Chapter 59: The Girl At The Back

Astrid

I couldn’t stop looking toward the dark path Roshan had disappeared down. The music kept playing, but I’d stopped dancing entirely, standing near the pool with Ivy while my eyes kept drifting back to that same spot.

"Stop looking over there," Ivy said.

"Why?"

"Because you’re making me nervous."

I tried to laugh it off, told her I was just curious, but the truth was I couldn’t shake it. A student was missing, and I distinctly remembered seeing her head that way earlier. I looked again. Nothing. Just shadow and open yard.

The party carried on around us like nothing had happened. Students dancing. Someone shouting near the pool. Laughter everywhere. It bothered me, watching everyone still having fun when someone might genuinely be in trouble somewhere in the dark.

Roshan reappeared a few minutes later, his easy expression gone entirely.

"Did you find her?" I asked immediately.

"Not yet." He looked at me. "Tell me exactly what you saw."

I explained again, seeing her earlier, heading toward the back of the property.

"Was she alone?" he asked.

I hesitated. I remembered someone else, a figure moving behind her, though I couldn’t picture their face. The area had been too crowded, too dark.

"I think someone was following her," I said.

His expression shifted immediately. He asked me to describe them. I tried and came up with nothing useful, and I hated that, hated not being able to give him something solid.

He thanked me anyway and told me to stay with Ivy before heading back toward the dark end of the yard.

We watched him gather a few other seniors and start searching. Martha and Camilla found us a minute later, complaining about missing all the fun, and Ivy quickly filled them in. Their expressions changed fast, whispers spreading through the group nearby.

Then a shout came from somewhere behind the property.

"She’s here!" Roshan’s voice.

Relief rippled through the crowd immediately. I started walking toward the sound without thinking, Ivy right behind me.

We found the missing girl sitting near the edge of the darkened yard, shaken, her clothes dirty, a thin scratch along her arm. Roshan crouched beside her.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"Why did you come back here?"

"I wanted somewhere quiet," she said.

He looked around, and I understood his skepticism immediately. This wasn’t the kind of place anyone casually wandered to sit alone. Dark. Far from the music. Far from everyone.

"You didn’t hear people calling for you?" he asked.

"I didn’t hear anything," she said.

I noticed her avoiding eye contact the entire time. Something about it didn’t sit right, though nothing about her seemed dangerous exactly. Just incomplete.

Roshan pressed a little further, and she got irritated fast, insisting nothing had happened, that she’d only wanted air.

I looked down while they talked. Her shoes were caked in mud, which struck me as odd since the main party area was paved. There was that scratch too, thin and fresh along her forearm. She noticed me looking and yanked her sleeve down over it immediately.

That only made me more curious. I didn’t say anything, though.

Roshan decided against pushing further with everyone watching. "We’ll talk later," he told her.

As the group started moving back toward the party, something dark caught my eye near a low branch where the girl had been sitting. I bent down and picked it up.

A small piece of black fabric, heavier than any normal clothing material, with something embroidered faintly along one edge that I couldn’t quite make out in the dim light.

"Don’t," the girl said sharply.

I looked up. Her expression had changed completely, real fear written across her face now.

I lowered the fabric slowly. "What is it?"

She shook her head. "Nothing."

That answer didn’t match the fear on her face at all.

Roshan noticed the exchange and asked what I’d found. I handed it over, and he studied it for a moment, his expression hard to read.

"Do you know what that is?" I asked.

He didn’t answer right away. He folded it and tucked it into his pocket instead. "I’ll handle it."

That wasn’t an explanation, and I noticed. I asked whether something had happened to her.

"Not tonight," he said.

That answer left me with more questions than before, but someone called him back toward the party, and he told me to stay with my friends before disappearing again.

I watched him go, uneasy, feeling like I’d stumbled onto something I wasn’t supposed to see.

Roshan announced a few minutes later that the girl was fine, and the party slowly came back to life. Music returned. Students started dancing again. Martha and Camilla acted like nothing had happened at all.

Ivy pulled me back toward the pool. "You’re not spending the rest of the night staring at bushes."

I laughed and let myself relax again, dancing, splashing water at Ivy when she got too close to the edge, both of us laughing when she retaliated. I reminded myself why I’d come. One night without thinking about Reed and Xander.

For a while, I actually managed it.

Later, I stepped away from the crowd to catch my breath, and my eyes drifted toward the dark side of the property again out of habit. For a second, I thought I saw someone standing just beyond the reach of the pool lights. A shape, still, watching the party.

I squinted. It seemed to shift.

I blinked, and there was nothing there at all.

I told myself it was probably a tree, or someone walking off in the dark, and turned back toward the party without mentioning it to anyone.

Then the music cut off entirely.

Everyone groaned at once. "What happened?" someone shouted.

Then, sharper: "Professor!"

I turned. Students near the entrance were already backing away in a hurry. I saw Professor Aldrich standing there, several academy officials flanking him.

For one frozen second, nobody moved.

Roshan looked toward the entrance, his whole expression collapsing.

"We’re dead," someone whispered nearby.

"Run," another voice said.

And then everyone moved at once, grabbing shoes, scrambling away from the pool, someone nearly slipping on the wet tile. Ivy grabbed my wrist hard.

I looked toward Aldrich.

He’d already spotted us.

My stomach dropped straight through the ground.

We’d been caught.