Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Guess who’s the queens’ escort for the night? Be mad @nikolai_sokolov.
My eyes blur with all the similar images. The normal, hyper, absolutely mesmerizing documentation of his life.
Oh, he’s good.
He’s so good at blending in that even I am starting to wonder if it’s all real.
I go back up to the last picture he posted about five hours ago of the five neon purge masks.
Night of mischief.
I scroll up and I freeze as the profile refreshes. During my snooping, he posted another picture.
It’s black and white, showing his middle and ring finger inside a mouth.
My mouth.
This is the picture he took earlier when I was underneath him as he told me I can hide from the whole world but not him.
Nothing is visible aside from my neck and my lips, but I know it’s me.
Damn him.
God damn him.
My fingers shake as I scroll to the caption.
Caught a little rabbit tonight and I decided to keep it.
Keep it, my butt.
I’m fuming, and all the ‘that’s hot’ and ‘holy fuck’ comments aren’t helping. So I close the app and throw the phone on my bed.
Then I think better of it. How dare the bastard post that picture of me after the whole show with Cherry?
He wants to play?
I will play.
It takes me five minutes to find the sketch I was playing with at lunch earlier. I place it beside the blank canvas and pick up my warm colors.
I only have a vague idea of where I’m taking this, but stroke after stroke, the image comes into focus.
For the first time, I’m thankful I don’t have a problem painting humans, and I do so with flying colors.
My creation stares back at me with a soft expression. It’s an imaginary man who, unlike Killian, has blond hair, hazel eyes, and a dimpled smile. There’s a softness in his gaze and he looks so nice that I get a huge grin.
After adjusting the lights, I take a picture of the painting and post it on IG with the caption ‘My type.’
Annika is the first one to comment.
annika-volkov: SO cute *heart eyes emoji*
the-ava-nash: Bitch, what? I mean WHAT? Where’s this fine specimen and why haven’t we interrogated him yet?
cecily-knight: What Ava said.
ariella-jailbait-nash: Go, girl.
lord-remington-astor: No, no, go back? I reserve veto rights on this cunt who looks untrustworthy as fuck.
Cecily and Ava gang up on him. Ariella defends him, and Annika keeps fawning and creates a separate thread for her and Ava’s socializing column.
I smile, pleased with myself. Mission accomplished.
As soon as I sit down, my phone vibrates.
I startle as the message across the screen reads:
Psycho: Like fuck he is.
19
KILLIAN
I kick some boy Nikolai brought over out of my path.
Actually, make that two boys and a random girl.
My cousin usually has more women than men around, but he’s been acting strange since the initiation last night.
The boys are hammered, probably high, and don’t even whine as I push them with my foot.
Nikolai, however, isn’t between them, gracing us with a porn show first thing in the morning. Exhibitionism is the foundation of his soul, and while voyeurism isn’t something I’m against, it’s annoying when they all start shouting and irritating my sensitive ears with their noise.
After the initiation was over, White left without bothering to see who got in. No surprise there since he only cares about the game part, not the administrative part—same.
Gareth and Jeremy stuck around to welcome our two new members. The first is Cherry. I have a feeling she’s the one my idiot brother escorted into the compound and followed her around like he’s her puppy.
The second is an REU preppy posh elite. We invited exactly five—aside from Glyndon’s unexpected invitation. We don’t let REU kids in our ranks, but we made an exception this time for a scheme Jeremy and I have been plotting.
All five declined the invitation by not showing up. We expected as much, considering their close relationship with the Elites. The participant who got accepted isn’t one of them; it’s someone Nikolai personally sent an invitation then ambushed and held in a chokehold back in the forest. The one I was sure he’d murder for his insolence, but whose number was never said by the announcer. Since Nikolai only used his fists, he would’ve had to update the back base himself about any of the ones he eliminated.
Apparently, he didn’t do that for eighty-nine and even escorted him back to our compound to announce he was a new member. Something that Jeremy frowned upon, so he warned Nikolai and the guards to keep an eye on in case he was a spy, then moved on to antagonizing him.
Eighty-nine left soon after that shitshow—despite Nikolai’s attempts to keep him here for the celebration.
Cherry, however, brazenly shoved herself in one of the bedrooms for the night—probably Gareth’s. She tried to get in my room, but I kicked her out since I was busy looking at my phone for hours on end, waiting for a reply from the little rabbit.