I didn’t start it. Who knows, that might even be the truth. Maybe Tyler was the second to take his turn, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth. Maybe by the time he got there she’d given up fighting back, so he could almost pretend she was willing. He didn’t have bruises and scratches on his arms afterward, like his teammate Devin Caldwell did. But the police didn’t do a damn thing to Devin Caldwell either. They claimed there wasn’t enough proof.
For me, what Megan said was more than enough proof. True justice would have been bolting the fraternity house doors and setting the whole place on fire, burning every one of those boys in their beds. I might not even have needed to douse the place in kerosene first, considering every surface is sticky with spilled alcohol. But I can’t kill them all, not unless I want to get caught. I’ve spent the past sixteen years murdering men who deserve it, and I’m not about to get sloppy now.
So I made the logical compromise: pick one man and make an example of him. Tyler was the clear choice. Not because he’s the quarterback or the alpha male or any of that macho bullshit, but because, even though he and his four teammates all did something abhorrent that night, Tyler’s sin was the worst.
It was his Instagram that tipped me off, actually: photo after photo of Tyler at parties, leaning against walls and doorjambs and tree trunks, holding a bottle like the one oozing out on the floor beside his soon-to-be corpse.
Tyler believes clean living means a stronger game. So while his frat brothers got wasted on cheap beer and skunk weed, Tyler restricted himself to sipping his homemade energy drinks. Five boys raped Megan Foster, but only one of them did it while stone-cold sober.
Looking back, the signs were there from the first week of class—the way Tyler always picked the seat right behind Megan’s, flicked her curtain of brown curls back while she was trying to read. Told her, even as she shrank away from him, You’d be so pretty if you smiled.
He’s seizing again, but he’s gone silent now, eyes rolled back into his head. I crouch down beside him, careful not to touch anything else. It’s just a matter of time. No hospital could help him at this point, not with that much strychnine in his system.
There. Finally. Tyler’s body goes through one more bout of clenching convulsions, and his lips stretch back from his teeth, fixing his too-handsome face in a gruesome parody of a grin.
Who’s smiling now, motherfucker?
2 CARLY
I’ve been counting down the days all summer, but now that we’re here, I feel like I can’t breathe.
The heat isn’t helping. It’s scorching outside, and for the whole drive from our small central Pennsylvania hometown to Gorman University, the air-conditioning in my parents’ Nissan barely reached the back seat. Sweat streams down my spine, pooling in the waistband of my jeans.
My father glances in the rearview mirror, trying to catch my eye. We have the same eyes: smoky blue with dark shadows underneath. That’s about the only thing we have in common.
I avoid his gaze, peering through the car’s tinted windows instead as he steers onto the paved drive that curves around Whitten Hall, my new home. I was expecting, I don’t know, something more like a dorm. But Whitten looks like an old manor house, with columns by the entrance and grasping fingers of ivy crawling all over the red brick.
My mom waits until my father punches the hazard-light button and gets out before she twists around in her seat to look at me. “Do you want us to come inside with you?” The hope in her voice is like a knife in the heart. “Help you unpack?”
I taste blood and realize I’ve been gnawing on my bottom lip again. “No, that’s okay.”
She took me out for a farewell meal yesterday—at lunchtime, when she knew my father would be at work. Nothing fancy; we just split some chicken nuggets and a large Frosty at Wendy’s. The whole time, she blinked too much, like she was trying not to cry.
She’s doing it now too, her eyelashes fluttering, fingers tangling in the gold cross necklace at her throat. Her hair is dark like mine but stick-straight instead of wavy, and she wears it in the same sleek curtains around her cheeks she did back when she and my father met. He thinks all women should keep their hair long or they aren’t “feminine.” My junior year of high school, I hacked mine off to shoulder-length with a pair of kitchen shears, and he wouldn’t speak to me for a week. Now I wear it even shorter, skimming my jawline.
The trunk slams shut, and my mom and I both jump, shoulders stiffening.
She gets out of the car first. I take a deep breath before I follow, unpeeling the backs of my arms from the seat. My father stands on the curb beside my luggage, hands on his hips like we’ve made him wait for hours instead of a few minutes. I only have two bags—a duffel and a hard-sided suitcase—while most of the other arriving students seem to have a whole moving van’s worth of stuff, plastic milk crates and IKEA bags and cardboard boxes labeled with Sharpie.
Next to the car ahead of ours, there’s a petite black girl standing on her tiptoes to hug her dad goodbye, tears streaming down her cheeks. He’s crying too but trying to hide it, clenching his jaw tight, squinting his eyes shut. I can’t imagine feeling that way. I can’t imagine feeling anything but relief at saying goodbye to my father.
I let him hug me, though, because I know it will be worse if I don’t. It’s important to him that we appear to be a happy family, even if there are only total strangers around to witness the charade. He still looks displeased—at the stiffness in my arms maybe, or the way I tensed up when he squeezed my shoulders.
He steps back to stand beside my mom, putting his hand on her hip—the spot where he knows her sciatica hurts the worst.
“Call us once you get settled,” she says, smiling wider to cover her wince.
I hug her too, and then I pick up my luggage and head toward the front door. My bags are heavy, but I feel so light, almost giddy with relief. I’m not going to turn around. I’m not going to watch them drive away.
Entering Whitten Hall feels like stepping into a sepia photograph, everything a different shade of brown. In another lifetime, the entryway might have been a formal parlor. Now it’s crowded with slouching sofas from multiple eras, plus a bulletin board showing a chaotic assortment of flyers for sorority rushes and intramural sports and LARPing clubs. A pop song from this summer drifts down from one of the rooms above.
Just inside the door, a girl wearing a red Gorman University tank top and denim cutoffs sits on a folding chair, a clipboard balanced on her lap. There’s a boy next to her, crouched down on the nubby tan carpet with a Steelers cap pulled low over his eyes. He touches her bare thighs, fingertips brushing the shredded hem of her shorts.
Oh my God. He’s grabbing her. I should—
But then she grins and ducks under the brim of his hat to kiss him. And keeps kissing him, like I’m not even here, like I’ve faded right into the beige walls.
I let my duffel bag thump to the floor. The girl separates from the guy’s face with a suction-cup pop and finally looks at me, her lips twisted in annoyance. “Yes?”
“I’m, um—moving in?” I should have let my parents come inside with me. I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe I’m in the wrong place. Maybe I shouldn’t be here at all.