He turned back to me. I blinked rapidly, wishing everything hadn’t gone so fuzzy again.
“Laney, do you think you have what it takes to pass?” the man asked in a somber tone.
“Yes,” I said. The word seemed to come out of me automatically. I didn’t even want to speak. I just wanted to have a glass of water, go home, and try to sober up.
“Wonderful.” The man retrieved a flower crown from the stone altar and placed it on my head. “Let’s see how well you do.”
As he adjusted the crown on my head, the crowd whooped and cheered, and the music went on again, filling the air with a hypnotic beat. Camila, Kiri, Paisley, Riley and Hazel ran forward and yanked me off the throne.
“Time to take what you deserve, Laney,” Camila said excitedly, offering me a chalice from the altar. I peered inside to see the remainder of the pomegranate juice from earlier.
Now that I suspected it was drugged, I didn’t want it. No fucking way.
“I’m not thirsty,” I mumbled, shaking my head.
Camila sighed and thrust it right under my chin. “It’s part of the ritual,” she said. “You have to.”
“Okay.” I grabbed the chalice and pretended to take a big gulp. Then I ‘accidentally’ dropped it, letting it splash all over the leaves by my feet. “Oops.”
“Shit,” Kiri muttered.
“It’s okay. I’m pretty sure she already had enough earlier. You’ve seen how she’s been acting,” Camila whispered to her, all but confirming that she’d given me a laced drink back in the clubroom.
The other girls started whirling around me again, faces glowing with excitement as their gauzy dresses billowed out around them. “Pick!” they shouted at me between their shrieks and giggles. “Pick! Pick!”
“Pick what?” I asked, peering at Camila through bleary eyes.
“One of them,” she said, pointing at the masked men. They were all standing closer now, lined up next to each other.
“For what?”
She grinned. “You know what,” she said, playfully elbowing me. “C’mon. You can have any one of them! I think the guy at the end is the cutest, though.”
My stomach plummeted. “You want me to pick one to sleep with?”
“You won’t be doing much sleeping,” she said with a wink. “But yes, you’ve got the gist of it.”
“Pick, Laney!” the other girls screeched, still twirling around me.
Panic flooded my veins. It felt like the whole world was closing in on me.
As I gulped down several deep breaths, I noticed another masked man on the edge of the clearing, standing by one of the golden serpent torches with a black camcorder in his hands. A lascivious smile curved up his lips as he focused it on me.
“No,” I muttered. “I… I can’t do this. I won’t.”
I sucked in a deep breath, pushed my way through the crowd of girls, and dashed toward the other side of the clearing, stumbling over small rocks and piles of leaves as I searched for the path. I finally found it and picked up the pace, heart pounding like crazy.
“Don’t worry, she’s just having a little freak-out,” I heard Camila call out to someone. “I’ll get her.”
I heard a flurry of footsteps behind me, and then she caught up to me and grabbed my arm. “Stop,” she said, pulling me around to face her. “Come back. Everything’s fine!”
Out here in the cold darkness, I felt much more sober. My mind wasn’t fuzzy anymore, and I could actually think rationally.
I folded my arms and narrowed my eyes. “You lied to me,” I said in a hollow voice.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, smiling sweetly.
“At our first meeting, you told me there’s no sex in the society unless someone chooses it.”
She arched an eyebrow. “It is a choice. As long as you make the right one.”
“That’s not a fucking choice,” I said through gritted teeth. “What happens if I want to say no?”
She shrugged. “No one’s ever refused before.”
“Well, I am. I’m refusing,” I said. “I can’t believe you actually thought I’d have sex with some random stranger in the woods in front of everyone.”
To my surprise, she giggled. “Don’t be so provincial! It’s just one time for the camera, so we know we can trust you,” she said, rubbing my arm. “That’s all. I promise.”
“Bullshit. You’ve lied to me from the very start. You told me that Dayna chose to fuck that guy as her initiation reward. But you made her say that, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but only because we couldn’t tell you the truth about the ritual at the time,” she said in an annoyingly-soothing tone, like I was a petulant little child who needed calming. “We didn’t lie to you about it being her choice, though. She said yes. We all said yes when it was our turn up there.” She smiled again. “Like I said before, no one has ever said no.”
“Yeah, because they were all drugged to the fucking gills with whatever gets slipped into the wine, right?” I said. “I’m guessing it’s twice as potent when it’s combined with alcohol, so most of the girls don’t even realize what’s happening at the time, because they’re so fucked up.”
“It’s just a few little pills to make things run smoother,” Camila replied, as if drink-spiking was a normal, perfectly-legal activity.
I scoffed. “It’s not real consent if the person saying yes is high as fuck on drugs, and you know it.”
She raised her palms. “Laney, you need to calm down. Like I said before, it’s just one time,” she said in a wheedling tone. “How can we trust you with all of the society’s secrets if you won’t make any sacrifices for us to prove that you’re worthy?”
My stomach lurched as the full extent of the Medusa’s betrayal dawned on me. “That’s not true, is it?” I said softly, taking a step back. “It’s not just one time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That’s what all the gifts, money and scholarships are for. It’s not just sex one time on camera to gain the rest of the society’s trust. It’s sex whenever the hell those Network men want it. Am I right?”
Camila sighed. “You’re totally overreacting.”
“I’m not. I know how it works now. You trick poor scholarship girls into joining by promising them the world, and at their initiation, you drug them so they won’t say no. And it’s all filmed, so if they decide they want out the next day when they’ve come to their senses, it’s too late. They have to stay and keep participating in everything the Network demands of them, or else you’ll leak their videos. And obviously they can never tell anyone or ask for help.”
“Laney, calm down. Seriously,” Camila said, rolling her eyes again. “It’s really not what you think.”
“Yes, it is,” I hissed, jabbing a finger at her chest. “I know I’m right. You trick girls into joining and trap them by threatening them with the videos, because everyone knows sex tapes can ruin lives if they go viral. Especially if you’re poor and can’t afford some sort of PR team to spin it for you,” I said. “That’s why none of you are allowed to hang out with any other students at RFA or date any of the guys there. You’re sequestered from everyone to protect all of the society’s dirty secrets, and because you’re beautiful and part of an exclusive club, no one notices anything is wrong. They just see you as gorgeous, inaccessible popular girls, when really, you’re in a fucking sex cult.”