Page 95 of That Pretty Pucking Mouth

I stare at my reflection in the window above the sink, seeing a stranger wearing my face. The girl who worried about midterms and boys and whether she’d get into graduate school is gone. In her place stands someone harder, sharper. Someone who can calculate the damage and plan accordingly.

“Where’s the card?” I ask.

Cassidy points to the kitchen counter with a trembling finger. Agent Sarah Martinez, Federal Bureau of Investigation. The name stares back at me in crisp black lettering, a death sentence disguised as a business card.

My phone buzzes against my thigh, pulling me from the spiral of implications. Thatcher’s name appears on the screen, followed by a message that makes my blood run cold: “Chamber. One hour. Time to become official.”

The timing can’t be a coincidence. Somehow, he already knows what’s happened. Somehow, he’s been expecting this.

I slide the phone back into my pocket and turn to face Cassidy, who’s watching me with growing concern. “Rhea? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

For a moment, I see her as she really is—my friend, my roommate, the girl who helped me move into this apartment andheld my hair when I had food poisoning freshman year. The girl who just destroyed my life while trying to save it.

“I need to go,” I say simply, my voice carrying none of the chaos raging inside me. “Don’t wait up.”

“But the FBI—”

“Yeah. I’ll handle it. Don’t worry, okay? You’re not in trouble. It’s going to be okay.”

The alternative is unthinkable.

When I descend the familiar stairs to the basement, what I find stops me cold.

The chamber has been transformed.

Candles line every surface, their flickering light casting dancing shadows on the concrete walls. The harsh fluorescent bulb has been replaced with something softer, more atmospheric. And instead of the usual casual clothes, every person in the room wears the same thing—black robes that pool around their feet like spilled ink.

It looks like a ritual. A ceremony. An induction.

I recognize faces in the candlelight—students I’ve passed on campus, guys I’ve seen at parties. The student body president stands near the far wall, his usual politician’s smile replaced by something more serious, more focused. The dean’s son hovers near the door, and I spot the football team’s quarterback closer to the center of the room.

These aren’t just random rich boys playing at being dangerous. These are the future leaders of universities, corporations, governments. And they’re all here, in this basement, wearing robes and waiting for something to begin.

Thatcher materializes at my elbow like a shadow given form, his hand warm and steady at the small of my back. He’s wearing robes too, the black fabric making his eyes appear almost luminous in the candlelight.

“Ready?” he murmurs against my ear, his breath sending shivers down my spine despite everything.

Before I can answer, Noah steps forward, commanding attention without saying a word. In his robes, he looks less like a college student and more like what he really is—the heir to something vast and dark and powerful.

“Tonight,” he begins, his voice carrying easily through the chamber, “we welcome a new member to our family. But first, she needs to understand what that means.”

His gaze finds mine across the room, steady and unblinking. “Complete loyalty to the Reapers. Any betrayal means death. What happens in the chamber stays in the chamber. We protect our own above all else.”

Each rule lands like a physical weight, pressing down on my shoulders, my chest, my lungs. This isn’t a game or a college prank. This is something real and binding and permanent.

“The FBI are asking questions,” Noah continues, and several faces around the room tighten with tension. “They’re building a timeline for Halloween night. So we’re going to give them one.”

A table appears from the shadows, rolled forward by two robed figures. Spread across its surface are photographs, documents, witness statements—a carefully constructed alternate reality laid out like pieces of a puzzle.

“Jack was heavily drinking all night,” Noah says, pointing to photos that show Jack stumbling between rooms, drink in hand. “Multiple witnesses will confirm this. He was hitting on several girls, getting increasingly aggressive as the night wore on.”

More photos—Jack’s hands on various girls, his face flushed with alcohol and aggression. I recognize some of the faces, remember seeing these interactions myself.

“Rhea spoke with him briefly but left the party early,” Noah continues, his finger moving to a timestamp. “Her roommatewill testify that she came home upset but uninjured around midnight. This gives her an alibi for the time of death.”

Cassidy’s testimony, twisted and shaped into exactly what they need. My best friend’s words, used as weapons in a war she doesn’t even know is being fought.

“Jack continued drinking alone in his room. He fell, hit his head on furniture, died from traumatic brain injury. No one was with him when it happened.” Noah’s voice is matter-of-fact, clinical. “Tragic accident. End of story.”

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