
I roll my eyes as he carries me across the street and all the way back to the Skull & Serpent Society. I don’t know why or what’s the point, but maybe he decided to meet up with whoever he called.
The door’s already open, and Dylan waits for him. “Sweet. You brought along a snack.”
A snack? Me?
He licks his lips.
“Zip it,” Felix snarls back. “She wants to fucking watch.”
Dylan’s eyes widen. “What? You’re joking, right? You know what happened when Eve—”
Felix grabs his face by the cheeks. “Quiet.”
“Eve what?” I snap, and I fight my way out of Felix’s grip when he’s distracted.
I only make it down by falling to the floor on my hips, and it hurts like hell on this hardwood flooring. But good God, am I glad he’s no longer carrying me like some kind of caveman.
“What did my sister do?” I ask.
“Doesn’t matter. Come.” Felix grabs my wrist and drags me through the hallways.
He throws open a door underneath the staircase that leads into the basement.
And it’s so dark down there I’m starting to worry this is just his way to get rid of me.
I gulp. “Where are we going?”
“You made yourself part of my business. Now you’ll get to see it firsthand,” he replies.
He tries to push me downstairs first, but when I take my first step, I freeze.
I smell something … a kind of metallic burn that I can only describe as …
Blood.
Adrenaline courses through my veins as I go down slowly, with Felix following suit.
Down there, between all the stacked-up boxes and underneath a grimy light, is a guy seated on a chair.
Nathan.
His hands are chained to the armrests, his legs to the feet of the chair, both with thick metal rods that got ripped off the ceiling. Black tape covers his mouth. Water droplets slowly fall onto his head from the ceiling below, while blood drips down his chin, his face covered in bruises.
Oh God.
My hand immediately flies to my mouth to stop the squeal from leaving my body.
They tortured him.
I knew these boys were sick, but I never realized how deep it went.
How far they could go.
And now I’m not even sure this is the worst they could do.
Felix grabs my shoulders from behind. “You wanted to know who I was talking to. Now you know.”
Nathan?
They did all this in a matter of minutes?
Alistair jumps off one of the crates in the back, making me jolt up and down from the scare. “That’s why we hung those posters with that number.”
“A prepaid phone,” Dylan adds.
“It’s also why we needed to hang up yours and your sister’s pictures around the university as well.”
“So no one would think you were only aiming for him,” I mutter in disbelief.
“Exactly. Don’t want the rest of the school to get suspicious,” Alistair replies with his hands in his pockets.
“Little Nathan here was missing in action for quite some time,” Dylan muses. “Turns out he was hiding out at that Phantom frat house he apparently belongs to.”
“Where we were? That party?” Pen asks, her eyes widening as she gazes at Felix.
“I was searching for him there,” Felix says. “Until you came along and tried to interfere.”
With a smug smile on his face, Dylan says, “Doesn’t matter. He saw the posters when he went out, and he took the bait like easy prey, so I dragged him back here.”
Felix pulls aside my hair to whisper into my ear, “And now you have what you wanted.” His teeth grind near my ear. “Revenge.”
I suck in a breath, unable to let it go.
Alistair walks out from the darkness beyond the crates, his body and face and neat white shirt covered in blood. He drops the hammer near Nathan’s feet, who begins to whimper.