Chapter 27

27

MINA

The Past

May 26 th , 2:15 a.m.

I almost fell off the trellis four separate times. My hands were blistering, I was covered in sap and old spiderwebs and my feet hurt so bad—but I had to keep climbing down. I needed to figure out what the wolves of Rho Rho Pi had done with her.

When I made it to the ground, I didn't put my heels back on—I kept one in each hand like a weapon. The cold mud felt good on my feet anyhow, it helped to numb the pain. And it'd stopped raining long enough for a sliver of moon to come out and light my way.

I crept around the cabin, peeking into the windows one by one—all of the rooms inside were dark.

What had happened to the party?

Then I heard a creaking wooden sound, followed by a thunk. I froze, until I heard an unfortunately familiar hawk and spit .

Nolan.

The only one of the guys gauche enough to use chew.

Everyone else took pills, vaped, or snorted their drugs of choice, but not Nolan—he wandered around campus with a spit cup in one hand like he was a pro baseball player from the 90s.

And something told me wherever he'd come from was where I needed to go.

I ducked down and peeked around the corner of the cabin, spotting him, standing beside an open storm cellar in the ground—then I heard the sound of him unzipping and releasing a strong stream of pee.

He was twice my size, easy.

But he was distracted, and if I wanted to get into that cellar—taking him on, right now, before he went back down, was my only choice.

I bit my lip and ran at him, as hard as I could, bumping him with my shoulder.

He grunted with surprise, going down to one knee, and I could smell the beer on his breath—him still being intoxicated was the only reason that'd worked.

"Hey!" he shouted sharply, and I did the only thing I could think to.

I kicked him in the balls, as hard as I could.

He squealed, drunkenly lunging for me with one hand, while moving to cup himself with the other. I fended him off with a spike heel, while kicking him again and again, until he groaned and rocked back, finally falling over, and I ran around him, staying out of the range of his long arms, until I got to the cellar stairs and started racing down.