Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 178117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 891(@200wpm)___ 712(@250wpm)___ 594(@300wpm)
Nessie strikes, fangs embedded in the rat.
“I thought we were just messing with her. Not that we’d leave her there permanently.”
Nessie rips the rat from my hook. “Oh, don’t worry … she’ll get untied.”
“What if she goes on to tell people? What if someone finds her there? They’ll know it was us.”
I shrug as Nessie slowly starts to swallow the rat. “People know not to get in our way.”
I turn to look at him. “I don’t just want to mess with her.” Dylan lights up a joint, but I steal it from his hands right before he takes a drag and take it for myself. “I want to get in her fucking head. Invade her fucking mind. Break her from the inside out.”
“Whoa,” he mutters, and I throw the joint back at him. He catches it with his mouth, grinning like a bastard before taking a drag. “She’s not gonna let you in that easily.”
I smirk and lean against Nessie’s cage. “I know. But I like a fucking challenge.”
Dylan’s eyes narrow. “She really does behave just like her, doesn’t she?” He takes another big drag and fills my room with smoke. “This is going to be so much fucking fun. Much more fun than these kind of fucking parties ever will be.”
The door suddenly creaks open. Alistair sticks his skull head in and rips off his mask. “Back.”
My heart picks up the pace. “You got it?”
He nods. “Was tough as hell getting into that sorority again. They really upped security after I broke in the first time. Luckily, half the girls are at our party downstairs, so there was no one to stand in my way.” He holds up the diary again. “This was all she had. No other notebooks.”
I frown and sigh. “We’ve seen that already.”
“I know,” he says, and he steps inside and shuts the door. “But not this.” He opens it on a specific page where there’s multiple cutouts of her and her sister slapped onto each other, and he peels away a corner of the photo to reveal some text.
My eyes widen, and I march toward him to snatch the diary from his hands. “She pasted these on top?”
He nods. “Read it.”
I’ve done everything that’s been asked and more. It’s never going to be enough. And I refuse to go through life … broken. Split in half by a decision that wasn’t mine to make.
So I will stop it now.
This bonfire near The Edge will be the last night spent at this godforsaken university—
The rest is unreadable.
But I can tell from the handwriting it’s hers.
Eve.
My hands tighten around the diary, my blood turning to ice.
It takes everything in me not to rip this to shreds.
Dylan stands behind me and checks the text over my shoulder. “Shit.”
“This is the note Penelope was talking about,” Alistair says.
“Are you sure?” Dylan asks.
He nods. “Positive. But we’re missing some of it.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “This is all the proof we need to know she made a conscious choice.” My fist balls. “And someone’s to blame.”
“Penelope’s convinced it was us, though,” Dylan says. “No wonder she tried to stab you twice.”
He snorts like it’s funny or something.
“I’ll fucking make her pay for that, don’t worry,” I growl.
“I thought we were well underway with that,” Dylan says, winking.
I peer at the photos hastily pasted over the text, Penelope’s face drawing me in. “Oh, I haven’t even gotten started.”
I slam the diary shut and throw it on my nightstand.
“We need the rest, though,” Alistair says.
I push past him but pause and turn. “Scan everything in that fucking diary. I want all of it digital, enlarged. Ready to print.”
“What? Now?” Dylan scoffs. “But the party is still going.”
“I don’t care,” I reply, opening the door. “And get a fucking burner phone too.”
“Fine,” Dylan says. “But I need to know why.”
“Are you gonna do what I think you’re gonna do?” Alistair asks. “You know we already agreed to help her, right?”
I’m one foot outside the door. “We never specified how.” My nostrils flare as I clutch the door so tightly the wood almost cracks. “I don’t fucking help. I break things. And if I need to fucking find someone, I will do it my way. By breaking everyone in my fucking path … including her.”
PENELOPE
“Help!” I scream. “Can someone please help me?”
There’s no response, and the party is still well underway.
Fuck me. Am I going to be left hanging here until the fucking week ends?
I’m so far away from any actual populated area, I don’t know if anyone could ever find me.
Only those fucked-up boys.
I’ve been hanging here for hours now, and there’s no sign of life anywhere. I thought those boys would be back by now.
But what if they never come back?
A chill runs up and down my spine.
Surely, they don’t intend to just leave me here, right?