“Tomorrow.”
“Oh, wow. Did they tell you what’s happening in the initiationyet?”
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “I just have to wait andsee.”
She stood up and gave me a hug. “Well, good luck with it! Hope it’s fun,” she said. “And I hope you don’t get any more weird vibes fromthem.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, hugging herback.
After she was gone, I took a quick shower, put on my pajamas and climbed into bed. I was so tired that my eyes were already shut before my head hit thepillow.
Despite my exhaustion, something jolted me awake a while later. With bleary eyes, I looked at the clock on my nightstand to see that it was just before midnight. I yawned and stretched my limbs, wondering what shook me out of my heavyslumber.
Then I heard it again. A thud. The noise sent me bolting upright as my heart leapt into mymouth.
My eyes quickly adjusted to the dark, and I whipped my head around, searching every inch of my room for the source of thesound.
There was nothing there. Noone.
For a moment, I thought I might’ve imagined the thudding sound, but then I heard a cough from mybathroom.
“For fuck’s sake, keep it down,” someone whispered. It was a distinctly masculine voice. “You’ll wake her up before we even get inthere.”
My scrambled brain begged my legs to move, but I was paralyzed withfear.
No, no,no…
It was happening all over again. Hunter and his cronies had broken in to terrorize me. They’d probably put a ladder against the wall outside, pried my bathroom window open and climbed inside one byone.
I heard slow footsteps now, getting closer and closer to the bathroom door. My vision blurred and my chest tightened, sucking the air out of my lungs, and my mind was overwhelmed with a sense of impending doom. I recognized the feeling instantly. I was having a panicattack.
I forced myself to inhale and exhale deeply through my nose. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I struggled to control my breathing, and when the attack passed, I slipped out from under my sheets and quietly padded toward the main door, hoping I could sneak out of the dorm before Hunter and his friends left mybathroom.
No suchluck.
The bathroom door creaked open, and three masked figures emerged. “Shit! She fucking heard us,” one of them muttered. “Get her.Quick!”
I let out a piercing scream and dashed toward the door. Before I reached it, two of the black-clad figures grabbed me, one by the arms and one by the legs. They carried me over to my bed and put me down, tightening their grip on me as I struggled and thrashed. “Help!” I shrieked, hoping someone else in Blair Hall would hear my pleas. “Help me!Please!”
My assailants put something in my mouth and tied it in place, silencing my screams. All I could do was moan plaintively through my nose. I kept struggling, trying my best to break free and kick out at the guy pinning my feet to thebed.
The blood in my veins turned to icy sludge as the tallest one came at me with a large dark sack. Hunter,presumably.
He slid the sack over my head, and everything wentblack.
5
Laney
My captors carriedme for what felt like fifteen minutes, though it could’ve been more or less. It was hard to measure time accurately when I had a black sack over my head, a gag in my mouth, and a heart racing so fast that it threatened to explode right out of myribcage.
After a while, I heard a door open, along with a few low mutters. Then someone dumped me into a chair and forced me to situpright.
The sack came off my head, and my eyes almost popped right out of their sockets as I took in my surroundings. I was in the Medusa Society clubroom inside RoyalHall.
“Surprise!” the girlsscreeched.
Camila took the gag out of my mouth. There was a gleeful gleam in her eyes. “You should’ve seen your face when we grabbed you!” she said, giggling like amaniac.