Premature Evacuation (Underground Sorority #1) (21 page)

Hot air swirled out of my mouth from my breath. “You have five minutes to convince me.”

He hopped up, snow falling from his butt. I followed him inside. Heat embraced me as we stepped into a long hallway. Each open door we passed revealed a small office filled with students pretending they were preparing for the real world. Harrison nodded at every person we passed.

“Do you work here?” I asked him.

“Obviously.” He opened a door and stepped inside. A long dormitory-grade wooden table squeezed into the cramped space. Replicas of the standard issue wooden chairs with faded blue cushions from my dorm circled the table. Folders and a laptop covered the table. “Make yourself at home.”

I stood right where I was, crossing my arms over my puffy jacket. Harrison made a grand show of shrugging off his peacoat as slowly as possible, dropping into the nearest seat, and kicking his legs up on the table. He flipped open the laptop and tilted it toward me. “Exhibit A,” he said.

I leaned in close, my jacket rustling. An email that had been forwarded to Harrison from the Rho Sigma list serv covered the screen, but scrolled down to shield the sender information. My throat tightened. My own email address had been removed from the group in conjunction with my expulsion. I longed for the news blasts and inside jokes that filled my inbox every day. But this email was entirely different:

To: [email protected]

From: Layla Davies

Subject: FWD: URGENT: New Rule effective immediately

Ladies,

I’ve heard far too many whispered conversations today—in the house and out—about the events that went down last night (and the ones from formal). Yes, we had to remove one member from our ranks because she was dragging down our stellar reputation and putting the entire house at risk. As far as you should be concerned, she’s dead to you. She no longer exists. Stop talking about her.

I’m instituting a no tolerance policy, effective immediately. If I learn that you’ve spoken to her or about her (or the events in question) in public or private, you’ll be joining her on the curb. You didn’t hear anything. You didn’t see anything. You were not involved in anything. Period.

If anyone has any questions, keep them to yourself because as far as I’m concerned, this subject is closed.

Holy shit. My pulse slammed into my neck. Sweat formed in the crooks of my armpits. I unzipped my jacket in a huff and slumped into the seat next to Harrison. His gloating smirk returned, but I didn’t care. “How did you get this?” I reached for the touch pad to scroll up to the sender.

He snapped the laptop shut. “Let’s just say one of your sisters didn’t want to stay silent.”

Hope surged in my chest. Bianca? Erin? No, she’d ignored me. “Di—did they say anything else?”

He studied me for a moment, brown eyes swimming behind his glasses. “That you were forced to drink—either by Corey or by your sorority as a punishment for your date getting arrested at formal, hazing-style. Then they carried you over to Beta Chi against your will and left you to pass out.”

I sucked in a deep breath. The rumor had already twisted, growing its own legs based on a body of truth. “No one
forced
me to drink, I already told you that.”

“But why risk it if you were on probation with Rho Sig? It doesn’t make sense.” Harrison tapped his long slender fingers on the table.

I scrubbed my hand over my face. “I was only hanging out with my friends. We were playing a harmless drinking game. It doesn’t affect anyone but me.”

He leaned in close. “You sure about that?”

My pulse increased. The tone of his voice indicated that I should not, in fact, be sure of that.

Harrison set his phone on the table. He scrolled to an image of several people wearing business suits standing on the front porch of Rho Sig. The little info caption made sure to tell me this was taken earlier today.

“Recognize any of them?” he asked.

I clucked my tongue. “Obviously no, so get to the point.”

“Well, you should, actually. You would have met this one last year”—he pointed to a snooty looking blond woman—”when you signed up for rush.”

The truth slammed into me. The head of the Greek Organization, bringing her cronies over to Rho Sigma. Because of me.

Harrison leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. “So why don’t you tell me your side of the story? Because I can promise you everyone else’s side is about to come out.”

Suddenly the concrete walls and wiped clean dry erase boards closed in. The knowledge of where I was and who I was with pulsed. “Wait, is this an interview? For the paper?”

He didn’t even blink. “Don’t worry, you haven’t said anything incriminating. Which is a shame, because I’m just trying to get the facts straight and right now they all point to you being hazed by two houses as a punishment. Is that the story you want to get out? Because once it lands in the paper, it will become the truth.”

This wasn’t an interview. This was a threat.

But I wasn’t a sister anymore. Layla’s mandate didn’t apply to me.

I told Harrison everything.

M
Y EYES FLEW TO the front page headline like a beacon, stomach lurching.

UNDERAGE DRINKING VIOLATION CLOSES SORORITY.

It had been three days since I’d relayed my version of events to the smarmy asshole who didn’t deserve a name, so much as a byline. Every day I’d freeze up when I passed the pile of newspapers tossed into the lobby of every academic building on campus. But so far the story hadn’t been printed. Until now.

I put one foot in front of the other, my heels clicking in the empty art building foyer. The paper rattled in my hand as I lifted it off the large stack. Beneath my jacket and sweater, the no-longer-valid Rho Sigma t-shirt hugging my chest was now a collector’s item.

I sank to the dirty concrete floor and drank in the words like they were the only thing left to get me intoxicated. They blurred the same way until I couldn’t only focus on the important details.
Investigation conducted after sophomore lands in hospital. Linked to police report from Rho Sigma winter formal where a “well known fraternity member” was arrested for drinking and driving. What cracked the case was a confession, in the victim’s own words, delivered to Investigative Reporter Harrison Wagner.

My words and name were never even quoted in the paper. Corey’s name wasn’t mentioned either.

The article went on to say that even though the Greek Organization revoked the Rho Sigma charter, the girls could continue living in the house for the rest of semester. An official would be appointed to live inside instead of the house mom, to ensure no more underage drinking occurred. Omega Upsilon Tau fraternity would be taking over the house next semester.

Out House. Harrison’s frat. Vomit gurgled in my stomach.

Harrison had never planned to write an article about the truth of the events. He’d delivered my taped confession to the Greek Organization on a silver platter to secure his fraternity with the one thing they didn’t have: a house.

Corey and Nate thought Harrison had provoked him at formal to get Beta Chi kicked off campus, but all along his real target was a house far more vulnerable. Mine.

The following Monday, as I cowered in my room like the coward I was, the door opened with tornado-caliber force. Fallon stomped to her desk. The door slammed shut behind her, making my teeth snap. She tore off her jacket, dumped her school bag onto the floor, and climbed onto the bed. When she faced the wall, she curled up in fetal position.

“Are you okay?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Her voice was high-pitched. Sniffles escaped between the spaces in her fingers covering her mouth.

I hopped off the bed, finding my footing fast this time. The last few days I’d been mostly wobbling through campus like I might keel over at any moment. I stroked her arm from shoulder to elbow. “You can talk to me.”

Her shoulders convulsed as a sob hit the air. “First semester grades were posted this morning.”

“Yeah, I saw.” Despite my lackadaisical efforts in my classes the previous semester, I managed to eke out an 3.69 grade point average. I made Dean’s List again, though the title felt like it belonged on someone else. Someone worthy. Someone who cared. Kenzie.

“How did you do?” I asked even though the answer was pretty obvious.

“I don’t get it, Mackenzie. I worked so hard last semester trying to find a motif to paint. But I got a B.” She spun around on the bed, tears staining her cheeks. “Yeah, I know. B’s are still good. Blah blah. They’re just not good for me when it comes to my major. Former major.” She still hadn’t declared a new one, and I guessed the real reason was because she still wanted the old one.

“That’s bullshit. I’ve seen your work. It’s great.” I strode to our mini-fridge where an endless supply of emergency ice cream now huddled in the freezer.

“Not great
enough
though. Be honest with me. Am I wasting my time? Am I too uncreative to make a career of this?”

I handed her a pint of rocky road and a plastic spoon pilfered from the dining hall. “You’re really talented, I promise. I think the issue is the subjects you paint. They don’t come from your soul.” I thought back to my recent series poured onto the canvas in the middle of the night: IVs and missed opportunities with Corey. Already new images pressed against my skull, demanding to be painted:
Exit
signs glowing invitingly above closed doors. Clocks with the battery removed and springs loose. Anything to symbolize the thief of time, ending things too soon. “My work is my own form of therapy,” I said.

She stabbed the spoon at a marshmallow. “Maybe I should switch into surface pattern design. Curtain patterns don’t have hidden meanings.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” I dipped my own spoon into the pint, scooping around her marshmallow.

“But it’s not what I love to do. I want to be an illustrator for children’s books. But no one will hire me if I can’t even create worthy images in a unique style.”

“How about this. My dad’s about to get a huge surprise to his credit card bill: reimbursement of Rho Sigma dues, yes, but also that pesky thousand dollar hospital bill. Those should counteract each other, but the way I see it, I’m already in trouble. Might as well take advantage before he finds out.”

She gave me a quizzical look.

“I want to buy you something nice. Something to cheer you up, but also a thank you gift.”

She smiled. “Thanks, but really, I couldn’t accept anything from you. I mean, from your dad.”

I chuckled. “I’m probably going to have to get some sort of job if he cuts me off so I’ll be paying him back eventually. It’s from me.”

She laughed. “Well, lucky for you what I want is free. To figure out what the hell I should do with my life.”

I’d skipped my first class for Human Sexuality last week but I was determined to confront Erin head on this time. And if Holly got in my way, I’d make sure she suffered too. I’d never officially dropped the class so I strode in on Tuesday and introduced myself to the professor as a new student who’d just now added it. If she recognized me at all, she didn’t show it. She earned the only smile I’d doled out all week.