Chapter 1

Eliza Mercer “Liz” to her friends, stood before the narrow, full-length mirror bolted to her dorm room door, evaluating the transformation underway. The Halloween party circuit was a gauntlet, a test of mettle and creativity, and she had spent weeks plotting her strategy: nothing less than full commitment to the bit. Still, she hesitated, heart thumping against her sternum as she tugged the skirt lower over her hips. The hem sprang back up, refusing to conceal more than a suggestion of ass; the fabric was engineered, it seemed, to expose more than at least half of her perky 19 year old ass. Eliza ran her hands along the plaid material, smoothing, fussing, but the skirt was what it was pure, calculated provocation. She looked and felt like a total slut.

She exhaled, then shifted focus to her top. An abbreviated button-down, white and crisp, that pinned her breasts into a tight shelf and offered nothing in the way of modesty. She’d sourced it online, deliberately sizing down, and the result was spectacular: the fabric stretched across her chest, every small movement ratcheting at the buttons, threatening to erupt in an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. She smiled, admiring how her nipples pressed against the thin fabric, boldly telegraphing her intent. She was supposed to be a parody a sexy schoolgirl, as the flyers insisted but there was something else at work, something raw and unfiltered, not so much playing a role as manufacturing a need. The white G-string, a last-minute impulse purchase, gleamed up between her legs. The look and sensation was obscene, wicked, divine.

She pulled up the thigh-high stockings opaque white, topped with girlish bows that were a joke, a grotesque contrast to the rest of her. A simple innocent look from the break of sin everywhere else. On her feet, shiny black Mary Jane shoes, the kind that made her calves look longer and leaner, the straps biting gently at her instep. She turned left, then right, scrutinizing the ensemble from every angle, and felt something twist inside her: anticipation, but also hunger. A heat that pooled in her stomach and radiated between her legs. It was a hunger she could not explain or contain, one that had been building for weeks as midterms and deadlines piled up, as her roommates paired off and vanished behind closed doors. She wanted, no, needed to be seen, to be wanted, to be taken. The thought sent a fresh wave of wetness creeping along the crotch of her G-string. Doing everything she could to not start this party too early. Self restraint was becoming harder and harder.

The tiny dorm room, decorated with the minimalist precision of a person who needed order to survive, felt suddenly suffocating. Her bed was made, duvet pulled tight, her desk was a still life of closed textbooks and color-coded highlighters; even the coffee mugs in her drying rack were sorted by size. But tonight, the structure was unraveling. Tonight, she wanted to be ruined. Eliza leaned in toward the mirror, studying her face: strong jawline, lips glossed and parted, eyes lined with a kohl so black it seemed to drag the color from her irises. There was something feral about her reflection, and she liked it. She tapped her finger against the glass, a superstitious knock, as if to break the spell of the good girl staring back. Not tonight, Mercy, she thought, using the childhood nickname only her mother still deployed. Tonight, we go hunting.

She rummaged through her drawer for the finishing touch: a thin black choker and the antique watch she’d inherited from her grandmother, the only relic of her old life she allowed herself. The choker made her neck look delicate, vulnerable even, yet it also felt like armor. She clipped them on and considered the effect. She was fully the predator tonight but dressed as the prey. She hesitated, nerves prickling under her skin, but the feeling was addictive, a kind of stage fright that left her vibrating with possibility. She’d spent years learning how to manage risk, how to predict and solve and preempt disaster. But this, well this was the opposite. This was inviting chaos and calling it by name.

From the hallway came the sound of laughter, the dull bass of party music, someone shouting her name. A text pinged her phone: Mandy, her wingwoman for the night, already in the lobby and threatening to leave without her. Eliza grinned and texted back: “Be down in 2. Don’t drink all the vodka.” She surveyed herself one last time, then slipped on her oversized trench coat, cinching the belt tight to hide the spectacle beneath. The coat was armor, too, a way to move through the world invisible until she chose to reveal herself. She had a nagging feeling that tonight her real self was going to come out.

Outside, the campus was alive: students in costume mobbed the quad, the air thick with the smell of cider and weed. Eliza moved through the crowd, her pulse matching the music that thudded from the fraternity houses along Greek Row. With every step, the coat rode up, the skirt threatening exposure, the G-string rubbing her raw in the best possible way. She felt eyes tracking her and she craved the attention.

The first bar on the circuit was a dive bar called The Den, a subterranean grotto that stank of bleach and stale beer, its exposed brick walls sweating with condensation from the crush of bodies. It was Halloween, so every table, every inch of the bar-top, was occupied by students in varying states of costumed undress: vampires with dollar-store fangs and fake blood smeared across their clavicles; slutty nurses, slutty astronauts, slutty tax auditors; football players who may or may not have been in costume at all. Couples and throuples orbited the dance floor, limbs tangled, dry-humping to the pulse of some EDM remix that made Eliza’s teeth ache. This was her jungle. Her hunting grounds and the queen of the jungle just showed up, whether the prey knew it or not was another question.

She shrugged off the trench coat the moment she reached the sticky floor by the bar, letting it slide off her shoulders in one practiced motion. She caught it in her left hand, folded it neatly over her arm, and for a split second, felt the gaze of every man and at least three women in her immediate proximity flicker over her like a searchlight. The effect was instant and electric: the skirt rode up, revealing a sharp V of thigh and the ghostly outline of her G-string; the white blouse gaped at any movement, threatening to detonate its buttons and unleash her breasts into the general public. She didn’t bother with a purse—she’d stuffed her fake ID and a single $20 bill into her bra. She was traveling light and on a mission.

At the bar, she flagged the bartender—a woman in a half-hearted Cleopatra getup—and asked for two shots of tequila. The first shot went down without a grimace, the citrus sting dissipating before it even hit her stomach. The second was for courage. She scanned the room for Mandy, but her friend was nowhere in sight. Instead, a presence materialized on her left: tall, built like a rugby player, a pair of matte-black horns sprouting from a head of unruly brown curls. Devil, she thought, original, but the gold in his eyes twinkled with something close to real malice.