James Games Read Online Free PDF Page A

available. I glance around. Nightshirts, tank tops, and one poor girl got caught in her bra and panties. Iris, naturally, is wearing some high-necked black lacy thing straight out of a Victorian museum. I’m wearing a huge white heart-covered T-shirt that says ‘It’s Not That Time of the Month, I Just Hate You’ but I rock it.
    Our two captors move to the center of the room and remove their hoods. I recognize them at once. Both seniors. There’s Ellie, a girl with the world’s softest-looking pin-straight hair that falls past her butt. The one who gave me my stubbed toes is Sigrid, the redhead who interviewed me for my first pledgeship meeting and whose personality fits her name perfectly.
    I wait for something to happen, but nothing does until one last girl walks through the door and takes her place between Sigrid and Ellie.
    Brooklyn Windsor, sorority president.
    They say she can drink eight shots and still recite the alphabet backwards. They say she has the entire UCSD soccer team on speed-dial for whenever she wants some. They say that a boy once threatened her with a knife at a party and she broke three of his ribs and two of his fingers within twenty seconds. They say that she eats cereal bowls full of diamonds for breakfast and has a manservant named Claude who used to be a famous model but swore his life to her when he saw her walking down the street one day.
    They don’t really say that last thing, but it’s what I’ve always assumed.
    Her gaze sweeps over each of us in turn, lingering on Iris’s sexy vamp nightie, pausing on my T-shirt. Do I detect a slight quirk of her lips? I will never take this nightshirt off.
    “Do you all know why you’re here?” Her voice rings out like a bell tolling the start of a war.
    “Arts and crafts?” I joke, and the tension is broken by a few titters. Brooklyn gives me a long, stern stare, but Sigrid looks at me like I’m a piece of dog shit she just picked off the bottom of her shoe without realizing what it was. I gaze boldly back and her eyes narrow.
    “You are here,” Brooklyn says deliberately, “because you have been handpicked as the most promising girls on campus. The most intelligent.” Her gaze skims Mags. “The most daring.” She glances at me. “The most beautiful.” She turns to Iris. A faint pink blush stirs in my roommate’s porcelain cheeks. Wow.
    “But most importantly, you are here because you have demonstrated a commitment. A commitment to learning about our founders, our principals, and what makes us a sisterhood. You are here because you’re worthy of being here. Don’t let that change.”
    She gives us another Brooklyn Stare, which I’m starting to suspect has the ability to turn murderous convicts into puppy breeders. I think I’m in love. And somewhat less terrified. If Sigrid ran the initiation, I’d assume we’d be drinking each other’s pee at a minimum , but Brooke seems somewhat more refined.
    “Repeat after me,” she says. “ I accept my new responsibility to positively represent myself and the sisterhood at all times.”
    Everyone echoes the line. I make sure my voice is the loudest.
    “I accept my new responsibility to keep my grades at their highest while also taking full advantage of my life as a Phi Delta Chi girl.”
    Iris elbows me at the word grades and I snicker. Mine aren’t the best, but I’ll keep them up for this.
    “I accept my new responsibility to be loyal to my sisters above all others.”
    “Blah, blah, blah,” I mumble under my breath, trying to decide whether Sigrid’s sultry red hair is real or from a box.
    “ And I accept the consequences if I fail my sisters, for failing my sisters is also failing myself,” finishes Brooklyn, a dark tone to her words. Her gaze hardens and I wonder if she was a boot camp instructor in a past life. Or a current life.
    Everyone chants after her, and when the last few voices fall into silence, Sigrid and Ellie move along the circle of girls, handing each a