“You need to live through this,” he said. “You need to.”
And then he took a breath and bent over the first line.
The arm came out of nowhere, wrapped around his throat, and slammed him back into the wall opposite the vanity. Victor caught his balance and straightened in time to see Eli run his hand through several hundred dollars’ worth of coke, brushing it all into the sink.
“What the fuck?” Victor hissed, lunging for it. He wasn’t fast enough. Eli’s coke-dusted palm shoved him back again, pinned him to the wall, leaving a white print on the front of his black shirt.
“What the fuck?” parroted Eli with shocking calm. “What the fuck?”
“You weren’t supposed to be here.”
“You come to a party, people notice. Ellis texted me when you showed up. And then Max texts and tells me you’re buying out the coke. I’m not an idiot. What were you thinking?” His free hand grabbed the cell on the sink. He read the text. He made a sound like a laugh, but his fingers tightened around Victor’s collar as his other hand pitched the phone into the shower, where it broke into several pieces on impact.
“What if I hadn’t heard my phone?” He let go of him. “What then?”
“Then I’d be dead,” said Victor with feigned calm. His eyes drifted to the EpiPen. Eli’s attention followed. Before Victor could move, Eli grabbed the pen and drove it down into his own leg. A small gasp escaped his gritted teeth as the contents flooded his system, jarring his lungs and heart, but in moments he recovered.
“I’m only trying to protect you,” Eli said, casting the used cartridge aside.
“My hero,” growled Victor under his breath. “Now fuck off.”
Eli considered him. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
Victor stared past him to the sink, the edge still dusted with cocaine.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” he said, gesturing to his shirt, the sink, the phone. “I have to clean up.”
Eli didn’t move.
Victor’s cool eyes tracked up to meet his. “I’ve got nothing else on me.” And then, a ghost of a smile. “Frisk me if you want.”
Eli gave a cough of a laugh, but then his face sobered. “This isn’t the way to do it, Vic.”
“How do you know? Just because the ice worked doesn’t mean something else won’t—”
“I don’t mean the method. I mean alone.” He brought his coke-free hand to rest on Victor’s shoulder. “You can’t do this alone. So promise me you won’t.”
Victor held his gaze. “I won’t.”
Eli walked past him, into the bedroom.
“Five minutes,” he called as he left.
Victor listened to the party flood in as Eli opened the door, then cut out again when he slammed it behind him. Victor stepped up to the sink, and ran his hand along the surface. It came away white. His fingers curled into a fist, and hit the mirror. It cracked—one, long, perfect line down the middle—but didn’t shatter. Victor’s knuckles throbbed, and he ran them under the sink, reaching blindly for a towel as he wiped at the lingering powder. His fingers came across something, and a sudden shock of pain went up his hand. He recoiled, and turned to see a socket on the wall, a clumsy Post-it taped beside it that said Bad outlet do not touch seriously.
Someone had gone in with a red pen and added punctuation.
Victor frowned, his fingers tingling from the small jolt.
And then the moment froze. The air in his lungs, the water in the sink, the flurries just beyond the window in the other room. All of it froze, the way it had in the street last night with Eli, only it wasn’t Eli’s hand this time but Victor’s, burning faintly from the shock.
He had an idea. Retrieving the three pieces of his cell from the shower floor and fitting them back together, he typed in the message. Victor had promised he wouldn’t do it alone. And he wouldn’t. But he didn’t need Eli’s help either.
Save me, he texted, along with the address of the frat.
And then he hit Send.
XX
TWO DAYS AGO
THE ESQUIRE HOTEL
DOWN the hall and behind a door, Sydney Clarke lay curled in a nest of sheets. She’d listened to the sounds of Victor’s steps in the other room, slow and soft and even as dripping water. She’d heard the glass break, heard the sound of the tap running, and then again, the steps, drip drip drip. She’d heard Mitch, his heavy tread, the muffled conversation, only tones reaching her through the walls. She’d heard Mitch’s retreat down the hall. And then, quiet. The drip drip drip of Victor’s pacing replaced by an odd stillness.