Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 91(@200wpm)___ 73(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18216 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 91(@200wpm)___ 73(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
No matter. None of it matters. Not Melissa. Not the drunken fat boys whooping it up around us. Not the frightened rabbit look in little red riding hood’s eyes.
Because she just got fed to the wolves, and it’s time for us to collect.
It’s time for us to claim.
It’s Halloween. And we just found the one treat we’ve been craving.
2
Candice
The roar of the crowd in the big basement of the Sigma house is almost overwhelming. I can feel it in my bones, in my chest.
…Between my legs.
It’s almost erotic, this energy, this voracious, fierce, thunderous feeling of eyes on me—me and the other girls up for “auction” tonight. But deep down, I know this is wrong. I know I’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. But I have to think of the long term.
I have to think of the cause here.
The goal.
A sorority girl “auction” in these times seems in poor taste. Oh, and it is. But it’s also a tradition here at Anderson University. It also brings in a shitload of money.
The kids who go here? They’re rich beyond belief. Anderson, though it used to be renowned for its academics has for whatever reason turned into the party school for the sons and daughters of the top CEOs, hedge-fund managers, and tycoons in the country. Pampered, moneyed, entitled. These kids are from families that finance elections and public policy. People whose names appear on courthouses, or parks.
The kids who go here drive Range Rovers and Porsches. They buy their degrees when they basically come here to party for four straight years. To say the least, the students at Anderson have money to blow. And a “date” with a Sigma girl? Well, that fetches big bucks.
It’s supposed to be for fun. It’s just a “date,” after all. It’s not like is a brothel or something. “You don’t have to do anything,” the older sorority sisters in the house say.
But, secretly, everyone knows.
Everyone knows that the reason people keep plunking down cash every year is that these innocuous little dates just “somehow” end up being more than that. “Guaranteed ass,” I heard one particularly disgusting frat boy say. That would be Thad Handler, the president of Lambda Psi Nu Omega. That's the brother fraternity to our sorority. He’s also Melissa’s boyfriend. She’s our sorority president.
To say the least, her and Thad are a match made in hell.
Thad is a misogynistic piece of shit, and disgusting, and handsy, and assured that his daddy’s money will keep him out of all trouble, forever. And Melissa is his equal. She’s cruel, and petty, and she uses the sorority to funnel girls to Thad’s disgusting parties.
…Looking back, especially tonight in the middle of all this? Well, it’s hard to remember why I joined at all. After all, I come from nothing. And I’m no party girl. Even if I joined the biggest party sorority on campus. But then, I remember. I remember, and I steel myself, reminding myself why I’m here.
Ellen.
That’s why I’m here. That’s why I joined in the first place. Because of her, and what happened to her.
“Holy fuck!”
Laurel, another newer pledge at Sigma who’s sitting next to me in the side wings of the stage dressed in a nurse’s costume, swears as her eyes go round. She’s staring at her glowing phone, her mouth open in an “O” shape.
“What?”
She turns, blinking. “Have you seen this shit?”
My brow furrows. “No? Seen what?”
Laurel’s not all bad. Well, she’s not great, but she’s not nearly as bad as most of the girls in Sigma are to me. Especially once they all found out I don’t have a credit card with my father’s name on it. Worse when they found out I don’t have a father at all.
“This,” she whispers, turning the phone to me.
My breath catches, loudly.
“Wait, that’s real?”
She nods. “Super real.”
My eyes dart to the headline again:
Manhunt underway for two escapees from mental ward of Tucker Prison.
My heart jumps into my throat.
“Wait,” my voice catches. “This says that prison is only twenty miles from Anderson University.”
Laurel pales. “I didn’t even know there was a prison around here! And a mental wing? What the fuck?!”
I swallow, turning, my eyes scanning the roaring crowd. Up on stage, a “slutty schoolgirl” — that would be Tanya — makes a whooping sound as the gavel bangs down. Ten grand.
Jesus these kids have money to burn. Some smirking, drunk looking frat boy charges the stage, and Tanya whoops again as he scoops her up and carries her away to the “honeymoon suite.”
I roll my eyes, my insides churning.
The honeymoon suite is the name given to the room upstairs where the dates go to settle up with what they owe and then get ready to go out. Of course, a lot of the time, it's basically a make-out room, or worse, once the guys and their dates get there. It’s on the very top floor of the big old Victorian house that houses the Sigma sorority. Actually, there’s one room above it, which is Melissa’s, of course. This amazing, huge room only reached by a private staircase, with its own balcony, private bathroom, and everything.