Page 169 of Knox Academy Omnibus
We reach my room and I slip my room key from inside my strapless bra, seeing Kalen’s mouth hang open in shock out of the corner of my eye. I toss him a smirk and let us all in. When the door clicks closed, I cross to the minibar, bend down and dump the entire contents into the skirt of my dress, using it as a makeshift bag to carry everything back to the bed. Kicking off my shoes, I bounce onto the bed and sit cross legged, grabbing the first miniature I can get my hands on and pouring it downmy throat without checking. And then I gag. Checking the label, I see it’s a bottle of gin. Gross. I hunt for the bourbon and when I locate the good stuff, I squirrel the entire stash away.
Looking up, I notice all four guys staring at me in silent trepidation, though of course Onyx’s is more of a cocky smirk. He’s not fooling anyone though. I raise a brow at them in silent challenge.
“Sit,” I order. “Drink.”
Unsurprisingly, Kalen and Slate do as they’re told. Sawyer and Onyx exchange glances and then follow suit. While they battle it out for their poison of choice, I down another couple of bottles of bourbon. Stupid miniatures.
“Sawyer, can you call room service and get some decent sized drinks sent up please?”
He nods in response and leans over to use the hotel phone on my bedside table. Monty has booked everyone their own room for tonight, despite Kalen insisting we could share to save him some money. Watching Sawyer stretch out so that his shirt lifts as he orders drinks, makes my mouth water, and I more than wish he were my bunk buddy tonight.
“You have to explain what the hell just happened down there,” I say to the room once he hangs up.
“We have to explain?” Onyx scoffs. “You have to explain. How the hell did you manage to get one of the all-time highest individual scores on that damn obstacle course?”
I smirk and shrug because it’ll drive Onyx wild, but in all honesty, I don’t know how I did it.
“There were assholes from our school there! I didn’t want to get caught.” It’s a true enough explanation. “You didn’t exactly prepare me well for today. I felt like the only person in the dark there. And why the hell was I the only girl?”
“We know you must have a hundred questions—” Sawyer begins, calmly.
“More like a thousand,” I interrupt.
“Ok. So ask some. We can’t tell you everything, but we will tell you what we can,” Sawyer promises.
“No lies. No bullshit.”
“Agreed.” He nods.
“But if we tell you that we can’t answer something, you have to accept that,” Onyx adds.
“Fine.” I pout. It’s not fine, but at least I’ll havesomeanswers. I have no idea where to start with my questions. It would be so much easier if they’d just crumble and confess everything. The pressure’s on me to ask the right questions. “Fine, so, first question: why did everyone taking part today, apart from those I raced against, have a matching tattoo?”
“The tattoo identifies us as all belonging to the same...group,” Sawyer begins cautiously.
“What group?”
“It’s called The Order of The Snaidhm,” Slate explains.
“What does spleen mean?”
“Not spleen, Snaidhm.”
“That’s what I said,” I huff. “Whatever. What is it? What language even is it?”
“It’s Irish for knot,” Kalen says.
“Knot?”
“Knot.” Kalen grins and lifts up his shirt to show me the tattoo inked down the right side of his ribs.
“Why is your tattoo the only one on the right?” I frown. I’m sure everyone’s I saw was somewhere on the left of their body. Kalen’s cheeks turn pink and the others all laugh uproariously. “What?”
“Tell her, Kalen,” Onyx crows, slapping him on the back and tossing back another drink. There’s a knock on the door and Sawyer goes to take care of our drinks delivery. Coming back with a small tray laden with bottles he gets to work mixing mea bourbon and coke. Hmmm, he’s obviously not wanting me to drink too much or else he would have given me it neat.
“Aren’t you going to get us one?” Kalen pouts.
“Get your own. And don’t change the subject,” Sawyer snaps with a chuckle. “Amelie is dying to hear your explanation.”
