Page 206 of Filthy Elites

“Count to twenty and you can take off your blindfold. Follow the trail. Go off it, and it’ll be a long fucking night. There’s a pitstop halfway.” I’m not sure, but I swear I feel the ghost of fingertips graze the inside of wrist as they cut the binding. “Good luck, forty-seven.”

The voice and the person vanish, and while I rub my raw wrists, I count to twenty.

“Fourteen, fifteen…” I say it loud enough that there is no way they think I’m cheating. “Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.” I push off the blindfold and, although it’s pitch black, it’s clear that I’m in the woods. I look up and around, trying to acclimate my eyes to the natural light. Overhead, in the spots where the trees have thinned out a little, the moon is bright. Otherwise, I have no light, no flashlight, no lighter, no torch of any kind.

Fucking assholes.

Taking a deep breath, I start up the trail, navigating the uneven ground step-by-step. The incline is steep, rocky, and filled with roots and other obstructions. I trip over a thick root, landing on my knees and palms. “Son of a bitch,” I mumble, wiping my scraped and muddy hands on my thighs when I get back on my feet.

Throat parched and with sweat running down my back, I’m almost convinced that I’m lost when I see a flickering yellow light up ahead. It’s the first pit stop. I cry out in relief, picking up my pace until I reach the table. There’s water bottle and I lift it to my lips taking a huge swallow.

“Oh my god,” I say, gagging on the liquid. I spit half of it out. It smells and tastes like rubbing alcohol. 100% proof, I imagine. Royer obviously doesn’t care that the reason they’re in all this trouble is for this very thing. I spot a note on the table.True brotherhood is full of sacrifice, followed by reward.Drink the entire container and you can take the lantern with you.

Catching my breath, I consider it. Drunk in the woods or blind. Which is worse? Both seem suicidal, but my hands and knees are throbbing from the fall, and it’s taking twice as long for me to go without a light. I lift the bottle and wrinkle my nose, my stomach already rebelling from the idea. Slowly, I drink the rest of the grain alcohol. My stomach aches and my head feels woozy, but I take the final swallow.

“Halfway there,” I remind myself, grabbing the lantern off the tree branch. My first steps are wobbly, no better than if I’d been in the dark. I steady myself and try to clear my mind, taking the path one step at a time. I make it several yards before my stomach gurgles.

“Oh no.” I bend over and wrap an arm around my middle, desperately trying to hold it together. I fail miserably, falling to my knees retching up half the bottle, not making an attempt to move off the trail.

I become vaguely aware, as my skin turns clammy and my vision impairs and my body rejects the poison I’ve ingested, that I may become one of them. One of the recruits that dies during the gauntlet.

I’ll die out here of alcohol poisoning, dehydration and from the elements and it won’t be Theo Hart, but Reagan Lake. I’ll die as I lived; as a fool.

I yank off my pledge button and hold it to my face. “I don’t know if you can see me. I’m pretty sure you can’t hear me. But chances are I’m going to die out here, Grayson. Please don’t let them get away with it.”

Saying the words out loud is the motivation I need to continue forward. I drop the button and crawl the rest of the way to the top of the trail, dragging my body up on my hands and knees. I don’t know exactly know how I know that I’ve made it, other than the trees are no longer overhead. The moon is visible and I’m in a clearing, the surface is made of hard, smooth rock.

“Forty-seven!” a voice booms and I look around, searching for the source. A figure cloaked head to toe in black emerges from the darkness. His voice is muffled behind the mask. “Congratulations. You made it through the gauntlet.”

Other figures shift behind him, dressed the same. I rub my eyes, trying to get an exact count. One seems smaller than the others, and it’s still eerily quiet. Where are the other goats? Am I the first one up here? The last?

Someone strikes a match, and it glows nearby, building until it forms a roaring fire. The yellow-orange flame provides brighter light, and carefully, I lift myself off the ground. “Am I done?” I sway and grab my head. “Is it over?”

“Almost.”

The figures move toward me, each taking off their masks. The first is Royer, then Knox and Miller’s cut cheekbones, defined by the light. Rat shakes his head out, hair spiking in a dozen directions, grinning with amusement. I squint at the final person, and a wave of uneasiness rolls through my stomach when they finally reveal themselves. Andrea.

“Love what you’ve done with your hair,” she says, smug expression in place. “How much did it hurt to shave it all off, Reagan?”

The name, my name, hits as intended, like a punch to the gut. Royer reaches out for his girlfriend and kisses her on the top of her perfect blonde head. “You didn’t really think you’d get away with this, did you?” he asks. “That you could come into my house, a filthy loser, and make a run at taking me down?”

He laughs and Rat laughs with him. Miller and Knox… it hurts to look at them—especially Miller. I thought we had a deal. That we had something… bigger. The cold glint in his eyes tells me that once again, I’ve been manipulated by the best.

“They know I’m here,” I blurt. “The council is the one that put me up to this. That wanted me to bring you down. They know where I am.”

“You mean Grayson Pierce?” Miller asks. His voice is so calm. Scary. Knowing. “Have you learned nothing this week, kitten? Once a Zeta Sig, always a Zeta Sig. Grayson is a brother. You really think he’d turn traitor?”

That I didn’t expect and my stomach drops, like I’ve just been pushed off a cliff. I didn’t just get manipulated by these people once. It’s happened over and over. And like a fool, I keep walking back into it. My desperation and need to fit in, to reach this rung on the social ladder, has turned me into something unidentifiable. Something pathetic and gullible.

“I won’t say anything. If Grayson isn’t working with me,” ouch, that hurts to say more than I expected, “then what’s the point? No one will believe me. You’re right. I’m a loser. Petty and stupid. I’ll leave Whittmore. You’ll never see or hear from me again. I’ll become a ghost.”

Royer pulls himself away from Andrea and walks toward me. “That’s a little too late, Reagan. Unfortunately, since you didn’t slink home like you were supposed to after being blacklisted, there’s only one way this is going to end.” A soft breeze blows, and I get a waft of his scent. His expensive, vile, cologne. I swallow back the rising bile in my throat as he approaches. “You’re not coming back down this mountain.”

“W-w-what does that mean?”

“It means that when I’m through with you, you’re going to kill yourself. You’re going to write a note, slit your wrists and put yourself and everyone you know out of the misery of having known you.”

My eyes dart to Miller’s, pleading. Hopeful. His stare back is like looking into a void. Whatever we’d shared, no matter how many times he saved me, that man is gone. He’s replaced with the Miller that hurts and takes for his own pleasure. With a sinking, desperate feeling, I turn to Knox, but he only watches Royer, too indifferent to spare me a glance.

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