“What are you doing?” he yells, struggling beneath me. His strong arms pull the ropes taut, his coiled muscles threatening to snap them, but he’ll be dead long before these ropes begin to fray.

I frown in mock sadness. “You didn’t ask me my name,” I pout.

“Fucking whore is your name!” he spits, struggling like a pinned wild animal beneath me.

“Oh, keep moving like that,” I moan, mocking him. “Feels good.”

I shove the cocaine back under his nose but he pulls away, arching and bucking and twisting.

“What the fuck is this?” he demands angrily, as I climb off him.

“You know what they say about your past coming back to haunt you?” I ask calmly, business-like as I shove the piece of duct tape across his mouth. He isn’t expecting it, had been too busy keeping his eye on the mirror full of poisoned coke to watch what I’m doing. He screams behind the tape, his efforts emitting nothing but a very small sound, barely perceptible and definitely not noticeable to anyone outside the room.

The tape serves a dual purpose: to shut him up, and to seal off his mouth, forcing him to breathe through his nose. He bucks and struggles like a pinned bull, but I am patient. I let him struggle for a few minutes until he tires, and then I withdraw a plastic bag from my underwear, tipping fine white powder into my palm. Straddling him again, I grab a handful of his hair with one hand, shoving my coke-covered palm right under his nostrils. He immediately holds his breath, and a slow smile spreads across my face.

“How long can you hold your breath for, Maximilian Ernesto Ross?”

His eyebrows shoot up as if to say, how do you know my name?

“Oh, I know your name. I know everything about you. I’ve known you since the day I was born into this motherfucking club.”

He’s still clueless, but he’s starting to connect the dots. I lean closer and lick his cheek, the same way he licked my cheek six years ago as he fucked me half to death. I pout. “It’s me, Maxi. Julie. I got a new face, but I still remember what you did to me and my family.”

Snap. All at once he realizes exactly who I am, and runs out of air. He shoves his head violently from side to side, but I have a firm grip on his hair and my palm merely follows him as he thrashes, breathing in the toxic powder at the same time.

His nose begins to bleed and his eyes roll back into his head momentarily, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks in his cold blue eyes.

“Don’t you like my gift?” I ask him mockingly, as he thrashes violently, spilling most of the powder over both of us.

He stares at me defiantly, hate and rage radiating from him, a muffled word that sounds like a no coming from underneath the tape.

I laugh. “Don’t lie, bitch,” I echo his previous statement as I pull his head back and force more powder under his bleeding nose. “You love it when I fuck you.”

The moment of truth. Maxi is dead, has been for half an hour.

There won’t be any reviving that motherfucker.

I untied him once his heart had stopped beating for ten minutes and arranged him on the bed with the girls. The ropes and duct tape are jammed underneath Maxi’s bed, where I doubt anyone will think to look. The rest of the harmless cocaine is flushed down the toilet, with only the strychnine-cut coke left, stashed in small baggies in Anna and Melanie’s purses.

There’s no conceivable reason for anyone to suspect me.

Especially with what I’m about to do next.

My clothes are back on and I’m kneeling in the middle of the room. As I stare at the last line of powder on the mirror, I’m starting to doubt my plan. But the only way to make this look genuine is to make it look like I’ve snorted the same shit that just killed Maxi. I can’t think of any other way to remove myself from the scope of suspicion. This way, those stupid girls will cop the blame for giving us their tainted coke, and I’ll look like a victim as well.

I freeze in position as I hear voices at the door. I strain to hear them over the heavy metal music coming from the party, their voices becoming clearer as I concentrate.

It’s Jazz and someone else, talking heatedly right outside the goddamned door.

Oh my God. Do not come in.

“Get out of my way, bro,” a voice says.

Jase.

Shit, shit, shit! If they come in and see me, perfectly normal and conscious while Maxi is dead and the two girls are passed out, I am screwed.

“Nuh-uh!” Jazz says, his deep laugh just like his father’s. “”It’s not your birthday, little brother. Wait your fuckin’ turn!”

I hear jostling against the door and decide that it’s now or never.

I take a deep breath, grit my teeth and snort hard, the tainted powder slamming into my brain like a blowtorch turned to max.

The strychnine-laced coke burns the inside of my nose and I feel a thin trail of blood thread its way out of my nose, dripping onto my lip. It tastes bitter and metallic all at once, like cola and pennies swirling in my mouth, and I gag on the taste.

The room spins around me and I drop the mirror to the floor, where it shatters into a million pieces. Seven years bad luck? I think I’ve already done my time.

“What was that?” Jase barks outside the door.

I hold up a hand to catch at the blood underneath my nose, trying to stop the mess, but it’s useless. It goes everywhere, down my throat and into my cleavage, soaking into the top of my corset. So much blood for such a small amount of powder.

“You think you’re such hot shit,” Jazz yells outside. I crawl towards the door, my palms and knees collecting sharp pieces of mirrored glass along the way.

“Let me in there, dick!” Jase yells.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Jazz demands, and I hear a fist connect with bone. Ouch. “There were only ever six brothers, you understand? You little bastard. You’re probably not even his.”

Their footsteps and voices recede as I get to my feet.

I grab for the doorknob as my vision clouds and a fresh avalanche of blood begins to pour out of my nose. I choke as I wrench the door open and stumble into the hallway. The music in the place is so loud it’s deafening, and I’m trying to yell, but I can’t hear myself above the Metallica bursting through the empty hallway.

They were just here. Where did they go?

I limp along as Enter Sandman pulses through me, and the strychnine bores holes in my brain. I fall to my knees, suddenly panicking that I’m in serious trouble right now.

I had better not fucking die, I think to myself as I crawl towards the kitchen. Surely there’ll be someone in there.

I round the corner, still choking and bleeding from my burning nose. It shouldn’t hurt this bad, just one tiny line. My brain is screaming, my entire body is buzzing angrily, and the blood won’t stop pouring out of my nose.

I stop and lean against the wall inside the kitchen. Nobody.

Fuck!

I breathe quickly, pinching the bridge of my nose to try and stem the flow of blood. Then I think it’s probably better to let it bleed and get as much of the strychnine-laced coke out of my body as possible. A build up of blood bursts free and splatters on my chest as I wobble back to my feet and inch along the wall, back out to the hallway.

I head for the row of bedrooms at the far end of the hall. At least one of them must be occupied.

But they’re not. I knock on the first one—Dornan’s door—and wait, followed by the second and third doors. I’m crying out for help by now, I need someone to find me and call an ambulance before this shit kills me.