Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160041 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
“How am I supposed to visit my friends, huh?” Aspen asks.
“Why the fuck is the campus closed down?” Heath asks, putting up a smoke, but Silas rips it from his fingers and chucks it in the bin.
“Not inside.”
Normally, Silas wouldn’t care, but his dad is watching now, and he seems pissed the fuck off.
“Listen up, everyone,” Felix says. “I brought you all here because this is the only place we can still speak without being listened to. Detective Foley and his men have wiretapped and bugged pretty much every office in the goddamn building.”
Everyone gasps in shock.
“But why? We haven’t done anything. We’re just students,” Cecilia asks.
“Because there’s a goddamn murderer on the loose, and they’ve pinpointed their location at Spine Ridge University,” Felix growls back. “One of you”—he points—“is a fucking serial killer, and they’re endangering the rest of you.”
He grinds his teeth, visibly upset, as he paces the room, while everyone looks at him. The tension is palpable. “It has to end, now.”
“How do they know the killer is here?” Melody asks, with a sickly-sweet voice. “I haven’t seen any blood on anyone.”
“I don’t know. Foley refuses to give me any proof. Says he’s got it all. But he’s got a judge’s order, so I’m pretty sure it’s legit,” Dean Felix responds.
More gasps follow. The only quiet one is Sunny, and when his eyes settle on her, it feels like the temperature in the room suddenly drops five degrees.
“I cannot protect every single one of you if you keep having run-ins with the law.”
“Weren’t you a killer in your earlier days?” Sunny taunts. “Maybe it’s you.”
His eye begins to twitch. “Don’t test me, Sunny. Do you want me to bring in your mother?”
She shrugs. “Go ahead, I don’t care.” She jumps off the windowsill where she was sitting. “I’m bored. When are we going to do something about those damn cops, though? Can’t we just kill them and get it over with?”
“That is not an option, and you know it.”
“Maybe our dads can bust us out or something?” Levi suggests.
Apollo smashes his fist into his palm. “Or maybe we can just bust some jaws, give them a message.”
Felix rubs his forehead. “Shut up. All of you.”
He sighs out loud, audibly burdened by the responsibility of taking care of a bunch of psychos. “From now on, all of you stay on campus until I say so.”
We all collectively erupt into a protest.
“What?” Ivy gasps. “But that’s not fair. I don’t have anything to do with this.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Cecilia says.
Levi folds his arms. “Fuck that, that’s not an option.”
“But if one of us is in danger, we’re all in danger.” Max squeaks.
“Exactly,” Felix says. “And I don’t want any of you to go to jail.”
So we’re all just gonna be stuck here on campus?” Heath scoffs. “Boring.”
“How long?” Atlas asks.
“As long as needed,” Felix replies.
“Weeks? Months?” Cecilia asks, her voice fluctuating in tone from desperation.
Felix stares at Sunny. “That depends on whether the killings stop or the police catch their perp.” It’s almost as if he shoots lightning from his eyes. “And it’s totally up to you which one it's going to be. But I can tell you one thing. Your parents aren’t going to bust you out of jail. Not this time.” His hands are balled into fists.
“So where is the culprit?” Sunny asks.
The dean narrows his eyes. “Excuse me?”
“The cop that’s got this place locked down,” Orion fills in for her.
“In his newly made office directly below mine, on the second floor. Lord fucking knows what he’s planning. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have actual fucking work to do, and you’ve got your studies. So stop trying to kill each other and stop playing midnight vigilante. It’s time to get to fucking work.”
He marches off and slams the door closed behind him, and the entire Skull & Serpent Society shakes like an earthquake just happened. I swallow and stare at the rest of my extended family and all of our friends. We’re only so close because our moms and dads are friends, but I can tell from the way everyone is looking at each other that another rift is forming. Only time will tell if it’ll end up in another explosive war we’ll barely survive, or if we’re going to lose another member of our family.
Sunny is the first to walk out the door. “What are you all waiting for? These killings won’t make themselves stop,” she says, all cheerful like nothing’s going on.
But the way everyone looks at her is making my heart race. They must be one comment away from physically attacking her and pinning her down.
“No?” Sunny says with a smile. “Alright then, suit yourselves. TTYL.”
The door slams shut, leaving an air of arrogance and heat that I’m not willing to take. I jump off the table I was sitting on and walk out the door too, leaving the rest of them to fume among themselves.