Page 35 of Snitches and Serpents

The sound of my voice seems to startle them, and they whirl around to face me. They don’t move aside, though, so they’re still blocking the way to my door.

A girl with red hair, who I think lives in the room next to mine, blinks at me for a few seconds. Then she raises a hand and points with her thumb over her shoulder.

“Is this your room?” she asks.

There is a strange tension in the air. I glance from face to face, finding them all watching me suspiciously. It sends a shiver of dread through me. But I keep my voice pleasant and neutral as I reply, “Yes.”

As one, the entire group edges back slightly.

If only one person had moved like that, it wouldn’t even have been noticeable. But because everyone does it at the exact same time, it’s like a ripple in an otherwise still pool of water.

My heart rate kicks up. What is going on here?

“Oh,” the redhead says.

She casts a glance at the people behind her.

Then the entire group scatters without a word. Some disappear to their rooms farther down the hall. Others quickly shuffle past me to escape back the way I came. A lot of them cast wary glances at me.

For a few moments, I just stand there, watching them all in utter confusion. But then the crowd is gone, at last giving me a clear view of my door, and my heart stops.

There is a word written on my door.

No, not just written. It has been drawn there with red paint and in big capital letters. The wet paint at the bottom of each letter has slid down along the pale wood, making it look like blood running down my door.

I stare at that word.

RAT.

Disbelief pulses through me. I think my ears are ringing.

Then my gaze flicks down to something small lying right in front of the door.

A gasp rips from my lungs, and I stagger a step back.

That small furry lump in front of my room is a dead rat.

I swallow back the nausea crawling up my throat.

From both my left and right, I can feel people lingering in front of their own doors, watching me with keen eyes. No wonder everyone was acting so strange around me earlier.

My heart drops into my stomach as another realization crashes into me with the force of a baseball bat.

They all think I’m a rat. And after an event like this—there’s a blood red warning and an actual dead rat outside my door, for God’s sake—word will spread quickly across campus. How am I supposed to make new friends now? Even if they don’t know the full story, everyone is going to think that I’m a snitch. A rat. Someone who can’t be trusted. No one is going to want to come within four feet of me after this.

Something inside my heart cracks.

Gritting my teeth, I force back the tide of emotions welling up inside me. Force myself not to cry. Force myself to keep a neutral mask on my face as I close the final distance to my door and pull out my key.

I need to start by getting rid of that rat, and then scrub off the paint on my door. After I moved here, I had to buy some supplies that I couldn’t bring from the sorority house, and I think I have a couple of small cardboard boxes left from that.

Steeling myself, I push down the handle and then pull open my door. The dead rat slides across the floor when I open it wider. I try not to look at it and instead simply stride right into my room.

But I only make it two steps into my small white room before I screech to a halt.

Ice seeps through my veins.

Another dead rat is lying in the middle of the floor inside my room as well.

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