6.The Room She Left Behind 1
1093 Words
RAE
I stood there for a long moment after the door clicked shut, my back pressed against the wood. My heart was still racing from that conversation with Professor Rhys. The way he looked at me, like he was seeing someone else entirely. And what I'd said about his... situation. I couldn't believe those words had come out of my mouth.
The smell hit me immediately.
Soap. Industrial-strength cleaner. Bleach. Someone had scrubbed this room within an inch of its life, probably just hours ago. The scent was so strong it made my eyes water. But underneath all that chemical warfare, something else lingered. Something floral and sweet, with an edge of expensive perfume. Saraphina's scent. Faint, but still there, clinging to the corners they couldn't quite reach.
I dropped my bag on the floor and looked around. The room was bigger than I expected. A single bed sat against the far wall, wide and neatly made with crisp white sheets. No creases, no stray hairs, no dent in the pillow. Just perfect, like it had been waiting for someone new. There was a desk by the window, polished until it shone, and a wardrobe that looked like it belonged in a palace. Everything was spotless, too spotless. Sterile, like they’d scrubbed away every trace that someone had actually lived here. But even under all that soap and lemon polish, I could still smell her. Saraphina.
They'd missed things.
A hair tie on the windowsill, tangled with a few golden strands. A textbook shoved behind the radiator, spine bent from being read too many times. And on the desk, half-hidden behind a lamp, a photo in a silver frame.
I walked over and picked it up. Saraphina smiled back at me, her arm around a boy I didn't recognize. He was tall, with dark hair that fell into his eyes and the kind of smile that made you want to trust him. They looked happy. Really happy, in that careless way that people who'd never had to worry about anything could be.
I turned the photo over. There was writing on the back in Saraphina's neat handwriting: "Me and Luca."
I turned the photo back. Luca. The name tag was still attached to his uniform. Luca Ashborne. I stared at his face, trying to piece together who he might have been to her. Boyfriend, probably. Maybe he loved her. Maybe he was somewhere in this school right now, grieving just like I was.
The thought made my chest tight. I wasn't the only one who'd lost her. There were probably dozens of people here who'd known Saraphina better than I ever had. Who had actual memories with her, not just fantasies of what having a sister might have been like.
My phone buzzed against my leg. I pulled it out and saw a message from an unknown number. But I knew who it was. There was only one person who had this number.
‘Keep your head down. Do not let anyone discover you are Omega.’
My father. Straight to the point, as always. I typed back quickly.
‘Of course.’
Another message came through almost immediately.
‘Do not act smart and start poking at things. Saraphina's death was an unfortunate accident. Nothing more. She will be buried tomorrow. Stay in the school.’
I stared at the words until they blurred. An accident. That's what he wanted me to believe. That's what he wanted everyone to believe. But the way he'd said it, the emphasis on accident, made something cold settle in my stomach.
He knew something. Maybe not everything, but something. And he didn't want me digging into it. Not when I was finally here, in this school he'd probably been trying to get me into after the right daughter had perished. Not when Saraphina's death had given him the perfect excuse to place his only spare somewhere respectable.
I was a replacement. A stand-in. And he didn't want me ruining it by asking the wrong questions.
I typed back: Understood.
Then I shoved the phone back in my pocket and tried not to think about what my sister might have looked like when they found her. Or what kind of accident left a perfectly healthy eighteen-year-old werewolf with incredible healing dead at the bottom of her dormitory room.
A knock at the door made me jump. I'd been so lost in my thoughts that the sound felt like a gunshot. I dropped the photo, and it clattered to the floor.
"s**t," I muttered, bending to pick it up. The glass hadn't cracked, but Luca's face was now staring up at me from an odd angle, his smile looking almost mocking.
Another knock came,it was more insistent this time.
I shoved the photo back behind the lamp and went to the door. When I opened it, two girls were standing in the hallway. Both of them were beautiful in that effortless way that came with good genes and better nutrition. The taller one had blonde hair that looked like it had been styled by professionals, and the shorter one had dark curls that bounced when she moved.
"You're the new girl?" the blonde asked. Her voice had that slight upturn at the end, like she was used to people hanging on her every word.
I nodded, suddenly aware of how plain I must look compared to them. "Yeah. Nice to meet you guys."
The dark-haired girl tilted her head, studying my face with an intensity that made my skin crawl. "I know you."
My stomach dropped. "No," I said quickly. "I'm new here."
But she was still staring, her eyes narrowing like she was trying to solve a puzzle. "What's your name?"
"Rae." The word came out smaller than I meant it to.
"Rae who?"
I swallowed hard. This was it. The moment I had to sell the lie that would define my entire time here. "Rae Vale. I'm a distant cousin to Saraphina."
The blonde's eyebrows shot up. "Oh my god, really? How distant? I never heard Sara mention any cousins."
But the dark-haired girl was shaking her head slowly, a smile spreading across her face that had nothing kind in it. "No. No, you're not."
My mouth went dry. "I don't know what you—"
"I remember now." She turned to her friend, excitement lighting up her features. "Guys, two summers ago, I visited Saraphina at her home. This girl—" She pointed at me like I was evidence in a trial. "She was a servant there."
- Writer
