Prologue
Fully dressed in his police uniform, complete with duty belt and officially issued Glock, Wes McAllen sat at his kitchen counter, staring at the blinking green numbers of the clock on the stove. His fingers drummed an impatient rhythm against the countertop, and one of his legs bounced up and down on the rung of the kitchen stool, jostling the ugly, pug-faced dog that sat near Wes’s feet. The dog, Franklin, peered up at Wes with sad, droopy eyes, his bulbed head tilted to the side in confusion, and let out a high-pitched, nervous whine.
Wes, his anxious reverie interrupted, ripped his eyes away from the stove clock to glance down at the dog. “I know, buddy,” he said in a low voice. “I want her to come home too.”
Forty-five minutes prior, Wes had watched his girlfriend storm out of their shared apartment on a serious mission. Nicole was livid, but thankfully, her wrath wasn’t directed at Wes. Nevertheless, he knew her too well. She had a one-track mind, and once she set her intention, there was no stopping her from bulldozing through whatever obstacles the world had decided to set down in front of her. This time though, Wes wondered if Nicole had jumped into the deep end without a much-needed life vest. Nicole was far from invincible, and Wes knew that she nursed a tendency to incorrectly calculate the amount of risk that her actions involved.
When Nicole left the apartment, she had made Wes promise to give her an hour to solve her problem on her own. Grudgingly, Wes agreed. He prided himself on not adhering to the patriarchal stereotypes that often came with being a cop, to a point where the other boys at the force merrily teased him about being whipped. It didn’t bother Wes. Nicole, after all, had brought out the feminist in him, but even so, it was difficult to discern where the line was drawn when it came to rescuing his girlfriend. She could take care of herself—Wes had witnessed that himself during their undergraduate years when Nicole had verbally destroyed a sleazy bar patron that refused to stop hitting on her before overturning an entire pint of expensive stout on his head—but this was different. It wasn’t just Nicole versus the hoi polloi. To Wes’s intense dismay, Nicole had taken on the most elite and dangerous secret organization on the Waverly University campus: the Black Raptor Society.
In hindsight, Wes wished desperately that Nicole had simply stayed out of it. As it turned out, the Raptors had been responsible for a number of iniquitous happenings on campus, including the murder of Nicole’s history professor, George O’Connor. Wes was at odds with almost everything that had happened in the last few weeks. He had a couple years under his belt as a police officer, but he was still a little green when it came to mixing business with personal problems. He’d never faced such a dilemma as this before. It should have been simple and straightforward. Wes’s report of a beaten body hidden in a secret room beneath the Waverly library should have sent the cops at the local force into a frenzy. The university should have initiated an immediate campus-wide lockdown for all of its students. Wes had expected sirens and crime tape and his boss barking orders at the rookies. Instead, he got a reprimand, a demerit, and the cold shoulder from his superiors.
It was the slowest hour of Wes’s life. For a moment longer, his eyes remained fixed on the clock.
“Fuck it,” he said, pushing his chair back and grabbing the keys to the apartment. Franklin perked up and watched as Wes headed to the door, but just as he reached out to open it, a harsh, demanding knock reverberated through the apartment from the opposite side.
Wes, expecting Nicole, swung the door wide without looking through the peephole. Instead, a vaguely familiar young man in his early twenties stood casually on the landing, wearing dark, fitted jeans, a leather jacket, and a Waverly University ball cap.
“Officer McAllen,” said the man, tipping his hat to Wes.
“Yeah?” said Wes warily as his hand floated up to the gun on his belt.
“I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”
With that, four other boys stepped into view from either side of the doorway, all wearing black knit caps pulled low over their eyes. Before Wes could react, they attacked him, shoving him back into the apartment. The man in the ball cap followed them inside, closing and locking the apartment door behind them.
“Lock him down,” he ordered.
Wes grappled with his attackers. At the police academy, he’d been taught how to deal with multiple assailants. He rifled through the lessons in his head. Create space. Plan your exit. Strike quickly. He bucked wildly, testing the grip strength of his attackers. Wes was outnumbered, but the other guys were younger, less experienced, and apparently didn’t log enough time at the campus weight room. Wes ripped his hand free and, as fast as a hornet’s sting, lashed out to strike the nearest boy, a short but stout freshman, in the nose.
The boy doubled over with a loud groan, cradling his nose. “Shit! Donovan, you said this would be fucking easy! He’s a fucking cop! I think he just broke my fucking nose.”
The man in the ball cap rolled his eyes. “Language, Hastings. We’re not heathens. By the
