But just as Lauren began to internally commiserate about a slow, solitary death at the command of her own aunt, a loud thunk outside the door indicated that the chair had finally been removed from underneath the knob. As Lauren rolled off the bottom bunk and sprang to her feet, Wickes and Hastings walked into the room to greet her.
“The Morrigan is ready for you now,” said Wickes, beckoning Lauren to follow him.
“I can’t contain my enthusiasm,” quipped Lauren. She attempted to force her way past the two boys, but Wickes stepped into her path. “What?” she snapped.
He held up a zip tie. “Hands, please.”
She eyeballed the plastic. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Wickes grinned. “Morrigan’s orders.”
With a dramatic sigh, Lauren presented her hands, crossing her wrists and flexing both fists. Wickes tightened the zip tie until the plastic bit into Lauren’s skin, but she refused to voice her annoyance. The trio left the room, the boys flanking Lauren as they led her down the stone corridor.
When they reached the large dining room at the end of the hallway, Lauren drew in a surprised breath. She had expected to meet solely with Catherine Flynn. Instead, the room was filled with people. Some sat around the long polished table in the middle of the room, doubling up on the high-backed chairs. The others stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pressed against the walls and each other to make space for everyone. From the looks of it, every student member of the Black Raptor Society had turned up for the event. Flynn lounged casually at the head of the table, but when Lauren, Wickes, and Hastings appeared in the doorway, she beckoned them inside.
“Come in, come in,” she said genially with a regal wave of her hand. Her wedding ring glimmered in the light of the overhead chandelier. It was a gorgeous piece of jewelry, a gem of red beryl set into a gold band, and Lauren knew that it had cost a fortune. She wondered why Flynn still bothered to wear it. Her husband, Harrison, had died long ago, and Flynn had expressed an appropriate amount of grief at his funeral before seemingly forgetting all about him.
“Have a seat, Lauren,” said Flynn, gesturing to the only available chair in the room.
Reluctantly, Lauren drew the chair out with her bound hands and sank into it. “Got the whole society here today, don’t you, Aunt Catherine?” she said, keeping her voice light. “My, my, I feel so important.”
Flynn smiled coyly. “My dear girl, you didn’t possibly think that I called all of the current Raptors out of their classes and extracurricular activities for the sole purpose of addressing your act of treason, did you?”
“I’ll admit, it’s a little excessive,” said Lauren, cocking an eyebrow. “And risky, too. One of the reasons we rarely hold such inclusive meetings is to ensure that all of the Raptors don’t mysteriously go missing from campus at the exact same time. It raises questions. What matter is so urgent that you would be willing to compromise the Raptors’ confidentiality for this discussion?”
“I think you’ve compromised the Raptors’ confidentiality quite enough with your attempted coup, my dear,” responded Flynn.
“I’d hardly call it a coup. It was more of a small scale rebellion.”
“Semantics, darling. The point is: you made your intention clear. You moved to incriminate the Black Raptor Society, the very society that your family helped to construct.”
“My point,” argued Lauren, “was that the Raptors have taken advantage of their status for far too long. We have grown apathetic and heartless. We have strayed from the path that was laid out by the members before us. No great society relies on coercion and manslaughter to further their own agenda.”
“Our society does not—”
“Furthermore,” continued Lauren, raising her voice to overpower Flynn’s. Her interruption caused a wave of murmurs to circulate around the room. No other Raptor would dare speak over Flynn. “When I brought my concerns to the attention of the council several months ago, I was dismissed without even the concept of a conversation.”
“So you decided that the only method of solving a problem of which you were the sole architect was to expose your entire family?” questioned Flynn.
“‘The sole architect?’” repeated Lauren in disbelief. “I’m sorry, Aunt Catherine, but do I need to remind you which of us in this room has willingly committed premeditated murder?”
“George O’Connor’s death was a tragic accident—”
“I’m not talking about George O’Connor,” snapped Lauren, “and you know it.”
The babble of voices in the room increased again until Flynn held up her hand for silence. She leaned over the table toward Lauren. “My dear niece,” she began in a tone meant to mollify Lauren. “I cannot understand the amount of stress you must be under to delude yourself into thinking that the morals of this society are so compromised. Ask your brothers and sisters around you. Tell me, Raptors. Have any of you witnessed these great misdeeds that Miss Lockwood speaks of?”
A general denial resonated throughout the room, the students of the Black Raptor Society shaking their heads. Lauren rolled her eyes.
“Please,” she said. “As if the quality of our members’ intelligence hasn’t greatly diminished in the last several years. For example—”
Above the table, in full view of every Raptor, Lauren uncrossed her wrists. Immediately, the zip tie slackened, and she wormed both hands free in a matter of seconds. She threw the zip tie in Wickes’s face.
“Your boys don’t even know how to properly restrain a hostage,” spat Lauren.
Wickes and Hastings dove forward to subdue Lauren, but Flynn called out, “Leave her! She has nowhere to go anyway.”
Lauren crossed her arms, slouching down in her
