It was hard to focus. All eyes were on us when we walked in. At least, it’d felt like it. Ava and Everett looked between Abigail and Justin, an exchange of disbelief. I caught Maeve whispering something to Cyrus and the other original member I still didn’t know the name of. They were all focused on Abigail and Justin, except for Cyrus. I didn’t dare look at him but I knew his gaze was on me.

For her part, Abigail didn’t flinch. Neither did Justin. Now, I was trapped in a seat between them. Both were casual, relaxed, like the whole debacle in the hallway never happened. The only sign something could be wrong was in me, and the way my body was tensed like I was waiting to be struck.

There were other people here. I didn’t recognize any of them. It didn’t matter. My brain was fuzzy from the atmosphere. My fingers curled into my lap, and this time I tried to see if I could sense the magic. Whatever it was that had grabbed hold of me last time, that I’d sensed trailing after Abigail, Ava, and Everett. There was nothing. It was only my own nerves.

“How do they introduce the whole thing anyway?” Abigail asked, all venom in her voice wiped and replaced with a mild curiosity. She even added a hint of a smile on her face.

Justin returned the grin, “After the whole spiel about what the club is. Werewolf is part of the initiation.”

“A heck of an initiation.”

“The more extreme something is, the more likely it is that people will be loyal to the club. It’s like how sororities and fraternities have devoted members despite putting new recruits through some fucked up hazing. Afterall, what’s the point of going through something so awful, just to turn your back on it in the end?”

Abigail leaned back against the chair, head falling back and hair spilling down the plastic, “That’s so…”

“…I get it.” My voice was barely a whisper. A frown flickered across her face but I didn’t meet Abigail’s eyes. My head was bowed and I stared at my lap. At the way my fingers circled around each other, an endless dance. “People want their suffering to be worth it.”

Up front, Ava clapped her hands together twice, “Good afternoon everyone! After the club rush event last week, I see we got new faces. I’m Ava the President, and this is my VP Everett.”

Her voice was too light for what she was going to talk about. The beginning was normal, of course. How the club worked, the kinds of books they read, the reading schedule, voting, discussions, etiquette, the list went on. After the standard overview, she made us all introduce ourselves. Of course she did.

It was impossible to remember everyone’s names. I figured it didn’t matter that much in the end. Everyone vital to this mystery would be the old members. The only name I was interested in was the final one I never got.

“Knox. Treasurer.” He raised a hand and offered a two-fingered wave.

“You need to be more thorough than that Knox, come on.” Maeve pushed him and he only rolled his eyes.

Brushing aside her hand, he only allowed a few more words, “Sophomore. Into fantasy and the history of fairy tales.”

With that, everyone moved on. It was a wonder how I got through my introduction. My intro came and went. I didn’t even know what it was I’d said. It didn’t matter. The meeting kept going. The ticking of the clock was a bomb counting down.

“Now that we’ve all introduced ourselves…” Ava tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear, her eyelashes fluttered down. “It’s time to talk about a tradition we all have. I’m sure you all have heard the rumors.”

“We don’t accept just anyone into our club. Only those we think are intelligent enough. And for that we have a test.” The contrast between Ava’s faux delicateness and Everett’s solid voice changed the atmosphere. I frowned, rolling the sentence in my head. Saying it was a test would wave most of the questions people had, or at least cause people to ask only certain kinds of questions.

To my surprise, Justin spoke up beside me, nonchalant but looking dead set at Everett. It took me a second to realize he was purposefully cutting in when he wasn’t supposed to, “Every year we play a game called ‘Werewolf.’ For those of you who aren’t aware, it’s a party game where one person is a werewolf who ‘kills’ the other players who are villagers. Outside of the villagers, there are two other special roles; the seer and the doctor.”

“The doctor can choose one person to save each round, and the seer can guess who is the werewolf. However, unlike the normal game, you’ll all have a week to make decisions and deduce who is who. Once the next meeting starts, everyone will vote on who the werewolf is. As the President, I will play the moderator in all this.” Ava held up a stack of cards. They were gilded in silver and gleamed cold in the classroom light.

If Ava was the moderator, she’d been granted immunity from all of this. The role of President wasn’t just a position of power, it was a place to save herself. I tried not to look over at Justin, because I knew he’d see all the questions burning in my gaze. Instead. I watched as Ava handed the cards over to Everett.

He shuffled, “If you’re fine with the recruitment process, come tomorrow and we’ll assign you your card then. Me and Ava will be here right after school tomorrow. We hope to see you all there.”

As the cards were flicked through his hands, I could see the face of a wolf flash. An omen of things to come.

//

“I decided if Cinder is ok with your nonsense, I am to.” Abigail was decidedly not ok with it. She paced in front of us and kept running her hands through her hair like that would chase her irritation away. “They wouldn’t dream of targeting a legacy member’s girlfriend, and besides, she’s so quiet I doubt any of the new people will notice her anyway.”

“She won’t get the werewolf card regardless.”

“They’re making us wait so it’s easier to rig the game.” Abigail halted, turning to me in surprise. I sunk lower into the bench, choosing to examine the garden instead. A beat of silence stretched on.

“Exactly. They already decided on their werewolf. Speaking of which, there he is. The man of the hour.” Justin lazily raised a hand and waved. Cyrus was just walking up, his shoulders sagged and his gait slow.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With his expression, I thought he wanted to put us into the ground, “Abigail’s here now, too.”

“Sorry we only met briefly back when I made the worst mistake of my life,” she brushed her hair over her shoulder, smiling like she was on the attack, “I’m Abigail, Cinder’s bestie. Anything that involves her also involves me. If you even think about separating us, I will swing.”

Cyrus raised an eyebrow, and Justin laughed, “That’s how it is.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t kill him then.”

“I very nearly did, thank you very much. So how did you fuck up so badly you ended up being the werewolf?” Abigail was already on topic, too tired to fake pleasantries.

No one seemed to care. He shrugged, “I got into a fight with Everett.”

“That’ll do it.” She nodded once. “Justin is thinking of rigging the game.”

“Because this is how it’s going to happen; Everett will give himself the doctor card and will choose to save himself in every round because you’ll obviously want him dead at some point. Either Maeve or Knox will get the seer card because they’re already members who’ve proved themselves. All the new members will just be your average run-of-the-mill villagers. Like this, the original members will protect themselves while getting rid of the person they hate. When things go south, they’ll just blame the new members for taking it too far.”

“That sounds about right.” Cyrus folded his arms across his chest. “So what do you want?”

“At the very least? The doctor card. That way Everett can’t keep saving himself. And if you make it through this, then the villains will be foiled and the gang will live to see another day.”

“…How are we going to do that?” Justin was still leaned back. For everything he said, he didn’t look the faintest bit concerned.

“Easy. They hand out the cards in envelops and we open them in front of the president—Ava—so she’s the only one who knows who has what. We know Everett is going to get the doctor card so we just have to swap one of our envelops.”

“That’s so not going to be easy. They watch those things like a hawk. We’ll have no way to do it tomorrow.” He only rolled his eyes, making Abigail bare her teeth.

At the very least, he sat upright, showcasing he was taking this seriously if nothing else, “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m a legacy member. I know where they keep the cards. By the time you all show up to get your cards tomorrow, they’ll be switched.”

“Can’t you switch out my card then?”

Justin laughed, “That’s if they didn’t decide to keep the card on them.”

“If that’s the case, they could have kept all the cards.”

“You better pray that isn’t the case or we’re going to be fucked.” He winced but Justin’s voice remained light. I guess to him, Cyrus’s fate didn’t matter. He was only doing this as a favor for a favor.

Abigail groaned, “Or you could just not go at all tomorrow. Problem solved.”

“But he’s being blackmailed.” All eyes turned to me. I didn’t turn to them. The leaves were still so vibrant despite the cooler temperature. The budding flowers stood in contrast to the red and yellow trees beyond the school gates leading into the woods. Two seasons were happening all at once in front of me. The beats of this story had long been clear to me.

Cyrus sighed, “Yeah. That.”

“Damn, I didn’t realize you were that careless.” I thought Cyrus might punch Justin with the way his fingers curled. It would be the second time today someone swung at him. Even Abigail flinched, likely in remembrance of her own situation. “Must be something pretty bad if you’re not backing out.”

“…Yeah.”

He didn’t say more and Justin stood to stretch, “Well then. I’ll see what I can do about the roles. It’d probably be best if you aren’t seen around us too much Cyrus. Last thing we need is for them to get suspicious.”

“Got it.”

“As for you,” Justin narrowed his eyes and a smirk appeared on his face. Abigail glared in return. “Don’t blow our cover.”

Abigail shook her head, dramatically placing a hand over her chest, “Me? I would never! I know how to keep secrets and I can keep them well.”

She could, “…Should we meet outside of school from now on, too? To keep Cyrus in the loop?”

“I vote Abigail’s place.” Justin answered my question without missing a beat. “They don’t know where she lives so there won’t be any sudden visits.”

“Does it have to be mine?”

“It could be Cinder’s.”

“Fuck you.” Abigail dragged me up from where I was sitting. I stumbled, but she kept me steady as she pulled me along. “If that’s all the two of us are going to head out, too.”

Our gazes met. Justin tilted his head, “No, actually. Me and Cinder still need to talk. You and Cyrus are free to leave, though.”

Her grasp tightened on my arms, moving a step closer to him and placing herself in front of me, “I don’t approve of the two of you. If I ever sense anything is up I’ll make good on my promise to kill you.”

“Yeah yeah, I got it the first twenty times.” He waved her off. After a beat, Abigail let go, her fingers still lingering against my skin for a moment before finally breaking away. She went to stand beside Cyrus, and when she did I could suddenly picture it so clearly.

Her and Wells had hardly interacted in the first run. It was hard to picture them together based on nothing. But for a second, as she stopped shoulder to shoulder with him, I could see it. On looks alone, they were a magazine couple decorated in pop colors and block fonts. Abigail and Justin had looked the same, once upon a time ago.

“…I’ll see you later.” I couldn’t look at them. Abigail the not-knight and Cyrus her not-prince. Their footsteps faded, and I felt the warmth of Justin as he came to stand next to me.

“Anxious?”

I didn’t look up, “What did you want to talk to me about…?”

“You never said that you were ok with this. I can tell Cyrus we lied about dating for convenience.” If I was Abigail, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I would have acted as soon as I saw the fight, I would have become the knight, I would be holding out a hand and facing the game head on. My thoughts spilled over, rewriting the tale with Abigail as the star. Lightly, Justin pressed, “Cinder?”

“It’s alright. It’ll lead to less questions, right?”

“Great, now look at me when you say that.” I swallowed, but I lifted my face. Justin’s form was outlined by a fading sun and I was surprised at how close he was. Not enough for us to touch, but enough that his eyes were right there staring directly at me.

He searched my face, looking for something as I spoke, “It’s alright.”

“Ok.”

“But um…I have no dating experience so uh, if I mess up or I’m awkward I’m really really sorry. Dating wasn’t ever something I thought about, that always felt more like Nia and Abigail’s thing—”

I cut myself off as Justin laughed. It was almost genuine this time, I marveled at the light in it, “I already figured. I won’t do anything really. Maybe hold your hand to sell the image, but you can just act as usual.”

“Are you sure…?”

“Positive.” His smile slipped away. “There’s one more thing.”

“What…?”

“Things will escalate.”

“I know.”

“If they find out we’ve teamed up with Cyrus, they’ll target us. Even if we get the doctor card, that doesn’t mean we can do anything if we’re voted out or if they pull some bullshit. And also, I don’t trust Cyrus. At least, I trust he’ll ‘kill’ us if he senses one of us becomes a target.”

I blinked, “That’s…”

“And for what I need to do, I have to stay in this game as long as possible.” He walked forward, hand reaching out. “We both do, right?”

“Y-yeah.” Despite myself, I grabbed his hand. It was a little too tight, a little too shaky.

He squeezed my hand, “For practice. You’ll get used to it quick.”

“…I…really don’t like the idea of either of those.” There was that almost real laugh again. We walked down the path, hand in meaningless hand. I tried not to think about how Abigail had once done the same a long time ago, and Justin had sunken into his own thoughts.

I still had questions. About how he knew where they hid the cards, where the cards were hidden, and who exactly was the dead girl. But the feel of his hand kept me quiet, and in a way, that silence was a form of trust.