Page 154 of Blood & Betrayals

Alice stares at me assessingly, and I wait patiently for her to decide. Finally, she nods and moves just enough to let me through. The room is exactly how I imagined it. There is blood everywhere. Gods, how can there be so much blood? Now that I’m in the room, the coppery smell mixed with the fear of the victim is overwhelming. She is in the middle of the room, propped up on the desk, left like some broken, discarded doll.

The headmaster spins and closes the distance between us in two strides, his large body blocking my view. “Out,” he growls.

I try to look around him, needing to see more and work out if there are similarities here, too.

He grabs my arms, holding me still and keeping me in front of him. “You should not be here.”

I look up at him, shocked to feel the unfamiliar warmth of a tear sliding down my cheek. “She looks like me. Doesn’t she?”

He holds my gaze with his mercurial eyes, and after a long moment, he nods.

I close my eyes, feeling another tear escape. “This is my fault,” I whisper.

“This is the fault of a murderer,” he growls.

I try to move again to see her, needing to give her this sign of respect. It is only fitting that I am forced to feel an ounce of the pain that was inflicted on her. It’s a decision I regret immediately.

“I asked you before if you were strong. Has your answer changed? Because it looks as if it has,” he asks harshly.

I look up at him, feeling more tears fall. My cheeks burn with the unfamiliar sensation, but they don’t stop. While I have always hated my inability to cry, I hate more how vulnerable it makes me look now. It makes me look weak, and I am so tired of being weak.

“This is senseless savagery. In the face of horror is when true strength appears,” he says. “Leave. Now.”

I brush my tears away and leave the room, but her face is burned into my mind. I walk past Alice without stopping, wrapping the numbness around myself like armor. Alice calls after me, but it’s like she’s on the other side of the realm. I walk through campus, dazed and in shock. My body feels like it’s shutting down. The only thing I can see is her with her pallid skin, the dark holes where her eyes used to be, and her hair matted with blood. Blood. So much blood.

I’m deep in the forest before I feel him. His hands grab my arms, and he shakes me, his voice loud in my ears. “Little fae.”

I struggle to get away from him, but he pulls me against his chest, and I stop fighting, all my energy draining from me. My breaths are painful and labored, making my chest seize. For the first time in decades, I feel tears pouring from my eyes and hysterical sobs wracking my body.

The stranger holds me, and I should be scared. I am scared, but fear surrounds me so thoroughly that I’m frozen in this terror. It takes minutes, hours, days, who the fuck knows before I manage to push myself away from him. My eyes are sore, not used to the salty tears.

“What happened?” he asks, not attempting to touch me again.

“Was it you?” I ask, my voice cold as ice, hoarse from the sobs.

He tilts his head.

“Don’t play dumb. Was it you?” I watch him, frustrated by his blurred form. “Did you kill her?” My voice shakes only a little as the question hangs between us.

“No.”

“You had nothing to do with it?”

He shakes his head and slowly reaches for my hand, pressing my palm to his chest. “I had nothing to do with it.” There is no flutter as he says it, no whisper of a lie, but maybe he’s just a very good liar. I’m a good liar, or at least I used to be, so I know it can be done.

I can tell he can sense my disbelief. “Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know why you do any of the things you do.”

“Did you know her?” he asks.

I pull my hand away and take a step back. “No.”

“Then why are you crying?” he asks.

I look away, shaking my head. “Just go away.”

“You’re scared,” he says. “Why? You could find them. Kill them if you want with barely a thought.”

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