Page 15 of Into The Darkness

“Did you just bring your daily schedule?” Beatrice asked as we stood in the hallway.

“Yeah?” What if we got to the party and I networked and found a peer in a similar class. I wanted to be able to exchange schedules if we needed to.

“You think you are going to need that at a college party?” Beatrice asked.

“You never know when you’ll need it.” I shrugged, and they looked between each other before erupting into a fit of giggles.

I rolled my eyes, then we headed out. Thankfully, once we got outside, it wasn’t raining, so we walked toward the edge of town behind campus, where the Den was situated.

The campus, with its sturdy stone buildings, had a somewhat eerie, quiet atmosphere. The few remaining raindrops that dripped from the buildings were the only sound as we trekked up toward the edge of town. As we made our way past the center of campus, the bars on the left side of Main Street came into view. They were crowded with students shivering while waiting for a seat in their favorite spot. It reminded me of a town my dad took us to when we were younger called Jackson Hole in Wyoming. Except Isles was full of college-aged students in the Pacific Northwest. The smell of pine trees and damp days filtered through my nose as we got closer to the tip of Isles.

It was at the edge of the forest, like our apartment but on the opposite side of campus. The Alphas was on the complete opposite side of town on top of a little rock formation that looked down on Isles.

It was almost like the Den was a house built into the forest, resembling a cave, which is likely how they got their name. As we approached, a slightly eerie and strange feeling came over me. My palms were immediately sweating, and if I had been in a movie, this would definitely be the part where everyone would scream and turn around. Yet, this newfound freedom kept propelling me forward with curiosity and the need to break free from the shackles my family long had on me.

Chapter five

Rounding the corner toward the Den, the thumping inside my chest was too much for me to handle. We’d all been quiet, too quiet, so I needed to fill the silence.

“Let’s say the rumors are true, then nothing can technically happen to us because this is still considered campus, right?” I asked Maddy, worried that somehow I would get looped into whatever situation her roommate did, if it was even true.

“Yeah, we are safe since this is technically still Isles.” She grabbed a flask from her purse, and Beatrice tossed back a gulp before handing it to me.

I was already tipsy. For someone who had never drank alcohol in my entire life, aside from the beer I sipped a few days ago, I was realizing what the road to drunkenness felt like. My legs were lax, my tongue was loose, and my mood was starting to shift from uptight and anxious to more relaxed.

“One more before we get to the door.” She pointed toward the Den, and I was flabbergasted. It was a black wooden house that, besides the crowd standing outside, was engulfed in a shroud of darkness. There were hundreds of girls in skimpy dresses shivering outside, with an array of masks.

“Wow.” I was impressed with what a crowd the Den had drawn. “Maybe I do need another one of these.” Grabbing the flask from Maddy’s hand, the anxiety crept back into my bones. I needed something to tamper it down, otherwise, I wouldn’t last more than five minutes inside.

I pulled the top of the flask off and gulped—once, twice, three times before Maddy pulled it out of my hand.

“Whoa there, buddy. That is enough for a first-timer!” she exclaimed, but Beatrice only encouraged my naughty behavior.

“Let her live,” she said.

“Yeah, lemme live.” I looped my hands into their arms and loved how I felt, like suddenly the world was no longer scary and I didn’t have to question everything in my brain. I was just . . . living in the moment, as cheesy as that sounded.

We walked toward the house where the bouncer told us to get to the back of the line.

“This doesn’t really seem like an invite-only event. It seems like half the female population on campus is here.” I pointed out.

“No. These parties draw crowds bigger than Isles. Lots of people from the city come down to take a peek at what is inside this frat,” Maddy informed us.

“What’s inside it?” Beatrice asked.

“I’ve only been here once, and most of the time, it’s just a big party, but the rumors about who is inside is what’s important.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Big time criminals and gangsters have been known to drop by. Don’t ask me why. I just love gossip.” We all broke out into a fit of giggles. If that wasn’t the truth, I didn’t know what was.

As we stood in the back of the line, we chatted about what the semester would look like for us and kept taking sips from Maddy’s flask.

“God, fuck this. We have been in line for a freaking hour,” I complained. I was exaggerating, but we hadn’t moved once.

“Go fix this problem,” Beatrice encouraged, and I side-eyed her.

“You know what?” I was on the verge of astonishing myself, as the words that spilled out defied the image of the good girl I had always maintained. The version of me from back home seemed to vanish upon arriving at Isles, replaced by this new, evolving persona. The girl who buried herself in books to escape was still me, but I was discovering a new piece of who I was becoming.

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