The game

You decide to go with the game, so you put that in your bag.

In the drawer beside your bed is your vibrator. You don’t know if you’ll even have the privacy to use it, but you pack that as well. It’s only two nights, but what kind of CCL girl would travel without it?

OK. You’re packed. You have a gift for Colby. Now you just need to report to Athena and hit the road, but you look out the window and you don’t see Nancy’s car yet. So you have some time and you know how you want to spend it. If you are going to be in a car… or a hotel room with Athena, you want to be put together. You want to look good, smell good…

So you grab your shower basket and head down the hall to the bathroom. Once you’re in the shower, you lather up with tons of body wash. You sweat when you get nervous, and what happened at the store definitely made you nervous.

But there’s one person in CCL House who is usually even sweatier than you.

“Yeek!” you cry as she rips the curtain aside and crowds into the shower with you.

“No time,” Yuki apologizes, taking the sponge out of your hand. “Nancy just got here. We’ll be leaving soon.”

“God,” you say, your face turning hot. “You scared me.”

“Sorry.” She starts to wash.

Yuki works out all the time. She’s a little smaller than you, but her body is rock hard. She has the most ripped, hardcore-looking abs you have ever seen. You have never seen her naked, up close, covered in soapy water. It’s sudden and it’s a lot. You knew that she had short, black hair. Now you know that she has some between her legs too, and a tattoo of a kettlebell on her hip.

You try not to stare, but you’re frozen, so she bumps you out of the way and takes the water.

She’s quick. A second later she’s out and you’re alone again. You pull the curtain back and then lean against the wall, heart pounding. You come back to your senses and finish washing, then kill the water and step out to find that she’s still here. Yuki’s perched on the edge of the sink, still naked, shaving her legs. And her… self.

“Oh, jeez. Sorry. Not staring,” you say, embarrassed as you step out and grab your towel.

“Stare all you want,” she says distractedly, glancing up at you. Yuki is always incredibly confident, and you suppose that if your body was made of steel, you would be too.

“I’m not going to stare,” you say, even more embarrassed as you start to towel off your body. “I’m classy.”

She snorts. “I’m not,” she says, glancing up long enough to look at you from head to toe.

You hurriedly wrap your towel around yourself and grab your blow dryer.

“Don’t be shy,” Yuki says, going back to shaving. “You have the best bod in this whole place. We should swim together sometime.”

“Sounds good,” you say, trying to sound cool.

Back in your room, you put on some leggings and a top with the Batman symbol on it, then head off to see Athena.

She’s packing when you arrive, still wearing the outfit from earlier. You have seen her room before, but never been in it. It’s big, with a huge, canopy bed and its own bathroom. Like the rest of the house, it’s falling into disrepair, but she has still made it look very cool.

“I need your help,” she says. There’s a bra in her hand, but she sets it aside to walk over to you when you come in. “Look at these.” There’s a stack of handwritten notes on the desk. “These were Amy’s.”

“That Amy? Serial killer Amy?” you ask, stunned.

“Yes. I found them in the desk. I know it’s not in good taste, but you understand why we’re doing this,” Athena says with a sigh.

“Are we selling them?”

Anything to do with Amy and what happened is in huge demand. A lot of people out there are fascinated by CCL after the killings.

“They aren’t that amazing. It’s all stuff about activities. Planning that year’s pumpkin video. But they’re hers. We might as well try,” Athena says. “But we need to wrap them up somehow.”

You pick up the papers. “I have just the thing,” you say.

“You do? Perfect. Thank you so much.” Athena smiles, puts her hands on your shoulders, then leans in to kiss your cheek. “I don’t like showing you our **** side like this, but the truth is the truth.”

“It’s OK,” you say, heart fluttering.

It is a little weird, though. You have to think about it as you walk back to your room. People are so interested in CCL now. Numbers are down, but you still have girls who want to join because of the notoriety of the killings. But the sisterhood is still very broke and struggling to stay in existence. Amy wanted, in her twisted way, to help CCL. But she just sped up the process of running it into the ground.

Maybe Athena can change it.

The notes are the right size to go in the bags that you put comics in. You don’t feel like you need to board them the way that you would with comics, so you tape each page into an individual bag.

A few minutes later you’re outside, putting bags in the car. Nancy has the biggest car, so that’s the one you’ll take.

Should you ride up front? Or in the back?