Page 66 of Forget Me Twice

Zoe’s eyes begin to flutter and a low, retching sound reverberates from the bottom of her throat. Still holding her nostrils closed, I lean that wrist down against the towel to prevent her from expelling it by reflex, and then use my free hand to apply more pressure to her vagus nerve.

It has the desired effect of calming the rising flight-or-flight response of her body’s struggle for oxygen, and soon enough Zoe’s shoulders drop back to the floor. She’s fully unconscious.

My heart thrums like a hummingbird. It’s lunch time, so the chances of any one coming into the locker room now are slim. But they aren’t zero. I strain my hearing, desperate to catch any new movements. I won’t be taken by surprise a second time.

Miraculously, we remain alone.

The wait is grueling, but after I count out a generous ten minutes—more than enough to ensure brain death—I ease back, checking Zoe’s pulse as I retract the towel. She’s gone.

Standing up, I groan, stretching and rolling the aching muscles in my back and shoulders. Pins and needles prick along my extremities. I must have been tensed up like a coiled spring the entire time I was crouched. Ready to pounce on the next intruder.

When I’ve got all the feeling back in my fingers, I kneel back down, scooping one hand behind Zoe’s head and placing the other beneath her jaw. Then I take a deep breath in and hold. On the exhale, I yank up and to the side quickly. There’s a quiet crunch as I adjust her neck to sit at an unnatural angle.

That alone wouldn’t have been enough to incapacitate her, but after I leave her slumped against the back corner of the stall and under the water with a wayward sandal next to her—the final effect looks like an unfortunate slip-and-fall.

Satisfied, I gather up everything I brought with me into the shower and start rushing through getting dressed. My hair and makeup is going to be the bare fucking minimum I can manage so I don’t look like a drowned rat that’s scurrying away from the scene of a homicide.

As I’m running some mascara along my lashes, I prop my phone against one shoulder and press the fourth person on my speed dial.

“Hello?” Foster’s sullen tone filters into my ear. Over the line I can hear the frantic clicks of his keyboard and the gentle hum of a room full of electronics. There’s no way of telling what I’ve interrupted. He could have been eating, gaming, jacking off or staring at the wall for all I know. He always sounds like a dollar store Eeyore no matter what he’s been up to.

“Hey man, I’ll need you to do a wipe of cameras 26, 27 and 28 for the thirty minutes either side of this timestamp.” I don’t need to elaborate; I’m his only surveillance job right now and he knows by watching my phone’s tracker that I’m still at Rox Academy. I also can’t risk being overheard so I promptly hang up.

Just as I finish packing up the rest of my makeup, my cell buzzes in my hand. I frown when I seeDionysusflashing on the screen.

Dionysus…?

Oh.

I remember now.

Sometime during our early Sunday morning sexting—while I was undoubtedly still off my face—I had spilled the beans to Rhett about my Pantheon concept for the Rox Boys.

Rhett being Rhett wasgreatlyamused that my“budding harem had matching nicknames”, and then proceeded to pout at length until I agreed to assign him a likewise alias.

Dubbing him the God of Pleasure and Madness was only natural. In fact, now that I think about it—I can't believe it’s taken me this long.

As a result of that conversation, he’s now also taken to calling JaxDaddy Zeus.

Not gonna lie, I’m totally fucking here for it.

“Dioooo, what’s good?” If he’s calling me in the middle of the day, he’s no doubt on brand for sowing some discord.

“What am I supposed to callyounow? Aphrodite?”

I scrunched up my nose. That was too basic. “Fuck if I know. What’s going on?”

Dionysus blows out a breath directly into the receiver and I brace myself. It’s never good if he’s hesitating.

“Dominic’s on campus. We just clocked him on the cameras outside your dorm building while we were getting ready for the wipe. Which, by the way—the fuck kind of mess have you gotten yourself into now, Ms Winters?”

I let out a long tortured groan, catching myself before I manage to wipe a hand down my face and mess up my freshly applied makeup.

Perfect. Gray Man bullshit in the flesh after I’ve just thrown a chum bucket into the Roxborough Academy waters.

The skin across my temples seems to pull ever tighter as my live-in headache throbs savagely. There are no cameras in the locker rooms for obvious privacy reasons, but it won’t be long before Zoe’s found and they’ll put two and two together.

Doesn’t mean I wanted to make it easier for him andopenlyadmit to my massive fuck up.

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