Page 188 of Filthy Elites

“He’s good. Why do you think I backed him?”

His eyebrow arches. “You sure you didn’t help him out?”

I look up at him. “What? Why would you ask that?”

“I know he’s doing your homework. You’ve got a reason to keep him around.”

I pause, wondering how or when Knox figured that out. He answers before I have to ask.

“I saw him in your room doing it the other morning. I get you going easy on him for the extra perk.” His eyes flick over to the bar. “But you know it’s putting a target on him with Royer.”

“Trust me. I had nothing to do with him getting those bottles of whisky. That was all him and sheer ingenuity,” I reply. Showing weakness with any of these guys… well, it’s like showing your weakness to me. “He’s tough. He can take whatever’s tossed at him.”

Unless it exposes who orwhatTheo really is.

“See those girls over there?” I point to them and star tits waves back.

He grins over at them and offers his own small wave back. “They look fun.”

“They’re primed and ready for you.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.” I clap him on the back. “You’ve been busy all night tallying the score. Go for it.”

“Thanks, dude.” Knox gives me two thumbs up and heads over to the girls. They squeal when they see him—they love how big he is and the fact he’s a varsity athlete. Never fails.

Once he’s distracted, I go in the direction I last saw Reagan and wind back around to the parking lot. It’s dark, but there’s a car idling, lights on. I spot Reagan getting in the passenger seat and the outline of a guy getting in the front.

It’s one thing for her to talk to other goats or the freshman slags at the party.

But leaving with another guy?

That’s not happening.

NINETEEN

Reagan

“Thanks for helping me get her up here,” I say, pulling the quilt up to Janelle’s shoulders.

“You know I’m here to help. I’m just glad that you got to her in time.”

“Yeah, well, I hope she doesn’t remember the fact that I don’t have a penis.” It’s not my biggest concern about the night, but now that she’s safe in her bed, I can’t help but think about it.

Grayson crosses his arms over his chest, making his sweater taut across his shoulders. He looks down at Janelle. “I doubt she’s going to remember much. Make sure she drinks a lot of water when she gets up. She’ll have a killer headache.”

“You know a lot about this.” My tone is hard and sarcastic. “Is there some Zeta Sig starter pack on drugging and assaulting girls?”

“I won’t deny it’s part of the culture—one you and I are working hard to stop,” he says pointedly, but I notice the way he rubs the back of his neck. He’s uncomfortable. Good. He should be. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call the cops? We can blow this up now, even if you did turn the camera off.”

It’s another pointed statement. He asked me a dozen times why I turned the camera off. He wasn’t just frustrated; he seemed angry about it, even after I explained that it wasn’t fair to Janelle to show her incapacitated like that. He’s right. I know we should call the police and end this once and for all. There would be enough at the beach party to get them shut down. If we reported it now, the police would find drugs, alcohol, under-aged drinking, and a slew of other crimes, but something holds me back.

“I don’t want all the goa—the pledges to go down.” Again, I look at Janelle, dead to the world in her bed. “And I don’t want her to be involved unless she wants that.”

It’s a semi-valid excuse, but it’s not all that’s nagging at me. For some reason, I want to see this through. I want to witness Royer’s shock when he realizes I’m stronger than he thought.

Grayson looks down at Janelle and back to me, worry etched on his face. “Are you sure no one did anything to you?”

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