Page 709 of One More Kiss

Chapter3

I found my crew,River, Lexi, and Talia at Monty’s Café right after my last class, huddled in the corner, their laptops open, their fingers of one hand clicking over the keys while they scrolled their phones with the other.

Their full coffee cups lacked any signs of heat, as though they’d settled in with their devices and earbuds, shutting out the real world, their coffee forgotten. Or maybe the coffee was just for looks.

That was the thing about my crew…nothing was as it seemed.

They looked like a crew of strangers all forced to sit at the same table together in a crowded café. Despite appearances, I’d bet every dime I had that they were deeply ingrained in a debate, only they were using chat so that no one would overhear while they sucked up WiFi and infiltrated…whatever the hell they wanted to.

Lexi for sure would be digging in the records of patients at all the area hospitals. She’d developed a fascination for gruesome injuries and treatments, and while in there, she knew who to stay away from on campus in the STD department. Funny thing about linking all of these doctors, health systems, and hospitals…it made indulging in our passion so much easier.

I’d like to tell you it was a complete invasion of privacy and I’m ashamed, but I can only give you one out of the two. What can I say? We’re nosy assholes.

But when it comes to newborn men and their man root, I didn’t care what I had to do to make sure I was safe. Sure, condoms were great, but nothing was one hundred percent and I’d like the option of opting out. College guys weren’t great at giving us the informed choice. Oh, listen to me being all considerate for the handful of honest guys out there.

Let’s call it what it is. Men were foul and only cared about rubbing their funk junk on whatever they could, no matter the cost. Tree and shrub rot was real and it was a damn epidemic on college campuses. That is, if you could work up the desire to risk it, knowing there was a significant possibility of finding out what looked good through a cheap vodka lens really turned out to be a fuckboy running his mediocre-in-the-oral-skills mouth about you all over campus.

Men didn’t care about a persistent itch or worse, a random sore in the heat of the moment and what kind of problems it could cause in our girl zones.

Sex on campus was a calculated risk on a good day and a risky game of Russian roulette on every other. Of course, that unfortunate night six months ago, I hadn’t had the urge to go on a field trip over a naked body. I assumed my desire would come back. It wasn’t time to panic, yet.

Not that my girls needed to know. I kept that set of cards tucked close to my chest. I loved them, they had my back, but after the surge of hot satisfaction sinking my blade into flesh, I didn’t trust my reactions right now, and if they started going all Dr. Phil on me, I just might cut a bitch.

I wish I were kidding.

This new thirst for bloodshed had me constantly fidgeting. I wouldn’t go on any rampages, but I wanted to be challenged. I wanted someone to give me a reason to lash out again. To feel the sweet relief that came with making someone pay with blood.

Talk about a mood killer during sexy time. Sexy time that seemed to get a lot less sexy every time I indulged and instead turned into lessons like That’s Not It and Yes, You Need to Make It Wet First.

Right now, I had bigger issues to worry about anyway. Like Marissa, where she was, if she was safe, and double meaning behind the cryptic answer to my question from the night before.

And if I dared tell my crew what was going on.

Secrecy was paramount. This had been drilled into my head for years. Plus, my instructions, my test, they’d made it perfectly clear…not one word.

River, Lexi, and Talia could all be rushes facing their own tests too and I’d never know. We agreed years ago, when the time came, we’d respect boundaries that could cost us induction into The Scorpio Society. River and Lexi’s fathers were both generals in the society. The chances of them being tapped for induction were high. Especially since they both were adept at social charm, as well as knowing when it was best to just keep their mouths shut—something instinctual and almost impossible to teach.

And Talia, her grandmother was an elder. She’d outlived nine husbands. It helped she’d killed six of them with her own two hands.

I wasn’t supposed to know that, but then, while Lexi had a thirst for injury porn, my information kink was keeping the body count.

The Scorpio Society owned Margot Ballinger, the medical examiner. Her computer systems and security? All courtesy of the society. Couldn’t have some low-level hacker in there sniffing out irregularities. Not that Margot left many. The stories she weaved with medical jargon were among some of the best works of fiction in existence.

And like my parents said, the code could never be infiltrated…for anyone other than their daughter.

Medical records, picking apart fact from fiction…that was my playground.

Maybe one day I’d get to read my abductor’s story. Every scar on his body, the unique mark I’d left on him forever part of Margo Ballinger’s backlist.

My lips twitched, the closest thing I’d cracked to a smile since last night.

I grabbed my macchiato and joined them, but left my computer in my bag. Normally, I’d be right alongside them, but right now, settling in and getting comfortable felt dangerous. I needed the flexibility to take off in a second. At least, that’s what my gut screamed.

“Hey, you never showed up last night.” Lex slipped an EarPod from her ear the minute I slid in the booth with them.

“Oh, I showed up. I was there long enough to see you grinding your ass so hard on Crux Kingsley that you might need to do a pregnancy test despite the denim between you two.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. I alternated between some weird-ass swill they called Sangria, but most definitely was not sangria and tequila. Not good tequila. The bottle had no label. My life expectancy had to have taken a hit of at least a decade.”

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