Page 84 of The Vipers and Their Venom

Dean Rossi bends to pick up the scattered file. He lifts a couple of sheets of paper, and then freezes.

I hold my breath.

“Where did you get this?” he asks, his voice becoming different—as cold as ice and as sharp as a blade.

“I…umm…like I said, it was on your secretary’s desk.”

He stands and takes a step closer. “Don’t lie to me. Get in my office.Now.”

I want to cry. Could this have gone any more badly? I should have just left the fucking file in my room or chucked it in the industrial trash cans around the back of the kitchen.Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I don’t have any choice. I must go with him.

We enter his office, and he shuts the door behind me. “Sit,” he orders.

I don’t dare refuse. I sink down into the chair on the opposite side of the desk and try to make myself as small as possible. I’m shaking all over, and my heart feels like it’s trying to crawl out of my mouth via my throat.

“Why do you have Reagan Olsen’s file? Tell me the truth this time, Ivani. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

I blink and bite my lower lip. I’m breaking my promise to Mom by telling him, but what choice do I have?

“I lost my mom six months ago,” I say, hoping he’ll at least go a little easier on me if he pities me, “and on her deathbed she told me I have a sister. Reagan’s that sister, and I’m trying to find her.”

His expression changes, and I can’t quite pinpoint what it means.

“You haven’t heard?” he says. His face is tight, and he looks utterly incredulous.

Confusion bounces around inside me, my insides fluttering with anxiety. “Heard what?”

“Ivani … Reagan is dead.” He reaches forward as if to touch my shoulder and comfort me but then drops his hand. “She died a couple of years ago.”

It’s like he’s just punched all the air out of my lungs. “What?”

No, this can’t be right. He’s made a mistake. I’d considered the possibility that she was no longer at Verona Falls—of course I had—but dead? No, I would have heard. I would have known. I would have goddamnedfeltit.

He continues, “I’m sorry, and I know this must be hard to hear, but it was suicide. She jumped from the tower.”

I fold in two, knotting my hands in my hair as I shake my head. “She can’t be dead. She just can’t be.”

All the future moments I had imagined, the dreams of having my sister in my life, all crumble to dust. No, they weren’t even real enough to create dust. They were just a figment of my imagination. Even while I was learning about her from my mom, she was already dead.

I burst into tears, but I’m not only crying for myself, I’m crying for my mom. My poor mom who had already gone through so much and had lost the daughter who was taken from her twice and hadn’t even known it. Was it a blessing that Mom had never learned that her eldest daughter had died? Had it been better that Mom had gone to her grave believing Reagan was happy and living her life? I think it probably was.

I hope, wherever they are now, they’ll have found each other again.

Dean Rossi seems uncomfortable at my tears. He finds a packet of tissues and tries to offer them to me. I shake my head and push back my chair. I don’t want to be here right now. I needsome privacy to process what I’ve just learned, and to grieve in private.

A huge part of me wants to call my dad and tell him to come get me, but I can’t even do that. If he finds out about Reagan, he’ll find out about what happened to Mom, and he’ll go after Reagan’s dad. This was the opposite of what Mom wanted.

“Please,” I manage to say through my tears, “don’t tell my dad. He didn’t know about the baby.”

I haven’t been punished for my crimes yet, but I expect it’s still to come. The dean will wait until I’m more stable, and then give me my marching orders. I’ll have to think of an excuse to tell my dad about why I’m no longer allowed to attend Verona Falls, but I can’t go there right now. My head is just full of thoughts of my sister being dead. All that time wasted while we’d been apart, time we now can never get back. I’m utterly heartbroken over a person I’ve never even met. And to lose her by suicide, too. What was going on in her life that was so bad that she’d wanted to end it? Could I have helped? I feel the deep pain of guilt as it slams into me. I wasn’t there when she needed me the most.

“I’ll consider it,” Rossi says. “But I’m not making any promises. And Ivani, I understand you’re upset, but it’s for the best you don’t talk about this.”

I nod, knowing I’m out of here anyway once he figures out a way to do it. I just hope he doesn’t tell my father about Mom’s secret. I guess it’s the best I can expect.

With tears streaming down my face, I flee the office. I keep going, still moving at a run, keeping my head bent, so the dark curtain of my hair shields my face and my tears. I don’t want to be out in public right now, though luckily not many people are around at this time. I can’t stand for anyone to see me like this.

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