“What about them?” Duke asks, nodding to my companions. He’s holding a beer and swaying slightly on his feet.
“I was a member of the society before any of you,” Colt says smoothly. “Once a Swan, always a Swan.”
I get a little jolt of shivers when he says the words that the Silver Swan said to me. Silver… Like the metal plate he had put in his head after the beating. I’ve never messaged Colt onOnlyWords. I don’t even know his handle. But he could have easily gotten mine from Dixie.
“We changed that rule,” Baron says. “That’s why no one who graduated is here. Not even Royal.”
“I didn’t graduate,” Colt drawls, sounding so unconcerned you’d never know I had to talk him out of the car. He may not openly defy the Dolces like Preston, but whatever he’s done to appease them, he hasn’t lost his dignity. If I had to guess, I’d bet he worked out some deal with them, made himself… If not untouchable, at least indispensable. He’s cool under pressure and smart. He may not play the game the way Preston does, but he knows what he’s doing.
He’s a survivor, like me. Survivors do what has to be done just to keep breathing. We know that one day, we’ll get out. Then we can do more than survive.
We can live.
“What about them?” Cotton asks, eyeing me and Gloria. “They’re girls.”
“We talked about letting a girl in last year,” DeShaun says.
“I’m that girl,” I say.
“But you’re not a Swan,” Duke says.
“I’m not?” I ask, planting a hand on one hip.
“How are you a Swan?” Gideon asks.
I swallow hard. I’m going to admit some seriously personal information, say it in front of the most powerful men at this school, men whose word is gospel if they decide to share my shameful acts with the rest of the school. Not to mention my own friends will know what I did to get here. I squeeze my hands into fists, pressing my nails into my palms. Here goes fucking nothing.
Not like anyone ever thought I was virtuous to begin with.
“I fought a Swan and won,” I say, holding up my thumb. “Royal can tell you that. And if he doesn’t count, Baron surely does. I faced my fear in the tunnel under the school. The twins witnessed that one.” This time, I raise a finger, then another as I go on. “I betrayed a friend.”
Baron holds up a hand to stop me. “You have to betray a friendfora Swan. Not betray another Swan.”
I nod at Gloria. “The friend I betrayed.”
Baron narrows his eyes. “But you didn’t do itforRoyal.”
“Whether you like it or not, Preston is still a Swan,” I say. “So, it still fits.”
“There’s still the gauntlet,” Cotton says, smirking at me like he thinks it might be worth letting me in if he gets to fuck me.
Duke glances nervously at the others.
“I fucked three Swans,” I say. “Technically five, if you must know.”
“What?” Duke asks. “Who’s the fifth one?”
“Preston,” Baron grits out, his eyes intense behind his glasses. “But unfortunately, you can’t count shit that happened in the past. You have to state your intent to join and become a pledge. You have to fulfill the tasks for us, after you’ve put yourself forward as a candidate.”
He looks so smug to have found a loophole. Hell, he probably figured out why I took the key and already came up with a plan to stop me.
Too bad it’s not going to work.
“Actually, I did state my intention to join,” I say. “I asked Royal. And he gave me the first challenge—to fight him and win. Everything I did after was part of my initiation, if you want to call it that. You and Duke even gave me the second challenge because you didn’t think I’d ever complete the tasks. It’s cute that you’re going to try to stop me now that you forced me to endure the gauntlet.”
DeShaun and Cotton exchange a questioning look.
“That’s not what we were doing,” Duke says.