Truth or dare never ends well. Especially when truth stings worse than lies.
The silence that followed Carroway's loaded challenge—Never have I ever run from what I really want—clung to the residential college common room like smoke from an expensive cigarette, toxic and impossible to clear from the air. The Gothic stone walls seemed to absorb the tension and amplify it, turning their medieval gathering space into an echo chamber of unspoken accusations and carefully guarded secrets.
Silver sat rigid against the worn couch cushions, her unopened can clutched in hands that had gone cold despite the overheated atmosphere created by too many bodies packed into the stone space. The common room's vaulted ceiling, designed centuries ago to accommodate scholarly discourse, now witnessed a different kind of intellectual warfare—the brutal psychology of college social dynamics played out under harsh fluorescent lighting that made everyone's expressions look stark and unforgiving.
