Page 49 of Gothikana

No.

God, no.

Was this how her father had been, too? Had he once been a man as full of life as Troy, and then gone without explanation?

Something moved over his body, light flickering around a shadow. Corvina held her breath, her eyes widening as she saw the shadow hover for a moment before it disappeared, right before she heard his voice in her head.

‘Purple.’

Impossible.

‘Tell my brother.’

Tell his brother? What? He had a brother?

She stared at his body, shock filling her system as she processed his voice in her head, just calling her what he had always called her. She shuddered, looking around to see if anyone else had seen the shadow or experienced anything bizarre.

Shock, sadness, and tears surrounded her. She heard Jade wailing, and her heart broke all over again for her friend, who’d had to lose someone close to her in such a ghastly way again. Wiping her cheeks with her sleeves, she went to Jade, pulling her into her body. Jade turned to her, clinging as her body heaved with her broken sobs, and Corvina felt her own tears fall again at the collective pain around her.

More of the faculty poured into the area, processing their shock as they tried to get the students to go back to their towers. Two people from the staff came to the clearing with a sheet and a gurney. They covered his body with the white sheet that stained red within seconds, and placed him on the stretcher, taking him away.

Corvina wondered if it was okay for them to move a body themselves, if Troy had any actual family who needed to be contacted, disregarding the voice in her head, or if he was on his own like most people at this cursed castle.

Something had driven him, a boy who was afraid of heights, up to a roof that usually stayed locked. Something between the morning and the evening, something that had made him almost catatonic up there. But he had looked at her, almost as though he’d been waiting for her to witness the tragedy.

One of the women from the medical room came to Jade.

‘C’mon, honey.’ The elderly lady took her away. ‘Come rest at the medical room tonight.’

Jade hiccupped, looking at Corvina with swollen eyes. ‘I don’t want to leave you alone.’

Corvina rubbed her shoulder. ‘I promise I’ll be fine. Go rest for the night. You need it.’ In truth, they all did, and she knew the administration wanted to keep an eye on Jade overnight since she was already a flight risk. Jade nodded and left with the lady, leaving Corvina standing beside Erica.

‘I’m scared, girl. What the hell is going on around here?’ Erica spoke out loud to herself, processing like everyone else.

Corvina was processing, too.

Troy was gone.

It was hard for her to wrap her mind around that, even though she’d witnessed it with her eyes. Her heart kept telling her he’d come out of the woods grinning at everyone he’d fooled. He’d give her aside-hug and say, ‘I was just messin’ with you, Purple.’ Her heart couldn’t accept that he wouldn’t ever do that again.

Why?

For over an hour, she observed the activity around her until people slowly began to leave and return to their rooms, just a few lingering around like her, looking slightly lost.

The hair at the nape of her neck prickled. Corvina stilled, looking around surreptitiously, finding nothing and no one out of the spooky ordinary. She turned her gaze up to the roof.

And standing against the backdrop of the dark night, clad all in black, stood the silver-eyed devil of Verenmore at the exact same spot Troy had been, looking down at her.

CHAPTER 14

Corvina

The chandelier wasilluminated in dim yellow light, casting the entryway in a gloomy glow as Corvina entered her own tower. Tugging at the sleeves of her sweater, she watched all the other girls who stayed in the tower, chattering about everything that had happened.

A throb started right behind her eyebrows at the noise, the stress, the questions. Grabbing the railing with one hand, she put the other on her forehead and turned back around.

‘You okay?’ Roy looked at her hand pressed to her head, slight worry inher eyes.

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