Chapter 2
1056 Words
The bell rang exactly at eight.
It wasn’t loud. Just one clean chime that echoed through the stone corridors.
Within seconds, the hallways transformed.
Students poured from every direction, laughing, greeting one another, comparing schedules. Expensive perfume mixed with the scent of polished wood and fresh coffee drifting from somewhere downstairs.
Wren adjusted the strap of her backpack.
She had never seen a school this… extravagant.
Crystal chandeliers hung above the main hallway.
Portraits of former headmasters lined the walls, each one framed in gold.
Even the lockers looked custom-made.
Nothing about Kingsley Preparatory Academy felt like a school.
It felt like a country club that accidentally accepted teenagers.
Lily linked their arms together.
“You’ll get used to it.”
I doubt that.
“You will.”
Wren wasn’t convinced.
As they walked through the hallway, conversations lowered.
Not stopped.
Lowered.
She caught people glancing at her uniform.
Not because it was wrong.
Because it wasn’t tailored.
Their blazers hugged perfectly.
Their shoes looked brand new.
Even their watches probably cost more than her mother’s yearly salary.
Lily noticed.
They’re trying to figure out who you are.
They’ve never seen a scholarship student before?
They’ve seen scholarship students.
She smiled sadly.
They just don’t usually remember them.
That stung more than Wren wanted to admit.
Their first class was Modern Political History.
The classroom resembled a university lecture hall.
Rows of polished wooden desks curved toward the front.
The professor hadn’t even arrived before students naturally divided themselves into groups.
The wealthy.
The athletes.
The children of celebrities.
The scholarship students.
Three.
There were only three scholarship students in the entire room.
Wren.
A quiet boy wearing thick glasses.
And another girl sitting alone by the window.
Nobody else sat near them.
Nobody had to say anything.
The separation already existed.
It had probably existed for years.
Halfway through class, the door opened.
Nobody knocked.
The professor, who had been speaking, stopped mid-sentence.
Every head turned.
A tall boy walked inside as though the interruption belonged to everyone else.
Dark hair.
Black blazer draped carelessly over one shoulder.
Hands in his pockets.
He looked completely unimpressed by the attention.
The professor actually smiled.
Nice of you to join us.
“No, it wasn’t.”
The classroom laughed.
Even the professor.
Wren frowned.
Late.
Disrespectful.
Arrogant.
And somehow everyone acted like he’d done something charming.
Lily leaned toward her.
Don’t stare.
Why?
Because that’s Kai Reznik.
“So?”
Lily looked horrified she’d asked.
“So?”
She lowered her voice even further.
Just… don’t.
Kai took the empty seat near the back without asking permission.
No detention.
No lecture.
No consequences.
The professor simply continued teaching.
As though nothing had happened.
After class, students flooded into the hallway again.
Kai walked through the center.
Nobody blocked his path.
People moved before he reached them.
Like water parting around a boat.
It wasn’t respect.
It was instinct.
Wren watched a teacher step aside to let him pass.
A teacher.
She blinked.
“Did…”
Lily sighed.
Yeah.
The teacher moved.
“They always do.”
“Why?”
Lily hesitated.
No one wants problems with the Reznik family.
What does his family do?
Lily gave a humorless laugh.
What don’t they do?
Before Wren could ask another question, someone slammed into her shoulder.
Books spilled across the marble floor.
“Oh.”
The blond girl barely glanced down.
“My bad.”
She kept walking.
Her friends laughed.
Wren crouched to collect her notebooks.
A polished black shoe stopped inches from one of them.
She looked up.
Kai.
He bent down, picked up the notebook…
…looked at the front.
“Wren Ashby.”
His voice was calm.
Scholarship sticker still clung to the cover.
His eyes flicked to it.
Then back to her.
Without another word….
He handed the notebook back.
Not kindly.
Not rudely.
Simply because it was beneath him to care.
As he walked away, someone behind him muttered,
“Scholarships really are multiplying this year.”
More laughter.
Wren clenched the notebook until the edges dug into her fingers.
Lunch wasn’t any better.
The cafeteria looked like a luxury hotel restaurant.
Different tables belonged to different social circles.
Nobody had assigned seats.
Yet everyone knew exactly where they belonged.
Lily nodded toward the raised platform near the windows.
“The founders’ tables.”
Wren frowned.
“The what?”
“The families that practically own Kingsley.”
There sat Kai.
Surrounded by students whose last names appeared on buildings, museums, political campaigns.
Nobody spoke over him.
Nobody interrupted him.
He wasn’t trying to command attention.
He simply had it.
Wren looked away.
“He’s insufferable.”
Lily laughed.
“You’ve known him for six minutes.”
“That was enough.”
That afternoon, Wren wandered the campus alone after her final class.
She wanted to memorize the layout before she inevitably got lost.
The west courtyard.
The music hall.
The chapel.
The science building.
Everything looked perfect.
Too perfect.
Then she noticed something odd.
A maintenance worker was scraping a name off one of the dormitory directory boards.
Not replacing it.
Removing it.
She slowed.
“Excuse me…”
The man froze.
“What happened to that student?”
He looked at the board.
Then at her.
“What student?”
The one whose name was there.
“There wasn’t one.”
“I just saw….”
“You didn’t.”
His tone was flat.
Cold.
He picked up his tools…
…and walked away.
Leaving behind a blank space where a brass nameplate had clearly been only moments earlier.
That night, back in the dorm, Wren couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The strange maintenance worker.
The way teachers stepped aside for Kai.
The hallway panic from yesterday.
Everything felt…
off.
Lily was unusually quiet.
She sat on her bed scrolling through something on her phone.
Then quickly locked the screen when Wren looked over.
You okay?
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
A pause.
“…Just tired.”
But she didn’t sound tired.
She sounded afraid.
Around midnight….
A soft sound echoed from outside their room.
Not footsteps.
Not voices.
A metallic click.
Like a key turning in a lock.
Wren sat upright.
“Lily?”
“I heard it.”
Another click.
This time…
…from the room directly across the hall.
- Writer
