They won’t.
“I mean, God, we still don’t know who left those notes.” Her words are liquor-loose. “Somebody fucking threatens us, and Malcolm shows up with half the school. He’s fucked if someone tries to push me off a damn roof.”
“Fuck their threats,” I say. “We’re untouchable.”
She narrows her eyes at me over her glass. She says, “You’re too fucking fearless for your own good.” Then she laughs loud and the sound scatters up to the high ceiling.
But she doesn’t feel the threat tonight. Not with every drink I’ve poured for her. Not with scared-stupid Duffy even drunker than she is, clumsy and eager with his hands roaming every inch of her. They’re not thinking about why we’re here anymore. They’re not worrying that one of us talked, one of us told—
—one of us meant it when we asked who was next.
When the clock strikes one, one cold clang ringing out from above us, they’re already fading. Lilia is upstairs. Duncan had Banks carry her up while her eyelids dragged shut and she slurred about one more drink. Malcolm and his boys are passed out in the game room with the flock-girls curled next to them and the screen blinking GAME OVER. Porter slouches twitching at the front door with his eyes on the night.
I’ve turned the lights out, one by one. An hour ago the house blazed fire-bright. Now it glows dim.
No one has noticed the darkness creeping in.
We sit at the long dining room table under a half-lit chandelier. The lights hang through a cluster of bleached-white antlers that aim sharp points to the darkest corners of the room. Duffy and Banks share a joint and the smoke hazes the air. The music stopped half an hour ago.
“Truth or dare,” says Piper. Her voice sticks to itself. Duffy’s face is lost against her neck.
Banks laughs and blows smoke. “Girls,” he says. “Damn.”
“Truth,” says Duncan from the head of the table.
Piper is bird-eyes and sharp words. Her hand digs into Duffy’s hair. She says, “Who’s next?”
Duncan’s teeth glitter in the low light. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
“You have to answer.”
He drinks. “Whoever made those signs is who’s next. Whoever ran their mouth.”
“Is that a promise?” Piper asks. Duffy’s lips move lower, to her collarbone, and her chin tips back.
Duncan sets down his glass. “You only get one question. My turn now.”
“Truth,” says Piper.
“Who did you tell?”
“Fuck you.”
Duncan doesn’t move. “Who did you tell?”
“Nobody.”
“Jesus,” says Banks. He takes another hit. “If you’re that fucked about it, go wake everybody up and walk them out on the roof and make them talk. God, you know how to kill a buzz.”
“Seconded,” I say, and I raise my glass.
“It’s not even your business,” says Piper. “You didn’t get a note. You weren’t at Dunc’s last week.”
“Piper.” Duncan’s eyes cut to me and back. “Don’t.”
“Like she doesn’t already know.” Piper pushes Duffy away. He blinks bleary-eyed and wipes his hand across his mouth.
Duncan’s face smooths over. “She’s drunk,” he tells Duffy. “Take her to bed.”
The room is already silent, but it goes quieter somehow. Piper laughs into the void. “I’m not one of your damn victims,” she spits.
Banks shifts forward in his seat. The wood creaks and the muscles in his arms shiver. Duncan glances at him, quick: Not yet.
“Truth or dare,” says Mack, finally not-mute. I can feel the nerves strung tight under the words, but his face doesn’t give anything away.
“Fuck,” says Banks. “Thank you. Dare.”
“Finish the bottle.” Mack pushes the tequila across the table.
“Fuck,” says Banks again. “Gladly. Here’s to forgetting this bitch of a game ever happened.” He knocks back the last inch of liquor. When he’s done he whoops and slams the bottle down and the crack splits the dark like lightning. “Who’s next?”
Duncan measures out a long look. “Careful,” he says. He catches me watching.
I don’t look away.
He tilts his chin again, the way he did when he had me cornered in the chapel and I still pushed back.
Banks laughs. “Mack’s the one who better be careful. Right, Dunc?”
Duncan’s eyes drop colder. He’s drunk enough that his polish is starting to chip away just enough to show who he is under it—
the boy he was one week ago when the door swung shut—
—the boy who gave the orders in the first place.
“Dare,” he says to Banks.
Banks knows what he really means. He laughs again anyway: almost bold enough to dazzle. “Drink up, captain,” he says, and he slides the vodka to Duncan.
Duncan grabs the bottle with one hand. Five long seconds tick out so loud I can hear them hanging over us. “Is that all you’ve got?”
“For now,” says Banks. He wants to fight, but he won’t. Not tonight.
“I thought you had more in you.” Duncan’s words sing against each other, metal on metal. He looks at me again. I sink back against Mack’s chest and run my hand down his arm until our fingers fold together.
Duncan drinks. When the bottle is empty, he holds it in front of him and spins it. The glass twinkles like charm and candlelight. He flips the bottle and catches the neck in one hand. For a second he’s a portrait of his good-king self, lit soft and raising his scepter.
He cracks the bottle down against the edge of the table. The glass explodes—
—ice and knives and dying-bright light.
“Fuck!” Banks shouts. He leaps up and swats the shards away. Two rooms over Porter yelps like a dog with his tail caught underfoot. Piper starts to whine and Duffy squeezes his hand against her arm so tight her whine turns into a pain-sharp cry.
Mack doesn’t move. Neither do I.
Duncan raises his scepter again. The broken edges gleam like teeth. “Who’s next?”
He said, Shut the bitch up. He said, We’d be power. He said, I’m sure.
But the clock ticking over his head is running down to zero. He’s dead already.
“Dare,” I say to Duncan.
His polish flakes away again. He’s too drunk to do anything about it. He’s the wolf from the white-sheets room and the rooftop.
He says, “Kiss me.”
“Fuck you, Dunc,” says Mack, sudden and angry. Banks laughs and flicks a sliver of glass across the table.
“Jade?” says Duncan. He’s a strange sideways version of his St Andrew’s self. Still all assurance and expectation, but bleeding thick truth from the cracks the liquor made.
“She won’t,” says Mack.
“She will,” says Duncan.
They watch, Mack and his king and the rest of them, hanging tight to every breath.
You’d like it, said Duncan, You like it—
I stand up. The room spins fast. Deadlocked antlers and broken glass. Liquor and weed and lust and hate. Mack says Jade, don’t, and Piper’s nervous starling laugh shatters like the bottle. Mack says it again—