Mercy (Somerset University #3) - Ruby Vincent Page 0,52

even make a dent buying the things I bookmarked.”

“Oh. A game show.” Blair took hold of my hands and pressed them together between us. She grinned at me over my fingers. “This is why they call you madame president.”

“Actually, I’ve worked real hard to get them to stop calling me madame president,” I teased. “Come on, Blair. You know I wasn’t going to let you handle all of this by yourself. We split the work fifty-fifty like always.”

She took a breath, held it, and let it out slow. “I know we’ll be okay. It’s just... all eyes are on us, Val.”

“Eyes like whose?” I asked softly. “Your mom?”

Blair pinked. “She expects a lot from me. What mother doesn’t? She won’t stand for me not to live up to my true potential or for me to bring Zeta Rho down. Everything has to be perfect.”

“Everything will be perfect. It’s day one and we’re all kicking ass. We’ve clearly got the best snacks on the row because the sisters can’t stop eating them!”

Keily and Sofia jerked red-handed. Bold as shit, Sofia snatched the tray of caramel pretzel brownies and took off running.

“Hey!”

“Catch me and do something about it.”

Blair glared at me. “This is what I’m talking about. The Sallys are about class and dignity. Who is going to take us seriously when our sisters are in the corner hoarding brownies like they’re Gollums with the ring?”

It was hard to defend Sofia when she was upstairs cackling and taunting me. “Nice job landing that Lord of the Rings dig.”

“Ugh!” Blair stomped off—no doubt to check, recheck, and check again that everything was perfect.

“Sofia Richards,” I called up the stairs. “Stop torturing Blair. And give me back my brownies.”

“Too late. They’re gone.”

I went up, catching a glimpse of her as she disappeared into her room. I walked in and flung myself on her bed. Sofia followed suit, jumping on top of me and laying her head between my shoulder blades.

“Blair has every right to be nervous,” I said. “We struggled to the end of sophomore year, and this year we’ll have even more on our plate. I should be feeling the same, but all I can think about is Maverick.”

“Is he really going tonight?”

Sofia knew about Aiden’s invitation. Of course she knew. There wasn’t a single thing I didn’t share with my best friend.

“He says he has to. The guys are holding back with him and the only way to find out Aiden’s true goal is to lower his guard.”

“Why does that mean he has to meet up with that creep in a deserted stadium in the middle of the night? Why can’t Kendra, Teagan, Sabrina or Eve tell you what his true goal is? If they’re really the friends they’ve been pretending to be all summer, you’d already know everything about the club.”

“You have a point,” I muttered. “But those four just keep telling me different versions of the same answer. The club is about pushing boundaries. It’s about deeper bonds of sisterhood. Stretching ourselves to the limit of what we thought we knew.

“They say that, but when we go to their parties, all they do is hook up and lose money. Maverick might be right. We won’t see any more until they consider him as one of them.”

“Please, tell me you’re not letting him go alone.”

“Hell no, I’m not.” I flipped to face her. “We agreed I’d be there. Hiding.”

She nodded. “Please, tell me you’re not thinking I’d let you crouch in the stands by yourself.”

“Aiden demanded a midnight meetup to be extra creepy. You shouldn’t have to drag yourself out of bed to—”

“Val.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I know. We’ll be up there hiding together.”

“Yes, we will,” she said, looking smug. “Bring more brownies in case it goes long.”

MAVERICK

To say I was a tad distracted that day would be to say Pan’s Labyrinth was kind of an okay movie. It’s flipping brilliant, and I didn’t hear a word in my Introduction to Nanoelectronics, Computational Cognitive Science, or Database Systems classes. I walked out of there with blank notebooks and judgmental head shakes from my professors.

I’m hours away from meeting a potential sociopath in an empty field. If he jumps me with his six buddies, my girlfriend will risk herself trying to save me and we’ll both be taken and never seen again.

That explanation would’ve bought me some sympathy but I held on to it for obvious reasons.

After my final class, I slid into my car and set off for home. My first one.

Mom