AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The choice feels like a message aimed solely at me. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
I nearly laughed out loud when Brady offered that five-minute head start. What a joke. Fairness has never been the point of the Gauntlet. We let most pledges think they were smart or fast enough to make it back on their own.
And we almost always catch the ones that we want to catch.
I was one of the few exceptions to that.
The seniors who led the Gauntlet in my freshman year hadn’t loved the idea of having a dark stain on their lily-white club. Regardless of my last name, I’d been one of the pledges they planned to catch and eliminate during the Gauntlet. It probably seemed easier than acknowledging their own biases.
They never intended for me to make it back to Havoc House.
Most of the time, getting caught during the Gauntlet just means a little roughing up before you’re kicked out. You might be tied to a tree and left outside during a snowstorm. Or maybe, you get beat to within an inch of your life and left to crawl back to campus on your own.
It didn’t quite work out the way they wanted it to with me.
Like always, the best defense is a good offense. The trick is not to think of yourself as the prey, even when you’re the one being chased. Someone hasn’t caught you if they’re writhing on the ground from a well-placed uppercut. Especially if you’re already gone by the time that the next person comes along.
Who is running and who is chasing gets more than a little confused in the dark.
Hopefully, Evangeline figures that out quickly if she wants to survive the night. There is no guarantee that I’ll be the one to get to her first. She was smart enough to take off in the same direction as the other pledges, which is good. Splitting off from the others would be a bad idea with the way Brady has it out for her.
Most of the guys have fanned out through the trees, hoping to flank any pledges who wander too far afield. I can only hope they stay scattered for long enough that I can get Evangeline out of here with no one seeing it.
I race ahead of everyone else, my legs falling into a natural rhythm after years of athletic performance.
Cole is very much out of breath as he jogs up to my side. “Someone is in a hurry.”
“I’d rather be back at the house than out here freezing my nuts off, wouldn’t you?”
“I think you’re hoping to get to her before anybody else does.”
“Why not?” I challenge, keeping my voice cold. “She’s been mine from the very beginning. Everyone knows that.”
His eyes flash in the dark. “And you really don’t think anyone will steal a piece of your candy if they get their hands on her first?”
A chill of awareness works its way down my spine. His words feel like a recognition and a warning, all wrapped up into one. “That include you?”
He blows out a hard rush of air. “I guess we’ll have to see when we catch up to her.”
A gap in the trees sends a shaft of moonlight to illuminate the trail ahead of us. But Cole is looking at me and not the ground in front of him.
His foot catches on the root that he doesn’t see until it’s too late.
“Watch out,” I say mildly as he hits the ground with a loud curse.
“Shit, that hurts.”
I glance back to see him struggle to his feet, nursing one of his knees. “I’ll try to remember to save you a piece.”
“Keep running, Van Koch.”
I surge forward with a laugh, hoping it sounds sinister and not anxious. That’s one down, but there are several dozen more to go.
Cole might be one of the few of us that can still be saved, but I probably won’t know for sure until it’s too late.
This was all his idea, but Brady didn’t take off running like the rest of us. Now that he’s one of the alumni, he has to act like he is above all this shit. Or maybe he doesn’t want to risk wrinkling his Armani suit.
But I know he has something planned and it won’t be good. I have to find Evangeline before he does.
