Page 39 of Cruel Legacy

“Oh, no.” She shakes her head hard enough to make her ponytail swing. “It’s a campus wide shut down. There’s an official changing of the guard. The week leading up to it, the fraternities and sororities battle it out in some kind of prank war. At the end of it, new leadership gets inducted and then it all culminates in Mayhem Night. The next day is when we find out who the new members are. The fraternities and societies will be doing the craziest shit to… well, I have no idea what they do, because nobody’s ever gone deep enough into the woods to find out.”

“Too afraid of the dark?”

“Too afraid of not coming back out, the same way you went in.”

I laugh at her answer. “That sounds like something you hear when people are telling bullshit ghost stories.”

Her eyes widen as she chews her thumb nail. “I guess, but my cousin said two years ago, this couple snuck out and followed a group from the Ironside to see what pranks they were pulling and came back all bruised and bloodied. The couple broke up, and the boyfriend left school, because of whatever happened.”

“What do people think happened?”

“It depends on who you ask. Some people say it was a fight club type thing, others say he was tortured. Whatever it was, he never talked about it.”

“And this girl? What happened to her?”

“She got shipped off to an institution in a catatonic state. I’m telling you, Thea, whatever happens on Mayhem Night is bad. So unless you’re invited, you can’t even leave the dorms.”

“You’re telling me the school just lets these clubs terrorize people and have run of the campus?”

“Yes, as long as it doesn’t spill over to the admin buildings and destroy any property. The frat houses and sororities are all technically off of school grounds and the woods are like neutral zones. They can do whatever they want in those areas on Mayhem Night.”

“And nobody tries to crash any of this?”

She hands the flyer back. “That’s right. There are smaller events leading up to Mayhem Night. Anyone can attend those, but this last night, the only people participating are members, alumni, and special invites.”

I crumple up the flyer and toss it into the trash on our way out of the building.

She turns to look where I threw it. “You didn’t want to keep that? The other events were listed on the back of the paper.”

“Nope, I’m good. I’ll leave all these club activities to the social types. I prefer to just chill and do my own thing. Clubs and organized circle jerks aren’t for me.”

She’s quiet and has what I call her thinking face on. That thinking face means she’s trying to convince herself to say something that might be taken as controversial. For LJ, controversial is her disagreeing with anyone. She sucks at it, which is why I love to encourage her to do it.

“How do you feel about these clubs?”

“I think they could be fun. At least it looks like they have fun when pledge season is over, but I won’t get invited to join, so it doesn’t matter.”

“You mentioned before that it was an application process.”

“It is for most of them, but some are invite only.”

“And let me guess the invite only ones are the best ones?”

“They are, and the only way to even get your name out there is to show up to as many events and mixers as you can before the application phase ends. I still wouldn’t get picked, but it might be fun to see what happens, right?”

We’ve talked about this before. Her wanting to put herself out there more and I’ve agreed to go as her plus one, just until she makes more friends, or gets comfortable enough to go alone. “We can go to some of these things. Just tell me which one’s interest you.”

“Really?”

“Sure, and then we can do something I want to do.”

“Absolutely.”

I chuckle because she’s so eager. It’s cute and dangerous. “Lesson number two LJ,” I say, pushing her ahead of me on the path, “Never agree to something, without knowing all the details.”

* * *

I’m on my way back to the dorm, having just finished a quick after-dinner walk and my daily phone call with Sasha. I’m tucking my phone into my back pocket when I see one of the Coxsuckers over my shoulder.

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