Heat flushed through my body. “What the fuck?” I said, jumping to my feet. I could feel a vein pulsing in my forehead. “How could you do that tome?”
“I’m sorry,” Kiri said, although her snickering suggested that she wasn’t sorry at all. “It’s part of the whole ritual. Like a hazing sort of thing. We’ve all been through itbefore!”
My heart was racing like mad and my legs were still rubbery from the earlier panic attack. I sat down, afraid I might collapse if I didn’t. “I thought you said my initiation was tomorrow,” Isaid.
Kiri glanced at her watch. “It’s five past midnight. So technically itistomorrow.”
I cut my eyes at Camila. “I heard a man’s voice in mybathroom.”
She nodded. “He’s a Network guy. He came to help us carry you,” she explained. “But he’s gonenow.”
“Right.” I sucked down a deep breath, shouldersslumping.
I couldn’t stay mad at the girls for too long. They had absolutely no way of knowing about the petrifying midnight dorm invasion I’d experienced in the past, or the abduction from a parking lot by masked men. To them, the whole kidnapping thing was just a silly hazingprank.
“I guess you got me,” I said, forcing asmile.
Kiri grinned. “You almost got us, too. If you’d actually managed to sneak out of your dorm, we would’ve had to chase you all overcampus.”
“Thank god that didn’t happen,” Camila said, rolling her eyes upward. “Anyway, Laney… are you ready for yourinitiation?”
I nodded. “I’m wide awake now, so yeah, I suppose Iam.”
My earlier exhaustion was long gone, scrubbed out by the adrenaline flooding my veins. I was alert and ready for anything they wanted to throw atme.
“Awesome!” Camila beamed. Then she turned and snapped her fingers at the other girls. “Penelope, I want you to do her makeup. Hazel, you’re good at hair, so you can do that. The rest of you, getready!”
Four of the girls disappeared behind a door that I’d never noticed before, and they emerged with a large clothing rack on wheels and several bags stuffed to the brim with makeup, shoes, and accessories. The rack was heavily laden with shimmering white Grecian-style gowns in varyinglengths.
Penelope worked at my face with multiple brushes and palettes as Hazel stood behind me with a barrel brush and blow-dryer. Twenty minutes later, one of them held up a mirror in front of me. “Ta-da!”
“Wow,” I said breathlessly. They’d transformed me into one of them. Stunning black and gold eye makeup with long curled lashes, contoured face, bright red lips, and volumized hair hanging around my shoulders in artfulwaves.
“We just need the finishing touches now,” Penelope said, reaching for another bag. She pulled out some gold roll-on glitter and a variety of tiny colorful fauxgems.
Hazel helped her stick the little gems on my collarbone and face with eyelash glue, and then they rolled the gold glitter all over the bare parts of myskin.
“Perfect,” Camila declared. “Time for your dress now. You can pick one fromthere.”
She motioned toward the rack. I picked a full-length gown at the very end with a plunging V-neck and gathered waist. Most of the other girls were wearing similar dresses by now, along with similar makeup and hairstyles, and they also had pink and white flower crowns on theirheads.
“You don’t get a crown until you’ve completed your initiation,” Kiri explained as she rummaged through a bag of gold, silver, and bronze-coloredsandals.
I nodded my understanding and accepted the first pair of sandals she selected for me. They were gold with long straps that wound around mycalves.
“I think we’re almost ready to go,” Camila said when I finished getting dressed. “Just one more thing. Paisley, can you grab thechalice?”
The other girl disappeared and returned a moment later with a golden chalice filled with redwine.
“Drink up!” Camila said, grinning atme.
I twisted my lips with apprehension. “Do I haveto?”
“It’s part of the ritual,” she explained. “The wine represents the blood of all those who try to keep us down insociety.”
“That sounds…violent.”
She let out a tinkling laugh. “Don’t worry, it’s just a metaphor. We don’t actually murder ourenemies.”