Page 63 of Martyr

“But the stables—”

“The stables at the stadium?” Grady took a step closer, seeming concerned. “Did something happen to you there? Is that,” he waved a finger at his own throat, “where that happened?”

Yes and no.

But that wasn’t important at the moment.

“I saw the shoes,” Nix said. “They were the same ones caught on the security footage.”

“Shoes?” Grady frowned.

“They were under your bed the last time.”

He stood and dropped down onto his knees, spotting what Nix was talking about. Grabbing them, he pulled them out and held them up. “These?”

“Yeah.”

“These were part of a club uniform last year,” Grady explained. “You can still find photos on the school website if you want to double-check. I’m not lying. Everyone in the intramural sports club was given a pair.”

Nix pursed his lips. He hadn’t noticed anyone else on campus wearing them so far, but then again, he also hadn’t started looking until recently.

“This year there’s a new design,” Grady continued. “Most people didn’t bother bringing the old ones, but I’m pretty partial to these, so I wear them whenever I work out. I’m not the only one. A ton of the guys use them for the same reason.”

Nix didn’t really spend any time at all at the gyms…

“How many people are there in the club?” he asked.

Grady grimaced. “Over fifty.”

And even if Nix went down the list, that wouldn’t help with students who’d graduated already. It wouldn’t be an issue if he was certain this was just a prank gone wrong by one of the Demons’ jealous fans, but there was a real chance it was the hacker—even if the guys wanted to rule that out.

“Wait, what were you admitting to if not that?” Nix asked.

“I put the fake rodent in your bag.”

That…made sense. Grady had friends in the art department, so it probably hadn’t been very hard for him to get his hands on. However, that didn’t explain everything else.

“What about these?” Nix pulled the chat log up on his multi-slate from the unknown number and turned so Grady could see the screen as he scrolled through them. There were only five in total, but that was still five too many, in his opinion.

“Those aren’t from me,” he promised. “My one and only offense was putting that thing in your bag. I thought maybe if you felt pressure from one of the Demons’ fans, you’d back off.”

“That was a dumb plan.”

“I know, I was wasted at the time, thank you very much. But that’s also why I haven’t done anything since. I definitely wouldn’t go through all the trouble of creating a fake number just to text you some creepy messages. As soon as I heard you’d been marked, I backed off. I sort of hoped it was consensual at the very least…” He stared at Nix. “It wasn’t, was it.”

“No.” He shut his device off and sighed, uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation.

“What are you going to do now?”

“About?”

“All of it?” Grady went to his bed and dropped down onto the springy mattress. “Man, look, I’m sorry about the prank, okay? We just got on really well, and I was hoping we could stay friends for the rest of the year. I didn’t want to see you get mixed up with the wrong crowd.”

“Thanks, grandpa,” he said, voice rife with sarcasm that had Grady snorting and laughing, some of the tension between them easing.

“You believe me, right?”

“Yeah.” They didn’t know each other that well, but Nix had found it strange that someone like Grady would take things that far to begin with. “Only, that means there’s someone else out there messing with me, and I have no clue who that could be.”

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