A standoff ensues. It lasts mere seconds, but it’s enough time for Felix to push the knife so deep into his tattooed skin that blood rolls down. “Unless you want me to carve you up.”
Fuck. That was hot, even when it shouldn’t be.
My heart pounces in my throat as the guy’s hand suddenly comes off my wrist with ease.
He just stands there, blinking rapidly at both the knife and Felix himself.
And the guy runs off within a split second, disappearing through the crowd to get away as fast as possible.
Away from the one person I’ve been trying to find.
Felix focuses his gaze on me, but doesn’t release me from his grip. Instead, he pulls me close to him and shoves the knife underneath my chin. “You’ve got guts showing up here.”
But I don’t frighten that easily. “You think a little intimidation will scare me?”
His top lip quirks up but only briefly. Then he tucks the knife into his pocket. “Do you even know where you are?”
I shake my head. “I don’t care.”
“You should. You’re standing on Phantom territory.”
“Phantom?” I frown.
He leans in again and whispers, “They don’t like the Skull & Serpent Society.”
“Then why are you even here?” I rebuke.
“I was trying to find someone … until I saw that asshole touching you.”
I try to push him away, but he won’t let me go. “Like I give a fuck who these frat houses belong to. I’m not part of your little frat business, so leave me out of it.”
“You became part of it the moment you made a deal with me,” he says, his voice darkening as he grips my chin and forces me to look at him. “And they would probably kill to have a slice of you.”
Grinding my teeth, I reply. “So what? It’s not like you give a shit.”
He tilts his head to whisper into my ear again, the scent of his cologne penetrating my nostrils as harshly as his fingers did when he and his buddies used me in the forest. “Fourth lesson … no one touches what’s mine.”
Wow. I didn’t know he was this possessive over me.
I gulp and swallow back my pride as my pussy throbs, and I push my legs together.
“I’m not your—”
He squeezes my throat until I can’t speak. “Toy? You are mine in every sense of the word.”
His tongue dips out and drags a line all the way up from my neck to my ear.
I try to squeak, but no sound comes out.
“And if you try to deny it, things will only get harder for you …”
He presses up against my white pants with his bulge, and I can feel his hard-on growing against me. “You should be grateful I’m even allowing Dylan and Ali to touch you. Now tell me why you came here.”
Grateful? Like it’s some kind of privilege to be fucked by all three of them?
Fuck.
When his fingers loosen up a bit, I suck in a much-needed breath. “You know damn well why I came looking for you. How fucking dare you put my sister’s diary all over the school for everyone to see?”
“I’m surprised you saw the posters so quickly,” he says.
I raise a fist, but he catches my hand just in time and keeps it in the air.
“Pretend we’re dancing.”
“Why should—”
He pulls me up to his chest and twirls me around, showing me off to people who were looking at us. And after another twist, they look away like nothing’s going on.
“They’re not staring at us anymore,” he says. “Good girl.”
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t scream at the top of my lungs right now,” I growl.
He leans forward to whisper into my ear, “Then you’ll never find who chased your sister to her death.”
My breath falters.
He bends me so far I can barely stay standing, if it wasn’t for his hand firmly pressed into the small of my back. “Those posters are there for a reason. I don’t need to tell you why. You just need to accept that we’re using them for a purpose.”
“Fuck that, you’ll have to give me something better,” I quip. “Why did you print out her face and slap on that horrible quote? Why is Nathan there and a bunch of other people from her diary? And why is my face on there too along with a fucked-up line about me not being innocent?”
He lifts me again and pulls me so close that all the air is knocked from my lungs. “Hate me all you want, it won’t change anything.”
“Tell me why,” I growl. “At least give me my dignity.”
He snorts and shoves me up against a wall. “You already lost your dignity the moment you came to me and begged.” He tugs at my hair until my face turns upward, and he leans in to press an actual fucking kiss onto my skin. “And I would hang those posters a thousand times over if it means I could hear you say those words again. So beg.”
I’m so fucking angry I could scream, but if I did, everyone would look and kick us out. And Felix said he was here for a purpose. What if it’s tied to those posters? Even though it’s beyond fucked up what he made Dylan and Alistair do, there must be a reason. I have to believe it, or else all my pain will have been for nothing.
My fingers push against his chest, but he grabs my hands and pins them above my head to the wall. Then he plants another deep, sultry kiss onto my skin, turning up the heat, and I can’t stop the moan from spilling from my mouth when he grinds up against me.
“Please …”
“Go on,” he murmurs.
“Stop.”
He pulls away, his eyes narrowing. “You trying to back out of our agreement, Pen?” He makes a tsk sound. “I expected more from you. You know I won’t allow it.”
“No,” I say. “I just need you to stop trying to hurt me.”
He tilts his head, and a deadly smirk slowly forms on his face. “I’m not going to stop until I have what I came here for. And what I need is for you to suffer in silence while I do what I do best.”
“And what’s that?” I ask. “Bully girls?”
“Destroy people.”
He says it with such a stone-cold look that I feel the chill in my bones.
“And that includes me,” I say under my breath.
“If it gets me what I want,” he replies.
“What the fuck do you even want, Felix?”
He stares me down like only a cold-hearted killer could. “Revenge.”
The air is thick with electricity, and all I can think about is how much I want to steal his knife and ram it straight into his heart … and then let him rail me up against this wall.
Fuck. I hate how confused he makes me.
“You wanted my help? You got it,” he growls. “Then take it like a good girl.” He narrows his eyes and leans in. “And get out of my way before I finger fuck you in front of this entire crowd.”
I swallow. Hard.
Suddenly, his phone rings, and it distracts us both.
He pulls away from me and answers, “What do you want?”
“He dialed the fucking phone.” I can hear Dylan’s voice blasting through the speakers.
“Put the burner phone against your phone. I wanna have a word.”
“Who?” I ask.
He shoves me aside and walks off through the crowd, leaving me breathless and infuriated at the same time. A toxic combination.
But I’m not going to let him get away that easily.
When I spot him going up the stairs, still clutching that phone to his ear, I run through the crowd as fast as I can, chasing after him. I catch up halfway toward the building’s exit. He just put down his phone, so the conversation is finished, but I missed half of it.
Shit.
Right before he reaches the door, I sneak sideways past him and block the exit.
His nostrils flare. “Move.”
“No. If this has something to do with those posters, I want to know what this guy wants and why you would do such fucked-up shit.”
He gets up in my face, planting a fist against the wall to my left. “You can’t handle it, little girl.”
“Do I look like a little girl to you?”
He towers over me. “Yeah. You shove your nose into business it doesn’t belong.”
“You made it my business the second you used her stuff and my photo.” I fold my arms and plant my feet firmly against the sides of the wall. “Now I’m coming with, or we’re both going to be stuck here together.”
He grumbles out loud, borderline raging in front of everyone. “You wanna see? Fine, I’ll fucking show you.” Then suddenly, he puts his hands on my waist and lifts me. I squeal as he throws me over his shoulder.
“Put me down!” I yell as he marches out the door. “I can fucking walk.”
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.
Seems like they already gave him a beating.
“Well, hi there, little slut,” Alistair says. “Nice of you to join us. Your idea?” He looks over at Felix.
“She wouldn’t stop,” Felix replies.
“Since when do you cave?”
“Since she needs a lesson,” he spits back. “Prep him.”
Alistair grabs Nathan’s face and rips the tape off so harshly it makes his skin break out in blood.
“Fuck! That hurts!” Nathan yelps.
“It’ll hurt even more if you don’t do what we say,” Alistair says. “Now are you going to answer all our questions? Or do you want us to rough you up some more?”
“My face is fucking botched up!” he growls. “You’re not gonna get away with this!”
Alistair grips his face so tightly his lips get squashed together. “Better hope you give the answers we’re looking for, or Felix will have his way with you.”
The fear is locked into Nathan’s eyes as Alistair steps away.
Felix steps forward and grabs the hammer, then glances at me over his shoulder. “Well, Pen? How far do you want me to go?”
All of their eyes are on me, and it almost feels like this is all a test.
A test to see how far I’m willing to go to get justice for my sister.
If I’ll say something or let him rip into Nathan.
But they don’t know I already promised myself I would go to hell for her.
And it’s Felix’s dark, heavy voice that reminds me there’s no going back.
“Go on then,” I say. “Make him speak.”
