Chapter Thirty Two: The Morning After
544 Words
Mila’s POV
Morning sunlight spilled through her curtains like it had no idea the world had shifted overnight.
Her alarm buzzed.
Her heart did too.
She hadn’t slept. Not really.
The echo of the assistant’s voice — “They know.” — kept replaying in her head, like a broken record she couldn’t shut off.
At breakfast, her mom chatted about errands. Her dad scrolled through his phone, muttering about meetings. Normal things. Safe things.
But Mila couldn’t taste the food.
She just kept thinking — What if someone saw us last night?
By the time she reached Manchester High, her pulse was steady again, but her instincts weren’t.
Something felt... wrong.
The halls were quieter than usual. No loud gossip, no laughter. Just whispers that cut off when she walked past. Even the teachers seemed off — eyes darting toward the security office, voices low and clipped.
She spotted Xavier by the lockers. He looked different too — not smug or teasing, but sharp, focused. Like he’d felt it too.
“You look like hell,” she muttered.
He shot back dryly, “You should see yourself.”
But then, softer: “You couldn’t sleep either, huh?”
She shook her head. “You think they know?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But something’s definitely up.”
*****
They didn’t need to plan it.
Their feet led them to the library — the only place quiet enough to think.
When they pushed open the side door, Mila froze.
The small back room — the one the assistant had used to meet them — was empty.
Not just empty. Scrubbed.
The desk was gone. The chair, the papers, even the faint coffee stain on the floor — vanished like it had never been there.
All that remained was a faint rectangle on the carpet where the table used to stand.
Mila stepped inside slowly, her throat tightening. “It’s like she never existed.”
Xavier crouched beside a wall outlet, eyes narrowing. “They cleaned this out overnight. That’s not school policy — that’s a cover-up.”
She looked at him. “You think they—”
“Yeah.” His jaw clenched. “They took her.”
*****
For a long moment, neither spoke. The hum of the old ventilation filled the silence like static.
Then Mila noticed something — a sliver of white paper wedged behind a bookcase.
She bent down, reaching for it. A small card, folded once. No name, no signature. Just one printed line:
“Check the greenhouse.”
She turned it over. A faint smudge of ink — like a fingerprint — trailed the edge.
Xavier stood beside her now, reading over her shoulder. His eyes darkened.
“The greenhouse?” he said. “That’s on the old side of the school. Nobody goes there.”
“Exactly,” Mila whispered.
Their eyes met — that quiet, unspoken challenge sparking again.
This wasn’t over.
Whoever “they” were… had just made it personal.
*****
Writer’s POV
As they slipped out of the library, the security camera above the door turned — a slow, mechanical blink — tracking their every move.
And in the control room across campus, someone paused the feed… and smiled.
- Writer
