Page 93 of Five

“Hmmm,” I say. “We didn’t really meet her. Never even got a name.”

“No, no one knows her name,” Mia says. “We’re not allowed to know her name.”

But that’s not true. Cliff Middleton does. And he told Tera when she showed him that picture she took last weekend.

“We have to go,” Mia repeats. “Because she’s the one with all the power. She’s the one we have to watch out for. And I’ve heard that if you promise to keep your mouth shut, she lets people walk away.”

Not likely, I think to myself. But I’m betting that blonde bitch is the whole reason my best friend is dead. “Yeah,” I say, more to myself than Mia. “We’re going all right.”

I stay awake long after Mia passes out on one of the old, sagging beds. But sometime just before daybreak, I fall asleep too. And I dream of what I’m going to do to get justice for my best friend.

It’s a pretty awesome dream.

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Five

I watch from the safety of a Princeton rooftop more than five hundred yards away through a rifle scope. “We need to get closer.”

“We stick to the plan,” Chen says. “And that means we do not get closer until we’re called in. Rory’s life depends on you trusting her to do what she was told. We’ve rearranged everything according to that plan you made with her, even though you almost got her killed by not listening to me.”

Every one of the Palladium seniors is out in front of the house, taking a group picture. Just step one in the plan to take over their young lives and twist their good intentions into evil. I want to feel sorry for them, but I can’t. All the men know what’s happening. And all the girls, as well, though to a lesser degree. And Rory is the only one—aside from her dead best friend—who thinks this is a bad idea. I’m basing that on the smiles on their pretty faces. Their best dresses, with their best jewelry to make them sparkle.

It’s used as a recruiting tool, I realize. They show themselves off in front of the house for Eat Meet, knowing full well all the freshmen are wandering up and down the Street looking at which house they will join as upperclassmen.

Of course, getting into Palladium isn’t that easy. They invite you, not the other way around. And they know who will get an invite the second they get the list of incoming freshmen each summer. It’s well planned out, well ahead of time.

Upper. Echelon.

The future leaders of the world all start in a secret club much like this. Every prime university on the planet has one, even Oxford. The one I was invited into—and shunned—just had a different name. The Young and Mobile Society.

My father told me a story when I met him at the jet last week. About how he got into MIT. And his friend, the killer I call Uncle Merc, got in too. And they both knew, even before those invitations came in, that nothing good was coming out of joining that particular team.

“There she is,” Chen says, looking through his own scope.

I watch Rory, all dressed up in silver—looking like all the rest, and yet nothing like them at all—as she takes her place, ready to commemorate her first night as a newly inducted Silver Society member.

Chen whispers into the mic attached to his ear. “She’s in place.”

It gives me the chills. Rory is bait for us and a target for all those people out in front of the house with her.

Helpless is the only word that comes to mind right now. I feel helpless.

Because all I can do now is wait for everyone to make their move.

Chapter Thirty - Rory

“You,” Frank purrs into my ear as we go back into the house after the group photo, “look beautiful. I cannot wait for tonight.”

“Me too,” I say, meaning it. “Me too, Frank.”

“Are you feeling better now?” he asks.

“Much,” I say, holding in my incredulous laugh. I always get over the death of my best friend in twenty-four hours. “I’m glad we had that talk this morning. But where’s Mia?”

“Inside already. With Jeremy. She wanted to go first tonight. Look, there she is.”

And yes indeed, when we enter the main dining hall, we’re among the last there. Mia is up front with Kallie, laughing like these people didn’t kill Tera Middleton last night. Pretty fucking happy. And that happiness isn’t fake.

She set me up, I realize. To get me here? Well, joke’s on her. Because there was no fucking way in hell I wasn’t showing up here tonight.