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The robe didn’t reply, which was fine if a little rude. I gave them my middle finger behind their back, watching the cloaked jerk stride across the room to grab Mason Lindgren’s shoulders like they were about to hug. Instead, my heart jumped against my ribs when more hooded figures emerged from the many doorways that connected this room to the rest of the house. There were five of them now, every one I’d seen tonight gathered in one room.
“Honey,” I called in warning, my heartbeat tripling for a reason I wasn’t entirely sure of. But I’d seen enough horror films to know how this ended, and I wasn’t keen to stick around for whatever fucked up initiation was about to play out. Clearly Ford was one of those universities where animal sacrifice and chanting was all the rage, but I was going to pass.
I skirted the group of robed figures and made a beeline for Honey.
“Weird shit,” I told her, grabbing Alastor’s shoulder and pulling him off my friend.
“What the fuck?” he spat, a mean look crossing his face.
“Creepy fucking cult.” I pointed emphatically and grabbed Honey’s arm, heaving her off the sofa and wincing when she swayed into me. Goosebumps covered my arms when Lindgren’s wailing cut off suddenly, replaced by a low, repetitive chanting. “We’re going,” I told my friend, “say goodbye to Carmichael.”
“Bye, babe,” Honey said agreeably, batting her lashes at Alastor.
I hurried us towards the door, but before we could reach it—or before the three other people sober enough to realise this was about to be an initiation of fucked up proportions could get there, too—every door slammed shut.
The chants rose in volume.
Fuck. Was I completely pissed, or was blood dripping down the walls?
“Honey, tell me you see that,” I whispered, going cold all over. We hovered, frozen as I panicked, processing the fact the doors had closed on their own.
“What the fuck?” someone shouted, loud with both inebriation and panic. “The walls are bleeding.”
Great. Wonderful. I wasn’t hallucinating. The walls really were overflowing with thick, viscous blood, dripping from the ceiling towards us.
Cold sluiced down my back as I stared around the room, my arms trembling where I gripped Honey desperately tight. In the middle of the room, a red circle burned itself into the parquet floor, not just branding the wood but flickering higher. Flames. This was so much worse than an initiation.
How were they doing this? It had to be SFX. Was someone’s parent working on a film set, and they’d stolen supplies? How were the walls bleeding?
I took another step back, unable to stifle a whimper when the coffee table erupted in fire. One moment it was fine, the next it was ablaze, no flame bar visible. Like it was … like it was magic. But magic didn’t exist. Bleeding walls didn’t exist. This was a huge, elaborate prank. It had to be.
Sprawled out on the expensive rug next to the coffee table, his eyes wide and face tight in horror, was Mason Lindgren. He looked ten years older. Looked petrified, his skin bleached with terror. What had he seen? What had the robed figures done?
“What are you doing to him?” someone else yelled—Rone, whose room was across the hall from mine, and whose name was emphatically not Rhona. My eyes shot to her now as she lurched forward dressed as a sexy pirate, anger in her eyes. “Hey, cult assholes. What the fuck are you doing—”
She fell back with a cry when one of the robed figures reached out a single pale fingertip to her. Rone splayed against the unlit fireplace with her hand pressed to her head and horror flashing through her eyes.
“Stop,” she panted. “Please stop. I’m sorry, fuck, don’t—don’t do this—”
I tightened my grip on Honey who was too drunk to understand how screwed we were, and spun for the door. There were already people there, wrenching on the handle. As I watched, Duncan Ford hauled himself into it, shoulder first, but it held fast. Whoever closed it must be outside, making sure it remained locked. Even though all the doors had slammed shut at the same time. There had to be a rational explanation for this. It was a prank. It wasn’t—
We all flinched, drunk, sober, and everything in between, when Mason began to scream.
CHAPTER EIGHT
CAT
There were five robed psychopaths and twenty one of us in the room, but any hope of fighting the bastards died with whatever they did to make Rone and Lindgren scream. It was horrific, their screams high and piercing, reaching right into my chest and making my heart skip. Behind us, Duncan Ford threw himself at the door, over and over, his desperation mounting.
“Now, listen here!” his cousin said, staring towards the five cloaks arranged in a circle around the fiery circle burning the rug—and Mason in the middle of it, screaming harrowingly, his eyes staring at nothing.
A different robed figure lifted a hand, pointing a tanned finger at Orwell as he strode at them with a shocking amount of purpose for someone dressed as the aubergine emoji.1 I could have sworn I could see straight through the cloak to the bay window, but in another blink they were solid. A stunned hush fell over the room when Orwell dropped to his knees with a blood-curdling scream.
“Orly!” Ford yelled, vaulting across the room to his cousin’s side, and glaring murderously at the robed figures who resumed their chanting, this time fiercer, louder.
“We have to find a way out of here,” I whispered to Honey. Duncan glanced up, hearing me, and a strange understanding passed between us. We likely hated each other, but right now we were two of very few sober-ish people in the room, which made us allies. “This is your fucking party,” I hissed at him.
“Not this.” His handsome face was contorted in anger—and fear, barely concealed beneath. “Come on, Orly, get up.” He hooked his hands under his cousin’s arms but Orwell threw his head back and screamed louder.
