Page 86 of Lords of the Campus

Valencia looks up, a friendly smile on her face. “Hey, Lyric. You said you wanted to look at my notes?”

“Yeah, I missed a few points and heard you're thorough,” Lyric says, pulling out her notebook. “Do you mind?”

“Sure.” Valencia opens her notebook up and pushes it toward Lyric. “You know, you’re not too bad at taking notes yourself. Always on top of things.”

I pretend to be engrossed in my own conversation with Zane and Levi, but my attention is entirely on Lyric and Valencia. I catch bits of their conversation about class, my pulse quickening as Lyric steers the topic toward the guy Valencia’s been complaining about.

“Oh, hey,” Lyric says casually, “Did you ever hear back from that guy you were talking about?”

Valencia's expression darkens, and she sighs. “Nope. And honestly, I’m not even that surprised. A lot of those Sigma Theta guys are like that. They’re kind of known for using girls.”

“Damn, that sucks,” Lyric says. “I know you’re in a sorority. I hope you don’t have to spend too much time around them.”

“No, thankfully,” Valencia says, a sigh escaping her. “I mean, especially since something happened at a party one time. It kind of freaked me out, being around those guys, to be honest. I thought Nate was different, but… I’m not so sure.”

My pulse races. This is it. “What do you mean?” Lyric asks.

Valencia hesitates, glancing around nervously. "It’s just… one time, we were at a Sigma party and I think he might have spiked my drink.”

Lyric gasps, her reaction genuine. “Oh, my God, Valencia. Are you okay?”

Valencia nods, though she looks uneasy. “Yeah, I didn’t drink much of it because it tasted weird. But I felt really off that night. And one of my sorority sisters, Emma, said the same thing happened to her.”

“That’s so horrible. I think I might have had the same thing happen to me,” Lyric says, lowering her voice. “Do you know how I can get in touch with Emma? Maybe we can all look out for each other.”

Valencia nods, scribbling Emma’s number on a piece of paper. “Here, she’s usually pretty open about talking to people.”

“Thanks, Valencia,” Lyric says, giving her a reassuring smile. “We should definitely stick together.”

After a few more minutes of chatting, Lyric stands up and walks past us, subtly nodding. We follow her to a quieter part of campus.

“Did you get what you needed?” I ask, pulling her toward me.

“Yes,” Lyric replies, handing us Emma's number. “And it’s worse than we thought. The guy who ghosted Valencia might have spiked her drink. And Emma’s, too.”

Zane clenches his fists, anger flashing in his eyes. “We need to talk to Emma. If there’s a pattern, we can bring it to the administration and the authorities.”

Levi nods. “We’ll make sure they pay for what they’ve done.”

As we head off to find Emma, a surge of determination courses through me. We’re getting closer to uncovering the truth and with each step, we’re one step closer to making sure the Sigma Thetas can’t hurt anyone else.

Lyric approaches Emma later that day and it’s not hard to get her to open up about what happened. Emma reveals that after she was drugged, she woke up naked in Max’s room and my stomach sinks.

It’s worse than we thought. Emma admits that she was warned about the Sigma’s by her Big, but she didn’t believe her at first. Her Big, Amanda, is willing to talk to Lyric as well and soon enough, we find out that there’s a group of Sigma’s who have a history of drugging girls at their parties for non-consensual purposes.

It makes me sick, but the girls we speak with are willing to speak out with our backing. We take all our evidence, along with the testimonials, to the dean’s office the next morning.

The dean is reluctant at first, but with a few well-placed legal threats, he’s willing to hear us out. When we present the evidence to him, he agrees that the situation needs to be addressed.

It takes a few days of meetings and discussions, but in the end, the Sigma Theta fraternity is suspended for a year and is no longer allowed to participate in any Greek system activities. All members are kicked out of the frat house and made to find alternative housing.

And the best part is that Max, his cronies and all the participating members are expelled from the university following the investigation and are facing serious legal consequences.

It feels almost like a Pyrrhic victory, though, coming too late to save those girls from being assaulted. At least justice is finally being served.

We celebrate with pizza and a cram session. Finals are coming up and we sit around the table together, eating and taking turns quizzing each other.

Lyric glances up at me as she takes a bite of her food, a shy smile on her face. I feel so full to bursting with love for this woman. It was incredible of her to take on an entire fraternity, to watch her fight for justice for all those girls who were hurt by the Sigma’s.

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