Page 82 of Kings & Corruption

“Not always groups,” Claire said, “but usually in pairs at least.”

“What about Emma?” I asked, practically holding my breath. “Did she come with someone?”

“The first two times she was with someone, a girl named… Nikki, I think? Brown hair, big blue eyes?”

“Nikki.” It was all I could manage to say. Because Nikki? Nikki had been my sister’s roommate at Bellepoint, and she’d sworn to the police she didn’t know a thing about Emma and Aventine.

Chapter36

Willa

Ithought about what Claire had said as I followed Rock through the woods the next night, my mind struggling to come up with a reason Nikki would have lied. I mean, yeah, Bellepoint had a curfew. As an all-girls college in the middle of nowhere, it was a no-brainer for them to have those kinds of rules in place, even if everyone knew they were broken on the regular.

But getting caught breaking curfew — something Emma had laughed off by saying everyone did it — didn’t seem like a good reason to lie to the police, especially when it came to something as big as your missing roommate.

“You okay?” Rock asked.

He’d stopped a few feet in front of me, his brow furrowed as he studied me in the residual glow of the flashlight on my phone.

“Fine, why?” I asked.

“Just checking. You haven’t said anything in a while.” He nodded at my phone. “Keep that light down.”

I pointed it at the ground. “Sorry.”

He’d told me I could use it to keep from tripping in the woods surrounding Aventine, but only if I kept it aimed at the ground so no one would see it.

He walked back toward me and used his thumb to rub gently at my cheek. “You’ve got a little dirt here.”

“Must have been from that branch that smacked me in the face a while back,” I said.

His hand was warm against my cheek, and I swam through his blue eyes while he rubbed, trying to ignore the spark that flared between my legs.

Orgasmic muscle memory, I guess.

We’d both worn black — I wasn’t an experienced criminal or anything, but it made sense in this scenario — and his black sweatshirt only made him look even more like a blond god.

I was glad I’d braided my long hair. In the darkness, it would have been like a beacon despite my black sweatshirt, jeans, and boots.

“No blood at least,” he murmured, dropping his hand.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem. Let’s keep going. We’re almost there.”

The trail was wider here than it had been when we first parked the car and stepped into the woods, and I fell into step beside him.

“Why is there a trail here?” I asked.

“No cameras,” he said.

I thought about my sister. Was this how she’d avoided being caught on camera when she was at Aventine? Had she accessed the campus through the woods?

The thought sank to my stomach like a stone. If the trail gave girls like Emma access to campus without being seen, it also gave anyone else a way to leave without being seen.

I tried to remember if the police had said anything about searching the trail but couldn’t. The days immediately following Emma’s disappearance were a blur of panic, police interviews, and phone calls from Bellepoint’s dean to my mom.

Another branch almost smacked me in the face, and my hand went up reflexively to swipe it away.

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