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Chapter 1
JAYDEN
AS I STEP THROUGH THE door, the only light comes from the candles lining the walls, and everyone in the room turns toward me. I adjust my mask over my face. All the people here are wearing black robes and masks. The whole point of Blackerville Secret Society is staying anonymous—well, except in cases where losing your anonymity in front of another member is necessary—and after a year of these meetings, I’ve stopped feeling the strangeness of it.
No one speaks while I find my place near the back. One of the leaders shows up a moment later, his mask covering his whole face. As he starts talking about the usual society stuff, I tune out because I don’t give a fuck about nonsense like that. I’m only here for one reason.
“Jaguar,” the leader says after he finishes.
It’s the name I was given when I joined, so I guess he wants me to stay, which is a good sign. As I move toward the front, the others part to let me through. I can feel their attention on me, and I love it because it means I’m currently more important than the others. Someone reaches out and touches my shoulder, then tilts their head at a door off to the side, so I follow, because I already know who’s waiting for me on the other side.
The door shuts behind me, and the masked man behind the desk waves a gloved hand at the chair across from him, so I lower into it. We call him Supreme, since he’s like the main leader of the society, above everyone else. Every circle has its own leaders, but Supreme is like the president of it all, and all decisions need to be approved by him. He’s supposed to be the most experienced person in the society and someone who has passed through all the circles.
“You did well this past year, so I have a task for you.” He folds his hands on the desk. “If you do it right, it’s your chance to get into the inner circle. You’ve earned it, so don’t waste it, because we don’t give second chances here.”
The inner circle is the whole reason I’m here, and I’m glad I have my mask on, because no one can know all I want is to find out what really happened to my friend, Elsie. She came to Blackerville full of life, and she left in a body bag. Everyone says she jumped off a building because she couldn’t handle the pressure and the stress. But it’s a lie, and I’m sure of it. I just need to find proof.
I found her robes folded at the bottom of a box in her room after the funeral. There was a small symbol embroidered inside, exactly like the one that my robe now has. It took me a while, but I talked to some people and found out about the Blackerville Secret Society, so I decided to enroll here, which was easy because I made it onto the soccer team. Getting targeted by the society was easy too, because I quickly became one of the most popular guys in our college. But climbing the ranks is the most difficult part, and without it, I won’t get any info, so I need to do whatever the society wants from me to speed up the process.
Supreme slides a photo across the desk, and I look down at it. It’s a girl with long dark brown hair and dark brown eyes, and she’s very pretty. Who is she?
“Veronica Devlin,” he says. “Freshman. She’s yours.”
I know what he means, because the recruiting process is always the same. First you tear your target down in front of everyone and isolate them from their friends, and once they’re broken and alone, you come in and offer them membership in the society as if you’re some kind of big savior. Some people can’t handle it and disappear instead and transfer to another school, but some stay, become members, and think their whole life has taken an amazing turn.
If I pull this off, I’ll move up. They’re handing me a real assignment now instead of the small errands, which tells me they trust me, and soon, I might be getting all my answers about Elsie. It’s hard to stay calm and not show my excitement, but I don’t move.
Supreme leans back, and I take that as my signal to go.
WHEN I GET BACK TO my room, I immediately throw myself on my bed and get my phone out. Veronica Devlin isn’t hard to find. Her profile is public, and I scroll through months of her posts. It’s all pretty tame, just books and museums and the occasional coffee with a friend. She’s about as low-profile as a freshman gets. A regular girl studying history.
She’s even better looking in her own photos than in the one Supreme handed me, but she’s a job, and I’m not about to forget it.
But what makes her worth becoming a member of the society? She looks completely ordinary, like a random girl living a quiet, boring life. Usually, our members are picked for their popularity or family connections, but I don’t see anything special about her. Still, it doesn’t matter. Why Supreme picked her isn’t my problem.
First, I need to get close to Veronica, and the easiest way to do that is to get into one of her classes, like an elective, where I can end up next to her. As a political science student, I’m sure I can find a class for myself at the history department that won’t make anything look suspicious.
A smile spreads across my lips. Yep, I have a plan, and I’ll execute it to perfection so that Supreme won’t have any choice but to let me up in the ranks. And then, I’ll get exactly what I need.
THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT office is the first place I head to the next morning, and there’s a secretary behind the desk who lights up the second I lean on the counter and give her a smile.
“Hey, I was hoping you could help me out,” I say. “My friend Veronica Devlin... She’s a freshman here. I just wanted to make sure she got signed up okay for her history classes. She was kind of stressed about the whole thing and I told her I’d check.”
The secretary clicks through something on her screen and gives me Veronica’s whole schedule while I keep smiling at her.
“Oh, that’s perfect, actually,” I say, leaning in. “The last one you mentioned would line up great with my major. I’m political science. Any chance I could still get into it?”
She frowns and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but registration closed last week. There’s really nothing I can do once the system locks me out of it.”
I let my smile fade, giving her my best sad, puppy-eyed look. “Are you sure about that? I had an away game last week with the soccer team and didn’t get back until everything was already shut. I swear I’d have done it on time otherwise.” I bite down on my lower lip, which is something women love for some reason. “Isn’t there any way you could make a tiny exception? Just this once? I’d owe you forever.”
She presses her lips together as she stares at me, and then she glances at her screen with a sigh. “Well,” she says, her fingers hovering over the keyboard, “I suppose I could override the system just this one time, but don’t go telling your friends I’ll do it for them too.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” I say, a smile curving my lips.
Getting whatever I want is always so damn easy. All I have to do is smile through it. And now, I’m going to use my charm on Veronica. Well, right after I turn her life into hell.
Chapter 2
