After a while, I heard a door open, along with a few low mutters. Then someone dumped me into a chair and forced me to sit upright.
The sack came off my head, and my eyes almost popped right out of their sockets as I took in my surroundings. I was in the Medusa Society clubroom inside Royal Hall.
“Surprise!” the girls screeched.
Camila took the gag out of my mouth. There was a gleeful gleam in her eyes. “You should’ve seen your face when we grabbed you!” she said, giggling like a maniac.
Heat flushed through my body. “What the fuck?” I said, jumping to my feet. I could feel a vein pulsing in my forehead. “How could you do that to me?”
“I’m sorry,” Kiri said, although her snickering suggested that she wasn’t sorry at all. “It’s part of the whole ritual. Like a hazing sort of thing. We’ve all been through it before!”
My heart was racing like mad and my legs were still rubbery from the earlier panic attack. I sat down, afraid I might collapse if I didn’t. “I thought you said my initiation was tomorrow,” I said.
Kiri glanced at her watch. “It’s five past midnight. So technically it is tomorrow.”
I cut my eyes at Camila. “I heard a man’s voice in my bathroom.”
She nodded. “He’s a Network guy. He came to help us carry you,” she explained. “But he’s gone now.”
“Right.” I sucked down a deep breath, shoulders slumping.
I couldn’t stay mad at the girls for too long. They had absolutely no way of knowing about the petrifying midnight dorm invasion I’d experienced in the past, or the abduction from a parking lot by masked men. To them, the whole kidnapping thing was just a silly hazing prank.
“I guess you got me,” I said, forcing a smile.
Kiri grinned. “You almost got us, too. If you’d actually managed to sneak out of your dorm, we would’ve had to chase you all over campus.”
“Thank god that didn’t happen,” Camila said, rolling her eyes upward. “Anyway, Laney… are you ready for your initiation?”
I nodded. “I’m wide awake now, so yeah, I suppose I am.”
My earlier exhaustion was long gone, scrubbed out by the adrenaline flooding my veins. I was alert and ready for anything they wanted to throw at me.
“Awesome!” Camila beamed. Then she turned and snapped her fingers at the other girls. “Penelope, I want you to do her makeup. Hazel, you’re good at hair, so you can do that. The rest of you, get ready!”
Four of the girls disappeared behind a door that I’d never noticed before, and they emerged with a large clothing rack on wheels and several bags stuffed to the brim with makeup, shoes, and accessories. The rack was heavily laden with shimmering white Grecian-style gowns in varying lengths.
Penelope worked at my face with multiple brushes and palettes as Hazel stood behind me with a barrel brush and blow-dryer. Twenty minutes later, one of them held up a mirror in front of me. “Ta-da!”
“Wow,” I said breathlessly. They’d transformed me into one of them. Stunning black and gold eye makeup with long curled lashes, contoured face, bright red lips, and volumized hair hanging around my shoulders in artful waves.
“We just need the finishing touches now,” Penelope said, reaching for another bag. She pulled out some gold roll-on glitter and a variety of tiny colorful faux gems.
Hazel helped her stick the little gems on my collarbone and face with eyelash glue, and then they rolled the gold glitter all over the bare parts of my skin.
“Perfect,” Camila declared. “Time for your dress now. You can pick one from there.”
She motioned toward the rack. I picked a full-length gown at the very end with a plunging V-neck and gathered waist. Most of the other girls were wearing similar dresses by now, along with similar makeup and hairstyles, and they also had pink and white flower crowns on their heads.
“You don’t get a crown until you’ve completed your initiation,” Kiri explained as she rummaged through a bag of gold, silver, and bronze-colored sandals.
I nodded my understanding and accepted the first pair of sandals she selected for me. They were gold with long straps that wound around my calves.
“I think we’re almost ready to go,” Camila said when I finished getting dressed. “Just one more thing. Paisley, can you grab the chalice?”
The other girl disappeared and returned a moment later with a golden chalice filled with red wine.
“Drink up!” Camila said, grinning at me.
I twisted my lips with apprehension. “Do I have to?”
“It’s part of the ritual,” she explained. “The wine represents the blood of all those who try to keep us down in society.”
“That sounds… violent.”
She let out a tinkling laugh. “Don’t worry, it’s just a metaphor. We don’t actually murder our enemies.”
“Right. The thing is, I don’t drink alcohol.”
She lifted a brow. “Ever?”
“No.”
“Oh. Um….” Her forehead creased, and she turned back to Paisley. “Go and tip this out, and then go and check all the vending machines near the cafeteria. There must be some sort of red juice we can use. Grape or cranberry, maybe.”
Paisley nodded and left the clubroom. Camila turned back to me with a hesitant smile. “Sorry, Laney. I didn’t know you don’t drink.”
“It’s okay.”
When Paisley returned, she was holding a bottle of organic pomegranate juice. “Is this okay?”
“Perfect!” Camila said, clapping her hands together. “I’ll be back in a sec, Laney.”
She went over to the other side of the room to tip some of the juice into the freshly-washed chalice. Then she stepped back over to me and held it out. “Here you go. The non-alcoholic blood of your enemies,” she said with a grin.
I tipped my head back and downed the juice in three gulps as the girls cheered me on.
“Let’s go!” Kiri said, excitedly jumping up and down.
One of the girls grabbed a small black bag and put the empty chalice in it, along with the rest of the pomegranate juice. I couldn’t see what else was in the bag, because she zipped it up right away.
“Follow us, Laney,” Camila said, directing my attention to the door.
We left Royal Hall and walked down to the lake in pairs. As we drew closer to the main boathouse dock, I caught sight of four silver motorboats bobbing in the water at the very end, along with four tall men on the planks.
My pulse picked up as we headed down the dock and approached the men. They were all wearing masks, so I had no idea who they were. I could only assume they were from the Medusa Society’s generous parent organization, though—the ever-mysterious Network.
The men divided us up and assigned us to different boats. I was put in the one at the end with Camila and Kiri.
“Don’t be scared,” Camila whispered, squeezing my hand as one of the masked men climbed into the boat and started the motor. “We’re just going over to Harker Island.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I figured.”
“How are you feeling?” Kiri asked.
I swallowed thickly and rubbed my arms. “A bit nervous. But mostly cold.”