Page 12 of Make Me Lie (Rich Demons of Darkwood 1)

The Sphinx sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I'd seen something about it.

"Why aren't you freaking out about this?" Jenna demanded, coming to such a sudden halt that I almost ran into her.

I thought about faking it for a moment, but then decided against it. I was just not that good of an actress.

"What exactly is the Sphinx, and why is this a big deal?" I asked hesitantly.

She pointed behind frat row where I could kind of see some sort of enormous concrete structure hidden in the trees. "That's The Sphinx. It's the most exclusive secret society in the whole country, Aurora. Basically, every president, every famous athlete, every famous actor...they all were members there."

I squinted at the building, feeling the inane urge to go and check it out further. Secret societies weren't really my jam—thanks to The Demon of course—but now that she was talking about it, I remembered reading about the secret societies here when I was doing research on schools.

"Do you know anyone who's a member of it?" I asked as Jenna began to pull me towards our dorm once again. "Or is it really a secret?"

"Well, it's pretty easy to guess who's a member there. I mean, just take a look at the uber popular kids and you can guess. But they do pretend to keep it secret, at least until graduation. On graduation day, the graduating members carry a special cane with a sphinx on top of it up on stage with them, so everyone knows how special they are." She muttered ‘special’ reverently, and I had to hold in a snort.

"Oh! And they have the biggest water bill in the state, and no one knows why," she explained excitedly.

We got to the outside of the dorm building and Jenna swiped her card to get us through the door. She was a woman on a mission as she raced down the hall almost desperately.

"How exactly does a secret society host a party with the football frat?" I asked as we burst through our room door and she made a beeline for her closet.

"They donate money," she said, like I was the biggest idiot on the planet. "But more than anything, it meanstheywill be there." She stared into space dreamily.

It said a lot that I'd only been at this school for a little bit and I already knew who thetheywere that she was talking about. And knowing whotheywere had me debating if I could fake a quick stomach flu to get out of the party.

"Are you sure they'll let us in?" I asked hopefully. I mean, we were freshman, and there had to be some exclusivity to a party like that, right? I couldn't imagine the frat hosting the entire college at the party.

"That's just it, though. It was the craziest thing that's ever happened in my life. I was standing in the hallway, talking to one of the girls in my psych class, and Stellan stopped and said hi to us. And then he specifically asked if we were planning on coming tonight and told me to bring a friend!" She began to throw dresses out of the closet furiously. "I still can't get over it."

“Are you sure you want to bring me?” I asked, still bothered by how she reacted this morning.

“Of course! We’re roomies, it’s only a matter of time until we’re besties too.”

Now I was definitely thinking of getting the stomach flu. It couldn't be a coincidence that he was asking my roommate if she was coming to the party tonight. While a small, small part of me was a little bit hopeful that he just thought I was hot or something like that, The Demon didn't raise idiots. He was trying to get close to me, and I didn't understand why.

"I'm not feeling that good," I told her, trying to sound at least a little bit pathetic. But like I said, I wasn't a good actress.

Jenna froze and then turned around to stare at me, a determined gleam in her eyes. "You are going to get your cute butt into a hot dress, and you are going to this party. I don't care if you need your appendix out, you can get it out afterwards."

She was honestly a little bit scary right then, and I nodded reluctantly, eliciting a sudden reappearance of her sunny smile.

"Go find a cute dress," she ordered. I sighed and walked towards my closet like the grim reaper himself was hiding in there.

First college party, here I come.

* * *

Loud music was blaringfrom the house in front of us, and I shifted nervously in my chucks. Jenna had almost thrown a fit when I'd pulled them on with my little black party dress, but I couldn't run away from a murderer in high heels.

I'd learned that lesson from The Demon too.

"We could still go home and watch reruns of Vampire Diaries," I whispered to Jenna frantically. Her arm was linked through mine, and I could feel her body trembling with excitement.

"You'd better be joking," she murmured as her friend, aptly nicknamed Cissy, giggled next to her.

What seemed like a monsoon of college students—mostly girls—made their way to the double front doors of the frat house. There were two beefy guys standing with clipboards at the door. Every person was stopped as the guys checked to see if their name was on the list. We watched as three girls ran away from the door in tears, clearly having not made the cut.

"Are you sure we're on the list?" asked Cissy, nervously.

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