Page 17 of They're Watching You

“I guess congratulations are in order.” He extends a hand.

“You too.” I shake his hand, finding it astonishingly warm compared to my frigid one.

“And thanks for what you did back there.”

“What else was I going to do? Point to the green one and let the color-blind kid ingest lung-melting poison?”

Stunned, he chokes out a laugh. He places a hand on my back, using his sturdy frame to help steer me through the others. “It’s all pretty bizarre, huh?”

“Thank you for noticing!” I glance behind us, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I felt like I was on some prank show the entire night.”

“It’s definitely odd. But I guess…worth it, right?”

“You’ve been wanting to take up acting?”

He laughs. “No, but my dad was a member, and he credits the society with all of his career success. According to him, every Ivy League school has a member on its board. As long as we make it to Minor Supreme, we’re pretty much guaranteed a place wherever we want to go. And if we make it to Majors”—he shrugs—“the sky’s the limit.”

I guess that’s why someone like Remington Cruz would want to get into the society. And it explains why someone as brilliant and lazy as Gavin Holt would use a secret society to cut corners. But it doesn’t explain why Polly joined. She wasn’t seduced by pomp or flash. Her giving up Europe was proof of that.

Unless I was only fooling myself, believing she’d changed from that person she was in middle school because of me. Maybe Annabelle was right. Maybe the money—the dreams of Hollywood and camera lights—became an obsession she was willing to risk everything for.

We reach the staircase, and Remington motions for me to go first. I scramble up, conscious again of my dress dangling open as he waits below. I grapple with it, attempting to cinch it tight, and my face heats despite the chilly air.

Up on the ground floor, I lean down to inspect my battered feet. “Well played,” comes a low voice behind me that isn’t Remington’s.

“You are dead,” I snap, spinning on Gavin.

“Shhh.” He leans closer, and it takes everything in me not to shove him. “Would you just calm down?” Beneath the moonlight that pours in through the empty windows, he lifts his hands in an act of passivity. Slower this time, he nears me, his warm breath tickling my neck as he whispers into my ear, “You can’t let it slip that I told you about the Gamemaster.”

I jerk away, too mad to think. I stride toward the towering ladder, but he grabs my wrist and pulls me along in the opposite direction. Remington and a few others dot the wall ahead, ducking under a section that hinges like a flap. Must be the members’ entrance.

When we reach the wall, Gavin lifts the flap, holding it while I crawl through. Outside, black figures shift through the night and break off toward various dormitories. I slink over the cobblestone, trying to ditch Gavin—my heels are still on the far side of the cathedral—but he catches up to me, reaching for my arm again. “Maren, I’m sorry, okay?” he hisses. “But I did break the cardinal rule just by telling you how to get an invitation.”

“Tell me about these levels.”

“Stations,” he corrects, and I dart him a murderous glare. “Sorry. There are five. First, Initiates.” He makes a grand gesture toward me and I kick him in the ankle. “Minor Supreme is the second station,” he says, hopping momentarily on one foot. “Then there’s Medi Supreme, Major Supreme, and Gamemaster. You usually move up by winning select competitions.”

“And what do the stations mean?”

“Initiate just means you’re in. But Minor Supreme means you’ve proven yourself. You get to call upon the society for favors.”

“Like Gianna and the prison thing?”

“Possibly.”

“Like the numerous explosions that have magically gone unnoticed by the school?”

Gavin bites his lower lip and makes to turn onto the grass of the Commons, but he stops, thrusting a hand out in front of me. Before I can sock him in the arm, he turns, raising an index finger to his mouth.

I listen until the sound of footsteps on cement reaches my ears. A low hum follows. A few yards away, a security guard is pacing the grounds by the vending machines along the side of the cement quad.

Gavin grabs my hand and lightly tugs me back the way we came. “We’ll have to go around the pond,” he whispers.

I nod, even though the idea of trekking all the way around Mills Pond makes my tired head hurt. I shake off Gavin’s hand, trying to play back his words about Minor Supremes, and my mind flashes to Polly the day she was called into the headmistress’s office. Maybe something happened. Something she later needed to call in a favor for. “What do you know about Polly?”

Gavin shrugs. “Every year we have two initiations, fall and spring. Each one has a tournament. Back in the fall, Polly was quite a competitor, one of Annabelle’s favorites.” Our feet squelch along the muddy bank, and Gavin takes a route straight through the tall grass and hedges. “But she couldn’t hack it.”

“Meaning she didn’t want to compete in potentially life-threatening games anymore?”

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