by G. Bailey
I hate all the silver and white. It reminds me of being in a hospital.
I prefer pink, a pale baby pink to be exact.
“What do you think of your room?”
“Lovely,” I answer, yet another lie. This one doesn’t feel that bad to say though, as it’s a lie that doesn’t harm her feelings. The woman couldn’t care less about what I think of this room.
“Then I will leave you in peace. As it’s your first day, there is no classes for you. Come here.” She waves me over to the dressing table. There’s a tablet encased in the wall beside the mirror. She touches the screen and a white light flashes in my eyes.
“Welcome to Holly Oak Academy, Miss Regan Hall. May I serve you?”
I’m a little startled by the voice. It reminds me of Alexa from my iPhone but more posh. More British.
Mrs Beach nods to the tablet. “This is Daisy and she serves the academy and all of its students. You can ask her to see the food menu and times it can be served to you. You may also order drinks and snacks at any time of the day or night. Daisy is also in an app on your phone and she can direct you to classes if you get lost or if there is anything you need at all.”
“Sweet,” I say, and this time I mean it. Daisy could be very useful.
“The modern technology of the rich is such a delight. Daisy also has a feature that will show you any student and a brief summary of who they are. It is to help you fit in and make friends.”
I take an important note of that. If I make any enemies, at least I will easily be able to figure out how to bring them down with Daisy’s help. Robots helping me take out my haters. What a time to be alive,
“Is there anything else I can help you with, Miss Hall?” Mrs Beach asks, her voice curt and not a hint of emotion on her face.
“No, thank you,” I reply just as impassively and she nods her head before walking to the door.
“I do hope you fit in well at Holly Oak Academy,” she adds over her shoulder.
I don’t answer her as she leaves my room, closing the door quietly behind her.
After unpacking my clothes, I spread my pink blanket across my bed and sit on the edge, looking at the window for a moment, the breeze lifting the curtains ever so softly. I dig my fingers into the fuzzy blanket, reminding me of a moment not so long ago. As the memory tries to flash into my mind, I shake my head and stand up, going to the window and harshly pulling the curtains open.
I look down into the grass fields behind the castle, which is littered with large oak trees that cast deep shadows across the grass. I catch the gaze of a boy standing in the middle of the field, his muscular arms crossed against his black sweater, his short brown hair lifting in the wind, though it’s not short enough to put any girl off. From his sharp cheekbones, to his bright grey eyes, he is one hell of an attractive guy. You certainly wouldn’t kick him out of bed for any reason.
He openly stares at me, and the more I gaze back, the more I don’t want to look away. He’s addictively attractive, like many of the rich are, but in a way I’ve never seen before.
A sudden knock on the door pulls me from the trance, and I blink, trying to forget the strangely alluring guy. Sex with hot guys is not what I need right now. Or is it? No, not since… I pause, seeing a black envelope slide under my door.
Frowning, I walk over and pick it up, scanning the messy silver writing on the front. I go back to my bed, cross my legs over the blanket and slide my finger under the envelope, dragging out a letter. The handwriting is elegant and loopy, indicating a well brought up person wrote it, but I can’t tell if it’s a girl or boy. It doesn’t matter because as I read the letter, the emotions I usually have a tight grip on scatter to the wind and my heartbeat makes me nothing but fearful.
“Shit. Shit. Shit!” I throw the letter onto my bed and run over to the door, my heart thrashing in my ears. When I pull it open, nothing but an empty corridor stands before me. I’m not sure what I was expecting. The sender clearly doesn’t want me to know who they were. I slam my door and rush over to my bed, grabbing hold of the letter again. I read it three more times before coming to the conclusion that I don’t have a choice. This letter isn’t a bluff. They know. They know what I’m hiding, fuck how do they know?
My secret would destroy me, my parents and so many more people.
I have to protect it at all costs. Any cost.
Looks like I have a game to play.
First stage of the game is easy. I need to make friends—ASAP. Not just any friends. I need the popular girls to like me because they’re the ones who have all the secrets of the academy. Fortunately, my best friend, Anne, goes to this school and I think she’s already friends with them. I just need to worm my way in.
From what I’ve worked out from Daisy, my unlucky victims are the typical hot rich guys.
Ethan Remington is the son of the vice president and I expect he will be the most difficult to befriend, seeing as there is zero information about him online. No photos of him at night clubs, drunk, no ex-girlfriends selling their story of him to the press. He is elusive and there isn’t a recent photo of him anywhere. The only one I could find hides his face, so that’s no use. Daisy doesn’t have photos of him, either. All I’m able to get is a brief rundown on Google. Indeed, he’ll be the hardest to crack.
Lucas Georgian is the only son of a tech billionaire, but it turns out he’s a good boy like Ethan. Well, publicly at least. Usually boys like them hide everything from the public eye for a reason.
Hunter and Nathan Cross are entirely different matters. Their faces are shown everywhere as the party boys they are. Their parents are both inventors of some medical cure, of what I could not find out, but either way, they’re millionaires that fit right in at this academy.
Josh Dedican is an interesting one. There is little information about who his parents are, which means they must be someone important.
Overall, the game so far seems easy. Make the rich guys pay once I figure out what they have done to deserve it. I have no doubt they’ve all done something. My little Truth seems adamant they’re to answer for their sins. I just need to find out what they are and kill them. Sounds straight-forward for someone like me, doesn’t it?
Maybe if we weren’t surrounded by hundreds of other students.
And maybe if I had only one target.
I’ve never killed more than one person at a time. A little part of me dies every time I do which is always on my birthday. The first velvet box I ever received was when I turned twelve. I’d woken up excited, thinking it was something sparkly, but it wasn’t.
It was a gun.
And underneath the engraved handle, there was a handwritten note containing one name, one time slot, and one address.
Mother drove me to the location that day. It was my first time killing someone. I guess she wanted to make sure my father’s secretary was gone for good. She even disposed of the body for me when I broke down into inconsolable sobs. Sometimes, when I close my eyes at night, I can still see the blood spilling onto those horribly white tiles, framing the young woman’s skull like a work of art. That’s what Mother called the way my victim’s blood poured out—art. Beautiful, incomparable art.
It’s been six years of this ‘tradition’. Six years of constant venom creeping into my veins, poisoning me from the inside out. Every scream, cry or useless plea squeezed out from my victims are all part of my parents’ plan to turn me into the perfect, cold-blooded killer. I’ve tried to disassociate myself, to hold on to that tiny part of my soul that’s not covered in blood, but with what happened last year, I’m beginning to think it’s a lost cause. Whatever used to be me is now buried six feet under along with my secret.
The secret I must now kill four people to protect.
Just when I thought life couldn’t get any more unbearable.
I smooth my hands down my uniform. I’ve literally been trained to kill since I was a kid. While most people get nice presents for their birthdays, perhaps even a cake to blow
out and make a wish, I get a hit. Whoever wrote that damn letter was well aware of that. At least this uniform will help me blend in as a ‘normal’ person.
Being normal makes assassinating people that little bit easier.
Turning around in the mirror, I take a final look over my uniform. The plaid skirt is different to my last one. It’s dark green with a white shirt that I’ve unbuttoned at the top. I decided to go with a simple pair of flats today, the same black as my thigh-high socks with the little pink bows at the top. I grab my leather bag off my bed, and with Daisy’s instructions on where to go, I make my way to the cafeteria. My first class is English Lit and I’m surprisingly looking forward to it.
Yesterday I thought we were headed for a storm. As I make my way down the hallway towards the cafeteria, everything is bathed in sunlight. Streams of morning light bleed through the stone archways and there’s not a cloud visible in the clear-blue sky. Autumn leaves cover the ground, crunching under my shoes. The sound of laughter coming from the cafeteria carries to my ears. Feeding time at the zoo. I wonder if Anne will be there. Or doesn’t she have a hospital appointment today?
I pause outside the entrance. Halloween decorations hang above the door with colourful posters running down the wall beside it. I stop to read one of them. ‘A spooktacular night awaits at the Halloween Masque Ball on the 31st October! Contact Ethan for tickets at the Student Council, Room 1.’
“Ethan…” I whisper, taking note of the room. Looks like I’ve just found my first target.
“The last time I checked, that was my name, cutie,” a male voice announces beside me. “Ethan Remington. A pleasure to meet you, Miss…?”
I turn to see a gorgeous boy standing in front of me. Everything about him is pristine, from the tight Windsor knot of his plaid tie to his shiny black shoes. He smiles at me, and his pearly-white teeth are straight with a slight gap between his two front ones. He’s dazzlingly cute, all blond hair and blue eyes. He’s also the person I need to kill. Figures.
“Oh, uhh, hi! I’m Regan Hall,” I answer quickly, forcing myself to come across shy and awkward. “Sorry. I was actually going to look for you after class. I’d like to buy a ticket, please?”
Ethan gives me a quick once over, his lips pulled into a lopsided smirk. “We have a few left. Why don’t you come look for me at lunch? I’ll be in the student council room from twelve to one.”
I give him my sweetest of smiles. “Oh, thank you so much! I’m super grateful.”
“Are you new here?”
“Is it really that obvious?” I squirm and look away, twirling a strand of my hair.
He shakes his head. “Not really. It’s my job to know everyone as Head Boy of the Student Council. I’d remember a face like yours though, cutie.”
To my astonishment, this time I do blush. It’s been a long time since anyone’s said anything nice to me. I’ve kind of forgotten what it feels like to be hit on.
I inwardly shake my head.
Hell. No. Regan! We’ve got a job to do here. Now isn’t the time for wishy-washy compliments.
“Ethan! What the hell are you doing?”
A girl marches up to us, her face turning purple with rage. She’s pretty and petite, and she’s wearing the same uniform as me. But her buttons are loosely done, deliberately showing off her cleavage, and her skirt is an inch or two shorter. She places her hands on her hips and purses her cherry red lips at Ethan. I’m surprised she doesn’t have any steam whistling out from her ears.
“Hounding the new girl already?” she spits at him. “Why didn’t you return my call last night?
Ethan holds out a poster to her. “On the contrary, I was here to hang up this.” He points to the letters BYOB written boldly over the pumpkins. “Mrs Beach finally gave us the go-ahead.”
The girl leans in and squints her eyes at the letters. “Bye-obb. What does bye-obb even mean?”
Ethan rolls his eyes at her. “Bring your own booze, Matilda. Way to make yourself look like a fool in front of the new girl.”
Matilda turns to me, and I swear if looks could kill, Ethan would be dead right now.
Pity. That would have made my job all the easier.
“Don’t let Ethan bully you into signing up for any of the council’s bullshit,” she tells me, gesturing to the posters. “He likes to rope newbies into doing his dirty work for him.”
Ethan doesn’t even dignity her with an answer. Instead, he simply tacks the poster to the wall, turns on his heel, and hums his way down the corridor. I feel like I’ve just been involuntarily included in a lover’s spat.
“Urgh — men!” Matilda shakes herself, turning her dark brown eyes on me. “Apologises about that. We dated once. He’s an asshole, it ended badly, and now he prays on the innocent every chance he can get. He thinks he can get away with it because his daddy is the vice president, but don’t let him fool you. He’s a total sleezebag.”
“Thanks for the heads up,” I say quietly. This girl has got to be one of the popular ones. Time to wiggle my way into her little clique. “I really appreciate that. He told me to go find him at lunch so I can buy a ticket for the ball…”
Her eyes nearly bulge out from her sockets. “Of course he would. Don’t even bother. I can get you a ticket through my friend. That way you can steer clear from Ethan. He’s honestly such a waste of air.”
Then why were you calling him last night, I want to ask, but that’s not part of my ‘shy new girl’ persona.
The cafeteria doors open and a pair of female students walk out. They cast a glance my way and I offer him smile, which only one of them returns.
“Would you like to sit with us?” Matilda offers, nodding to the doors. “We’re a mixed bunch but you’d be more than welcome.”
I smile bashfully at her. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Matilda.”
“Call me Tilda,” she says, leading me into the cafeteria. “All my other friends do.”
If things keep going as smoothly as this, these boys will be dead in no time.
“This way,” Matilda instructs, waving her hand at me and her ‘followers’ like she rules the damn world. I’ve never liked the popular girls, not once, especially the rich ones. The only girl I’ve actually ever been friends with used to live near me—rich, too—but Anne Hopkins is a nice person.
These girls aren’t nice.
Charlie May, Imogen Miller and Matilda May. Holly Oak Academy’ version of Charlie’s Angels, except they don’t kill people.
That’s my job.
Charlie and Matilda are cousins, but as I glance at Charlie in her ‘custom’ uniform which is little more than a crop top and a tiny skirt that doesn’t cover her ass, I figure Matilda got all the brains of the family.
Imogen is quiet, to the point she hasn’t said a word to me over breakfast. She has bright auburn hair, natural I suspect, and a seriously attractive body, but she has that look in her eyes I’ve seen a thousand times before. It’s a look that suggests she has all but given up with the world. So far, she’s a mystery to me, one I intend to find out.
As we round a corner, a guy with dark spiky hair and a crazy muscular body crashes into Imogen. He swoops her up into his arms and kisses her like he hasn’t seen her in years. I catch how Imogen tenses and practically freezes in his hold. Matilda and Charlie carry on walking, and I follow, looking back to see the guy still smothering her, and no one seems to care or notice.
“So gross. Why she doesn’t move schools, I will never know,” Charlie says, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger.
“What do you mean?” I ask softly, playing the innocent and dumb with a worried look on my face.
“Oh, you are too new to freak out. Just stay away from Hunter Cross, and his brother too, for that matter. They’re trouble,” Matilda informs me, pointing to her mouth and pretending to gag.
Dammit. Maybe I played the innocent card a little too well…
I look back at Hunter as he crushes Imogen against his chest,
and she looks empty as she stares down the corridor at something I cannot see.
At least I’ve found another one of the guys on my checklist. I reckon his sin has something to do with Imogen and being her friend is exactly how I’m going to find out the truth. No girl looks that broken without having their heart shattered. I’m going to find out Hunter’s sin one way or another, and if that means using Imogen as bait, so be it.
I have too much at stake to play fair.
“Daisy said you have English Lit first, and neither one of us are in that class,” Matilda says, pausing in the middle of the large room full of students. That makes me aware of two things about Tilda: one, she has her eye on me enough to research all the classes I have, and two, she’s sneaky. I never saw her look up my details. It makes me wonder if it is her that knows my secret and wrote the letter. It has to be someone after all. “Anyway, see you later, Regan.”
“See you later,” I echo, pulling on a sickly sweet smile.
Charlie wiggles her fingers at me as a goodbye, then the two of them link arms and strut down the hallway like God’s gift to man.
It’s not hard to find my first classroom, considering the sign on the door written in large white writing. The door is shut and I glance at my Apple Watch. I’m ten minutes early. If it were any other class, I would be annoyed, but I’ve always loved English Lit. I guess it’s the romantic at heart side of me that connects with the stories in the books.
Reading has been the one escape my parents can’t take away from me or control.