Page 58 of Vengeful

The twins said something about tossing a couple of bodies in the dam. I grimaced, dropped the bone and went on searching.A few moments later I touched something metal. A thick, metal ring. I hooked my fingers around it and drew it up out of the mud and water.

A key dangled from the end of the ring.

"Lila for the win," Shannon said. "Can you try that on your handcuffs?"

I rolled the ring around, trying to grab the key, but it kept falling back to the bottom.

After several tries, I finally managed to grab the key, but no matter which way I twisted my wrists, I couldn't get it into the lock.

"Fuck. I don't think so."

"If you unlock mine, I promise to stick around and unlock yours," Shannon said.

I looked over to her. I hesitated for at least a minute or two. In the end, I came to the only conclusion that made sense. What choice did I have but to trust that she'd keep her promise?

"Turn around." It was awkward as fuck, but I managed to find the lock of her handcuffs and wiggled the end of the key inside. "It won't go. Ronnie?"

"I’ll make the same promise as Shannon did." She turned her back to me.

I tried again, but once more, the key wouldn't go into the lock.

"Try on mine." I managed to hand the key over to Ronnie.

I stood still and waited.

"Son of a fucking— Oh." Ronnie sounded surprised. The handcuffs fell off my wrists and landed in the dam with a pop. "That worked."

"I'm going to take a wild guess that every pair of handcuffs has a different key," I said. Of course they did, there was no way the Academy would make it that easy. On the other hand, if therewas only one key, we could have taken off with it, leaving the other students in their cuffs.

Both women looked at me speculatively. I hadn't made any promises, but I bobbed back down in the water, both hands out, searching for more rings.

"You're sticking around?" Shannon looked surprised, with a hint of scepticism but, at the same time, relief. Finding her key would do her no good if we left her here with it. She'd either have to walk around cuffed or wait for another student to come and hope like hell they'd help her.

Strange, I couldn't remember the twins saying anything about working together. Although, they wouldn't have, because working together came naturally to them. They wouldn't have given it a second thought. What about Slade though? That was a question for later.

"I might find your keys for you," I said. "But also, no one said what we could do with the other keys we find." I glanced up and smiled briefly.

"That is sneaky as shit." Shannon grinned. "I like it."

We all felt around for a while before I found several rings and keys in the same place, along with more bones and what felt like a skull. I did my best not to think about it too much. Killing people was one thing, finding their remains was another. Even if they deserved it.

I tried the keys in Shannon and Ronnie's locks before finally finding the two that unlocked their cuffs. The other five or six, I shoved into the back pocket of my jeans, leaving plenty more to be found.

Ours, we all threw back in, to confuse any of the other students if they figured out where the keys were hidden. Judging by the sound of returning voices, some already had.

"Let's get out of here," Shannon said, a smug grin on her face. Why shouldn’t she be smug, we'd figured out something the others hadn't.

I glanced down at my watch and pressed on the compass app.

"The really good news is north isn't the way they're going." I nodded past the big shed. "It's that way." Sooner or later the rest would figure that out and be forced to turn around. Hopefully by then, we'd have found the beach.

I slogged out of the dam, waterlogged as hell, but satisfied we’d passed the first test.

Slade looked me up and down, drenched to the skin, my clothes leaving nothing to the imagination. He grinned.

I rolled my eyes and stomped past him, heading north.

CHAPTER 21

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