Sadie meets The Girls in this riveting debut psychological thriller about a lonely college freshman seduced into joining a cult—and her desperate attempt to escape before it’s too late. College life isn’t what Emily expected. She expected to spend freshman year strolling through the ivy-covered campus with new friends, finally feeling like she belonged. Instead, she walks the campus alone, still not having found her place or her people so far away from home. But then the Kingdom finds her. The Kingdom, an exclusive on-campus group, offers everything Emily expected out of college and more: acceptance, friends, a potential boyfriend, and a chance to spend the summer on a mission trip to Italy. But the trip is not what she thought it would be. Emily and the others are stripped of their passports and money. They’re cut off from their families back home. The Kingdom’s practices become increasingly manipulative and dangerous… ​And someone ends up dead. Jennifer Moffett is an author, editor, community college instructor, and all-around beachgoer. She grew up in Arkansas until a college study abroad program in Italy sparked a lifelong passion for travel. After working in children’s television in New York, she received a master’s in creative writing from the University of Mississippi. She lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Visit her at JBMoffett.com. Chapter 1: Rituals STEP 1: Introduce yourself to someone new. Try a student sitting alone, or someone who seems upset or out of place. Invite them to an informal activity. Rituals I’m nose-deep into Henry James when Christina Livingston storms through the common room. Her stale eye makeup and disheveled hair signal her apparent mental state. She frantically searches every corner of the room, even crouching down on the floor to look under chairs and tables. Trying not to laugh, I imagine my former roommate, Sadie, mock-singing the first thought in my head: Driving that train. High on cocaine. It was Sadie’s theme song for Christina, but Sadie had other lyric snippets on file just for me, like the chorus to “Here Comes Your Man” when random guys she deemed undesirable walked by. I turn the page of my book and pretend to read, hoping Christina will go away. She’s the type who procrastinates until she has to stay up all night snorting Ritalin through a cut-up plastic straw to cram for a test. She actually used to do this in my room with Sadie when they thought I was asleep. Christina snaps her fingers twice in quick succession. “Hey.” I look up. “Where’s my notebook?” she asks. The animated bears on her T-shirt gleefully kick their way into a tie-dyed vortex as if mocking me. Christina’s eyebrows lift into an expression that’s both confrontational and patient. As in: I have all morning to calmly harass you until you help me find it. “I have no idea,” I say. She tilts her head and edges closer. “Well, it was here a few minutes ago, and now it’s gone. You’re the only person here, so what do you think happened to it?” “I honestly don’t know, Christina. I just got here.” It’s hard to sound nice when it comes to Christina. Why would anyone want her notes for anything other than as entertaining drivel set to the sound effect of a cracked egg sizzling in a pan? This is your brain on drugs . Christina scratches up and down her forearm as she paces. “You know I really don’t need this shit from you, narc .” The nickname makes me flinch. It’s been inescapable since the morning I finally had to tell someone about Sadie. There was no other choice—her skin was too pale, her pulse erratic. Even when I shook her as hard as I could, she wouldn’t wake up, and I had no idea what she’d taken. I panicked. “Sadie hated you, you know,” Christina hisses. My hands begin shaking. I know better than to tell her Sadie thanked me in the ER, where I never left her side, even though Sadie’s other “friends” never checked on her once. Before Sadie’s abrupt departure, I thought they were my friends too, but I guess the word holds a looser definition your freshman year of college. It took moving up here to realize just how far 1,485 miles (I counted) was to be away from your best friend. Summer stayed back home to work at a restaurant while taking art classes at the community college. It still hurts to remember how Summer rushed me off the phone the last few times I had tried to call her, either running to class or going to hang out with the other friends I left behind. I finally wised up and just stopped trying. I turn to see Sadie’s other so-called friends approach the doorway looking for Christina. Shit . I don’t feel like dealing with them right now. I clutch my book and barrel out of the room. “Good luck with her,” I say as I pass, hoping for a sympathetic reaction, but they stare through me with silent hostility. I rush down the corridor, where each metal door flaunts personalized magnets and colorful Post-it notes with friendly messages. I resist the