Page 31 of They Break Beauty

“Thinking solely with your dicks,” Lev said, shaking his head. “Amateur hour.”

“You’re going to assist us with turning things back around. I know what you’re thinking: why should we? You’ve taken your beatings and once you walk away from this you’ll make plans to come at us en masse, yes? Something along those lines?”

“More shortsightedness,” Lev chimed in. “Piling on the pathetic.”

“The thing is, that won’t be happening.” I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled to a video I’d had one of the sorority heads secretly make with the tech I’d outfitted her with. I played it and held it out to one of the frat heads in the showers. It depicted him and the two others who were also in the room arguing with the sorority head as she’d confronted them as per my instructions. They’d thought so little of her power compared to theirs, believing themselves to be untouchable that they’d arrogantly ended up confessing they not only knew about what she’d been accusing their fellow frat members of, but that they’d actually orchestrated it together to both get pussy and wield power over the girls who’d all been chosen for their parents’ connections that the frat heads had planned to use to their full advantage under the threat of revealing the girls as cheap sluts for our boys.

The only sluts were them.

Curses sounded from two of them, a defeated groan from another.

“That’s right. We own you. Effective immediately, the three of you are the property of Hex.” I leaned down and jerked on the blond hair of the football captain draped at an awkward angle over a bench beside his starting quarterback. He hissed as I pulled at his pretty boy roots. “As for you and your quarterback here, fixing games against our very own Stonewell Lions just to line your pockets, and trying to elevate your own standing in spite of that by undermining your own team members through fucked-up means like rigging drug tests and manipulating them into unsavory situations. That’s over and done with. You’ll help to undo it all, in fact. I’m certain you’ll be highly motivated to do so after Hex obtained evidence of you both testing positive for performance enhancing drugs multiple times last year and during your return this year too.”

“That’s not true,” the captain grunted.

“You know what they say, the truth is what you make it,” Lev called over.

“What Hex makes it,” I clarified. “Like I said, boys, we own you.” I took a moment to enjoy their pathetic states and having them at our mercy, and then I turned and walked back to Lev, throwing my hand over my shoulder as I ground out, “Spread it around. Hex is back in power.”

As Lev and I walked out of the locker room and made our way through the back exit of this side of campus, he smiled at me. “Nicely done, brother. It’s the first glimpse I’ve seen of Scourge in a long while since you shut down Hex shortly before I left. How did it feel to go there again?”

“Good,” I admitted. “Really fucking good.”

His smile widened and sadism danced in his eyes. “Glad to hear it.”

We stepped out of the building and Lev’s phone buzzed. He pulled it from the pocket of his hoodie. In the next moment, he was grinning devilishly as he took in the message, then typed back. “Well done, cupcake,” he murmured to himself.

“What was that?” I asked, as he pocketed his phone, his whole being now brightened.

“Just Colt seeing to that favor for me.”

“With the girl?”

“Brianna, yes.”

“And?”

“And what?” he asked innocently.

That was a dead giveaway that something was off, because there was absolutely nothing innocent about Lev.

“Why are you going to all this trouble for her?”

“Trouble? Asking Colt to get her to the mansion isn’t trouble. It’s nothing.”

“It is for you. You don’t chase, you’re the chased when it comes to women.”

“Maybe I’m looking to chill.”

“You mean, settle down?”

He lifted a shoulder.

“I’m not buying it, Lev.”

He didn’t say anything and we just continued walking through campus in silence for a while.

It gave me time to think back to the night of the homecoming party when I’d seen him with her, to analyze every little thing.

---