Poison Petals
1075 Words
The envelope was heavier than it should have been.
Lilith sat cross-legged on the floor of Ronan’s room, the sealed file in her lap like it contained a beating heart. It was late—past 1:00 a.m.—and the dorms were quiet except for the muffled rumble of a late train passing the outer edge of the estate.
Ronan watched her from his chair, half in shadow, sleeves rolled to the elbow. One leg crossed, posture elegant. Patient.
“I told you I’d give you power when you earned it,” he said. “Now I want to see what you do with it.”
Lilith ran her fingers along the edge of the envelope. “What is it exactly?”
“Proof that Alec Sterling’s father is a thief. Private files. Account numbers. He’s been bleeding his own investors dry for a decade.”
“And how do you have it?”
Ronan’s expression didn’t change. “You’re not the only one who knows how to look beyond the surface.”
Lilith said nothing. But the blood in her veins had changed temperature.
This wasn’t a poem. Or a threat. Or an open wound. This was annihilation—documented, typed, and authenticated. The kind of power that didn't just break people.
It erased them.
---
Back in her dorm, Lilith placed the envelope under her pillow. She didn’t open it. Not yet. Not because she wasn’t ready—but because she was.
She lay in the dark, eyes fixed on the ceiling, heart loud. Alec’s voice echoed again from the track field.
> “I used to touch you.”
She had let him. Once. A hundred times. There was a part of her, still raw, that had wanted someone to choose her—even if it came wrapped in poison.
But now she had teeth.
And poison of her own.
---
At school, the whispers about Alec’s downfall had faded into awkward silence. People feared Ronan now. And Lilith, by association.
But Alec?
He moved like a ghost.
His locker was emptied. He stopped wearing his fencing captain pin. And most chilling of all—he stopped speaking in public.
He just watched.
From staircases. From across the cafeteria. His eyes locked on Lilith like he was carving her name into every bone in his body.
She ignored him.
But inside, she waited.
Because he wouldn’t stay silent forever.
---
Thursday evening, she returned to Ronan’s room.
She wore red lipstick this time. Not for seduction.
For war paint.
She sat on the edge of his bed and handed him the unopened envelope.
He raised a brow. “Changed your mind?”
“I want it digital,” she said. “If I do this, it has to go everywhere. No rumors. No shadow. Just truth.”
Ronan smiled slowly.
“Good girl.”
---
She sent the file on a Friday morning.
To three news outlets. One political blog. And—just to be cruel—Alec’s father's own company email list.
She used a VPN. An anonymous ID. Ronan handled the routing.
By third period, it was on Twitter.
By lunch, it hit the front page of the student groupchat. The headline was short:
> “Sterling Senior Under Investigation for Multi-Million Dollar Fraud Scheme.”
By last period, Alec Sterling had vanished from campus.
---
Lilith didn’t feel triumphant.
Not exactly.
What she felt was awake.
As if the fog of manipulation had been peeled away and beneath it was a version of her that had always existed—sharp, cold, unfinished.
She sat with Ronan in the library after class. Neither of them spoke for a while.
Then Ronan said, “You just dismantled a dynasty.”
Lilith looked at her hands.
“They would’ve done it to me first,” she replied.
He tilted his head. “You think this makes you clean?”
“No,” she said. “It makes me free.”
Ronan stood. Walked to her. Took her chin between his fingers and lifted it until their eyes met.
“You’re learning to be useful.”
Lilith’s breath caught. “Is that all I am to you?”
“For now.”
She nodded slowly. “Then teach me more.”
Ronan’s thumb traced her cheekbone—almost tender.
Almost.
---
That night, Alec returned.
Not to campus. Not to class.
But to her dorm.
He waited until the lights were out. Until her roommate was gone.
She woke up to the sound of the window sliding open.
Her breath froze.
“Alec?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. Just climbed in, slow and quiet, like a shadow possessed by grief.
He stood at the foot of her bed, eyes wide and red.
“You ruined my father.”
Lilith sat up slowly. “He did that himself.”
“No,” Alec said. “He was messy. But no one was looking. Until you pointed.”
She didn’t move.
“You broke me,” he whispered. “So I’m going to show you what that means.”
He pulled something from his pocket.
Lilith tensed—until she saw it was just a velvet box.
He opened it.
Inside, a ring. Thin, silver, etched with an insignia she recognized.
The Sterling family crest.
“I was going to give you this,” Alec said. “At Winter Formal.”
Lilith stared.
“You would’ve said yes,” he continued. “Before him.”
Her voice was steady. “You never asked.”
“I didn’t think I had to,” he murmured.
She reached forward. Slowly. Took the ring from the box.
Held it between her fingers like a scalpel.
Then dropped it on the floor.
Alec stared at it.
Then at her.
Then he smiled.
Not fake. Not sarcastic.
Unhinged.
“I’ll see you at Winter Formal anyway,” he said, voice smooth as silk dipped in arsenic.
Then he turned and climbed back out the window, vanishing into the night.
---
The next morning, Lilith wore black again.
To school. To chapel. To fencing practice, where she sat in the bleachers just to watch Alec lose.
But he didn’t show.
Instead, someone slipped her a note.
Handwritten. Pale ink. No signature.
> “We were glass, Lilith. You threw the stone.”
She folded it. Tucked it into her pocket.
And whispered under her breath:
> “Good.”
---
- Writer
