Search the room

You better just look around. Besides, if you get into that computer you may find things that were better left unfound. Amy is neat and clean. She has cute, tasteful things. She’s built a nice nest in this room, which is big and has its own bathroom—but is also incredibly drafty, and you can tell that it has a spider problem.

But Amy’s tough. She puts up with a lot. Maybe that’s why she has Olivia in here and it’s quiet; she just wants someone with a nice bod to warm up her bed so she can get some sleep.

You open the closet.

“Shit,” you say.

You are Cynthia. You don’t get hysterical, and you aren’t about to freak out, but this still throws you. You feel queasy as you stare down at the two dead bodies on the floor, and your brain tries to figure it out.

It’s Elsa and Delilah. Some bloody towels lie beside them.

You crouch, trying not to puke. Delilah has some bloody wounds. Elsa doesn’t have any except for some bruises on her neck, but they are equally dead.

That’s two disappearances solved. You get shakily to your feet.

You weren’t wrong. Amy is up to something. You just misjudged the nature and severity of it. You clench your fist. You never cared about Elsa one way or another, but you really liked Delilah. Everybody did. Why? Why would Amy do this?

To your right is a framed newspaper clipping about CCL giving to charity. That’s why.

Amy never shuts up about the power of being a CCL girl. It’s just fame by association, but it works. Having CCL on your resume really is a good thing, but the headlines haven’t been coming so easily lately. Things have cooled off with CGH. Being gay and pro-sex is no longer that radical. Most of the country isn’t horrible like Gurlberg with dumb, conservative laws.

Amy wants to keep CCL in the public eye and solidify the reputation for CCL girls to be tough and capable. The killings will get CCL back in the news, and the survivors will not only be CCL girls, but they’ll have survived a massacre. It’ll be a free ticket to whatever jobs they want when they graduate. Probably book and movie deals and stuff too.

Amy is smart, but she wasn’t expecting you. She didn’t expect to get caught in the middle of her plan, but you’ve done that. Literally.

With a chill, you remember finding her right outside your room.

She was about to come in and kill you. The pledges are the targets. The officers must be meant to benefit. All of them? Hard to say. They can’t all be in on it, but Olivia must be. Maybe others. It’s hard to imagine someone like Ingrid being a part of this, but Amy can be persuasive. She could also just keep girls like Ingrid in the dark.

Well, you have it all figured out. There are no realistic hiding places where people could be having a party in secret… that you know of. But hiding some bodies? In this huge, old house that’s half-unused? Easy. You’ve got it.

Now you just have to decide what to do.

No one knows that you’re in here except Duni. Amy may not know that she’s been made.

You might have the advantage now. You see two paths. You could turn the tables on Amy. Or you could try to convince whatever pledges are left that they’re in danger.

What will you do?

Offense?

Or Defense?