Page 45 of Serpentine Valentine
She went on in hushed, excited tones. “They’re this vigilante group on campus. It was the Man Eaters who outed Jerrod Ericht.”
“A lot of good that did,” I muttered darkly.
Bryn winced in agreement. “Yeah, he should have been expelled or prosecuted. That’s one of the reasons Mom wants to write this article. It’s important. After I told her about you last year, she’s been keeping an eye on things here. What the Man Eaters did…it still had an effect. People are talking on campus, watching out for predators, banging on locked closets looking for skeletons. They’ve shaken things up. And yeah, Jerrod is walking free, but he won’t get rid of the massive stain on his reputation. My roommate told me he’s been banned from parties on Greek Row.”
A spark of satisfaction flickered in my dark heart and died.
It wasn’t enough.
Bryn read the malcontent in my expression and nodded. “I know, it’s not enough. That’s why I agreed to talk to you for Mom. What’s going on here…what’s being hushed up? It’s not right, Lex. You, more than most people, know that. I’m just asking you to help do something about it.”
I stared at her, my tongue playing over the ridge of scar tissue through my bottom lip.
She didn’t know what I was already doing to help. What I had planned for that very night. How Shakespearean that I’d asked a girl on a date as an alibi only to have her want revenge against the very same people I was hunting.
But an exposé wasn’t enough.
A local reporter or two had approached me after I’d been suspended following Halloween last year, but they were ineffectual, small-fry fish in an ocean that would drown whatever they tried to say. It hadn’t been tempting then, not in the tsunami crest of helpless rage I’d felt. It still wasn’t enough to satisfy the dark hunger in me to see predatory men suffer and bleed for their crimes against us.
But it was intriguing.
A small voice that sounded a little like Luna’s whispered in my ear that it was therightchoice, at least morally speaking.
I didn’t give a fuck about morals. Not everything could be so easily slotted in black or white boxes.
The written word couldn’t exorcise the predator demon that haunted me since that night in Morgan’s office and never would.
But maybe that wasn’t the point.
I could punish these men all I wanted with my fists and my ire but I was just one (very angry) woman. Quinn Harper could reach the masses so that no one would ever go blindly into Professor Morgan’s clutches ever again. So that the way President Mina Pallas had sold her soul for academic and financial gain would be highlighted for all to see.
As far as revenge plots went, it was a good angle.
On the other hand, it also compromised what I was doing with my sisters. I’d be the obvious suspect for the hate crimes the Man Eaters committed. Professor Morgan would be more careful, even more insidious than before, and Mina would bury her bad deeds six feet beneath the earth.
And I couldn’t afford to give up my crusade, not when I was just starting. It wasn’t just about appeasing the monster I’d become. My hunger for male pain and humiliation as an antidote for my own. It was about dragging them out from under the beds of innocent women on campus who had, could, and did fall victim to them in the shadows. Iknew I was nothing but darkness, the last of my light snuffed out as I’d lain in the forest on November 1st, but at least I could hunt other creatures in the gloom. At least I could shed light on those dark corners so other girls wouldn’t stumble into them as unknowingly as I had.
“I don’t think so,” I said slowly. “No one believed me before, so I have no reason that would change, even if your mother was the one telling my truth.”
Bryn sighed and reached across the table to touch the back of my hand. When I pulled it away automatically and hid it beneath the table, her gaze softened with sympathy that made my empty chest burn.
“Just think about it, okay? I know I’m biased, but my mom has done a lot of good with circumstances like these, and I think she could make a real difference here. When she and my mama were young, they faced a lot of discrimination and hate crimes. She wouldn’t pressure or paint you like a victim, if that’s what you’re worried about. Acheron is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the country, but what does that matter if female students don’t feel safe here?”
A-fucking-men, I thought, liking Bryn even more than I thought I would.
Maybe, if I hadn’t set out to seduce Luna Pallas, hadn’t seen the play of autumnal light in her sunset gold hair and seen the tenderness of her good heart at play, I would have asked Bryn out for real. As it was, I was so tied up in knots about Luna, I couldn’t even begin to imagine dating someone else.
I’d lost the plot around Luna the moment she showed up at my house, valiant in the face of her curiosity, eager to know about a girl most people were eager to fear and hate.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I knew without looking it would be a text from Juno.
My cue to leave.
It was perfect timing, really. I took a moment to look down at my hands on the table, willing tears to pool in the troughs of my lower lids. They weren’t genuine. I hadn’t really cried at all since before the incident, and nothing Bryn had said was particularly triggering. Not like orgasming eight days ago in front of Luna was, anyway.
But tears also worked for a get-out-of-jail-free card.
“I’ll think about it,” I said weakly as I looked up at Bryn with those forced tears shining from my eyes. “I-It’s still hard to speak about it, I guess.”
