Page 67 of Snitches and Serpents

24

TRISTAN

Leaning against the wall, I keep my eyes on the door across the crowded room and wait for my prey to arrive. I know she will. She always does.

Ever since I fucked her in that spare room, she has been following me around. It’s almost cute how she thinks that she’s being so sneaky. How she thinks that I can’t see her watching me. That I don’t recognize her car. That I can’t tell that she’s keeping tabs on me.

My personal favorite is when she is lurking in the bushes across the street from my house, watching me through the window as I study. Sometimes, I position myself right in front of that window when I take my shirt off just because I know that it makes her flustered. She actually lost her balance and fell into the bush the first time I did it.

A smirk blows across my lips at the memory.

Elle Summers is excellent at a lot of things. But spying is not one of them.

I understand why she does it, though. She’s worried about what I’m going to do next. She probably thinks that if she can keep tabs on me, she can figure out what my next move is. What my next plan to get her expelled is. And then she can stop it before I can do it.

Well, unfortunately for her, my preparations for that have happened inside our house. And at night while she’s asleep. Since Bracken has called me downtown to beat people up several times in the past two weeks, I’ve also used those trips into the city in the middle of the night to get some supplies.

Elle thinks that she’s staying ahead of me by spying on me? Oh, she has no idea what kind of wicked and depraved thing I’m about to hit her with.

But first, I need her to actually show up to this party. Otherwise, I’ll have to go with a contingency plan.

Something pale blue appears in the corner of my eye.

Still leaning against the wall with my arms crossed, I glance towards that splash of color.

Elle starts in surprise and blinks as I meet her gaze, because she was obviously staring straight at me. Then she clears her throat and tries to act normal while she continues into the room. I suppress a smile. Such an amateur.

While remaining where I am, I study Elle. I’m not working tonight, and neither are the rest of my housemates, but I still need to act like it so that Elle won’t get suspicious. So I stand there, pretending to study the crowd of drunk and dancing people. But what I really do is to watch her.

She’s wearing a pale blue dress that ends just above the knee and a pair of white flats. Her hair flows down her back like a soft waterfall, and she’s wearing makeup that accentuates her already beautiful face. All of it together makes her look sweet and polite and kind. And not at all like the fucking rat that she really is.

Irritation courses through me, and I flex my hands to dispel it.

I want to set my plan in motion right now. But I have to wait. At least half an hour or so. Otherwise, it will be too suspicious.

The building we’re in is where the drama students sometimes rehearse their scenes when their main one is already occupied. There are some smaller rooms at the back, but they are off-limits during this party. For obvious reasons. So the party is happening in the massive main room. Cream-colored wallpaper gives the room a neutral but clean look, and all the props and scene decorations have been moved to the locked rooms for the night. Again for obvious reasons. So the only furniture in the room are some tables along the walls. Plastic cups full of alcohol wait there in surprisingly neat rows, though about half of them have already been claimed.

Across the room, Elle moves through the crowd. She tries to speak to several groups of people, but gets the cold shoulder from practically everyone. A cruel smile curls my lips at the sight.

However, she manages to keep a pleasant and neutral expression on her face the whole time. Which I have to admit is kind of impressive. If people had treated me like that, I wouldn’t have had nearly as much restraint.

While making her way around the room, she casts discreet glances at me. Or they would’ve been discreet if I hadn’t caught them every single time. And every time our eyes meet, she starts in surprise and then snaps her gaze back to the rest of the room.

I huff out a silent laugh.

Eventually, she spots Brandi and the rest of the girls from her former sorority standing together and talking a short distance from where I am. This time, she doesn’t steal a glance in my direction. Instead, she straightens her spine and walks right up to them.

Music echoes against the pale walls, but because Brandi and the rest of her friends are standing so close, I can still hear their voices faintly when Elle walks up to them and simply says, “Hi.”

A short girl with dark hair and eyes, whose name I think might be Mei, gives Elle a bright smile and opens her mouth to respond. But before she can get a word out, Brandi speaks up.

“If I remember correctly, I told you not to approach us in public,” Brandi says.

There is a flash of pain in Elle’s brown eyes, but it’s gone so quickly that I’m not sure if any of them noticed. She seems to realize that I can see her face, though, because she shoots a sharp look at me and then suddenly shifts so that she is standing on the other side of the group instead, with her back to me.

I shake my head at her foolishness. As if turning her back on me would help. Apparently, she hasn’t realized that I can actually hear them.

“Yes, I know,” she says to Brandi. “But I just thought that maybe we could talk.”

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