Chapter Twenty-Nine – The Warning

I didn't run.

Every instinct screamed at me to flee, to turn and bolt for the door, to put as much distance as possible between myself and the masked figure standing in the center of the greenhouse. But my feet stayed planted. My hands stayed steady at my sides.

Running meant fear.

Fear meant weakness.

And weakness was what they wanted.

"I don't know who you are," I said, my voice surprisingly calm. "But you're not going to hurt me."

The figure tilted their head. The mask was plain, black, the kind you could buy at any drugstore. No features. No expression. Just two eyeholes staring back at me like empty sockets.

I had thought they were done following me.

"You're braver than your sister," they said, the distorted voice crackling through what sounded like a voice changer. "She cried. Begged, even. It was pathetic, really."

The words hit me like a physical blow.

Your sister.

She cried.

She begged.

This person had been there. This person had seen Alice die. This person might have been the one who held her under.

"Who are you?" I demanded, stepping forward.

The figure stepped back. Maintaining distance. Calculating.

"Someone who knows exactly who you are, Alexa Lean. Not Nova James. Not some transfer student with a mysterious past." They laughed, the sound warped and unnatural through the voice changer. "You're a girl with a dead sister and a death wish. And I'm here to grant it."

"Then do it."

The words came out before I could stop them.

The figure froze. Even through the mask, I could feel their surprise.

"Kill me," I said, stepping closer. "Right now. Go ahead. But I promise you, someone will find out. Someone will keep asking questions. Someone will burn this whole place to the ground."

"You think anyone cares about you?"

"I think Detective Cross cares. I think my friends care. And I think you wouldn't be wearing that mask if you weren't afraid of being recognized."

The figure said nothing.

"You're scared," I continued. "That's why you're here. Not to kill me. To warn me. To scare me into leaving."

"Smart girl," they said. "Too smart for your own good."

They reached into their jacket. I tensed, ready to fight, ready to run.

But they didn't pull out a weapon.

They pulled out a photograph.

Alice's face. Alive. Smiling. The same photograph from my duffel bag. The one that had been stolen during the break-in.

"You want to know what happened to your sister?" The figure held up the photograph. "She found something she shouldn't have. She asked questions she shouldn't have asked. And she paid the price."

"Who killed her?"

"That's the wrong question."

"Then what's the right question?"

The figure stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell them. Cigarette smoke. Coffee. And something else. Something familiar.

Where had I smelled that before?

"The right question," they said, "is who's next."

They dropped the photograph. It fluttered to the ground, landing face-up at my feet. Alice's eyes stared up at me, frozen in time.

"Leave Westbrook, Alexa. Go back to whatever hole you crawled out of. Forget about your sister. Forget about the basement. Forget about Natalie Vasquez."

"Or what?"

"Or you'll end up just like them."

The figure turned and walked toward the back of the greenhouse. Toward the door that led to the maintenance shed. Toward the path that disappeared into the trees.

"Wait," I called out.

They paused.

"Earl," I said. "Did you kill him too?"

The figure didn't answer. They just pushed open the back door and stepped into the sunlight.

By the time I ran to the door, they were gone.

---

I stood in the doorway, breathing hard, my heart pounding against my ribs. The photograph of Alice was in my hand, the edges crumpled from where I'd grabbed it off the floor.

She cried. She begged.

I closed my eyes.

It was pathetic, really.

When I opened them again, I wasn't crying. I'd promised myself I wouldn't cry. Not for Alice. Not for anyone.

But my hands were shaking.

I pulled out my phone. Missed calls from Myles. Texts from Ashley asking if I was okay.

I typed back: I'm fine. Heading back.

Then I walked out of the greenhouse and didn't look back.

---

The quad was busy when I emerged.

Students milling between classes, laughing, talking, living their ordinary lives. A guy on a skateboard weaved through the crowd. A girl sat on a bench, crying into her phone. A professor hurried past, arms full of books.

Normal sounds. Normal sights.

But nothing felt normal anymore.

I walked toward the library, keeping my head down, my hands in my pockets. The photograph was folded and tucked away, pressed against the key card and the weight of everything I'd seen.

"Alexa."

I stopped.

Madden stood at the edge of the path, her arms crossed, her face unreadable. Her cast was gone, her arm free, but she still held it like she expected it to hurt.

"Madden." I didn't know what else to say. "I've been looking for you."

"I've been... around."

She stepped closer. Her eyes were red, like she'd been crying. Or maybe like she hadn't been sleeping.

"We need to talk," she said.

"Okay."

"Not here. Somewhere private."

I nodded. "The library. Back corner. No one goes there."

Madden nodded once, then turned and walked ahead of me.

---

The library was quiet.

We found a table in the back corner, hidden behind a stack of old periodicals and a broken printer that no one had bothered to fix. The lights were dim, the air smelled like dust, and we were completely alone.

Madden sat across from me, her hands flat on the table.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then she said, "I'm still angry at you."

"I know."

"You put my name in that notebook. Next to the word 'suspect.' You looked at me and thought I might have killed Alice."

"But I put everyone's name in that notebook, when I didn’t know what to trust and I promise I had forgotten about it.”

"That doesn't make it better."

"I know that too."

Madden's jaw tightened. Her fingers curled into fists on the table.

"Alice was my best friend," she said. "Before everything fell apart. Before Natalie disappeared. Before the lab. She was the only person who made me feel like I wasn't crazy."

"She told me about you. In her calls. She said you were the funniest person she'd ever met."

Madden's eyes glistened. "She said that?"

"She said you used to make her laugh so hard she couldn't breathe. She said you once got kicked out of the dining hall for imitating Professor Vance's walk."

A tear slipped down Madden's cheek. She wiped it away quickly, angrily.

"I miss her," she whispered.

"I miss her too."

We sat in silence. The library hummed around us, the fluorescent lights buzzing, the distant sound of pages turning.

"I'm sorry," I said. "For the notebook. For suspecting you. For lying about who I was. I was scared, and scared people do stupid things."

"You're still lying."

"What?"

"You're still carrying everything alone. You're still trying to protect us by keeping us in the dark." She looked at me. "Ashley told me about the basement. About Natalie. About the photos you took."

My heart clenched. "I was going to tell you."

"When? When it was over? When you were dead too?"

The words hit like stones.

"I didn't want to hurt you," I said.

"Not telling me hurts more." Madden leaned forward. "Natalie was my girlfriend. I've been looking for her for two years. Every day. Every night. And you found her in a freezer in the basement and you didn't tell me?"

"I was going to. I just... I needed to figure out what to do first."

"Figure it out with me." She grabbed my hands across the table. "I'm not some fragile thing that's going to break, Alexa. I've been broken. I put myself back together. And I want to help you."

"Even after the notebook?"

"Even after the notebook."

I looked at her. At the tears on her cheeks and the fire in her eyes. At the grief she carried and the strength beneath it.

"Okay," I said.

"Okay?"

"Okay, I'll stop keeping secrets. Okay, I'll let you help. Okay, I'm sorry."

Madden squeezed my hands. Then she let go and sat back.

"Good," she said. "Because I have something to show you."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a small notebook. Not like mine. This one was worn, the cover stained, the pages curled at the edges.

"What's that?"

"Natalie's journal," Madden said. "She gave it to me the week before she disappeared. She said if anything happened to her, I should read it."

"Have you read it?"

"I've read it a hundred times. But I've never shown it to anyone. Until now."

She slid the journal across the table.

I opened it.

The handwriting was small, neat, precise. Dates in the margins. Times. Names.

And on the first page, a sentence that made my blood run cold:

Professor Vance is going to kill me. I just don't know when.

---

I read for an hour.

Page after page. Entry after entry. Natalie had documented everything. The experiments. The chemicals. The students who had been harmed. The ones who had disappeared.

And then, in the final entry, dated three days before she vanished:

I told Madden everything. I gave her the journal. If I'm not here tomorrow, she'll know what to do. She'll find someone to help. She'll finish what I started.

I looked up at Madden.

"She trusted you," I said.

"She trusted me to find the truth. And I failed her. For two years, I failed her."

"You didn't fail her. You kept her journal safe. You waited for the right moment."

"And now?"

I closed the journal and held it against my chest.

"Now we finish what she started."

---

We walked out of the library together.

The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the quad. Students hurried to dinner, their voices a low buzz around us.

"Where are you going now?" Madden asked.

"I need to tell Myles and Ashley about the greenhouse. About the masked figure."

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say I met someone.”

"Someone threatened you?"

"Someone warned me. There's a difference."

Madden shook her head. "You're insane."

"So I've been told."

"Meet me tonight," she said. "My dorm. 9 PM. I'll show you what else I've found."

"Should I come alone?"

"Bring Myles. Bring Ashley. We're done with secrets."

I nodded.

Madden turned to leave, then paused.

"Alexa?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you came to Westbrook. Even with the notebook. Even with all of it." She looked at me. "Alice would be proud of you."

She walked away before I could respond.

I stood there for a long moment, watching her go, the journal still pressed against my chest.

Then I pulled out my phone and texted Myles and Ashley:

Meeting at Madden's dorm. 9 PM. Everything is about to change.

---

At 8:55 PM, I stood outside Madden's dorm.

Myles was beside me. Ashley was on my other side. We'd come together, a unit, the way we should have been from the beginning.

"You ready for this?" Myles asked.

"No."

"Good. Let's go."

We walked inside.

The hallway was quiet. The stairs were empty. Madden's room was on the third floor, at the end of the hall.

The door was open.

"Madden?" I called out.

No answer.

I stepped inside.

The room was dark. The curtains were drawn. The bed was made.

And on the pillow, facedown, was Madden's phone.

Beside it, a note.

Gone to the lab. Follow the light.

My blood turned to ice.

"She went to the basement," I whispered. "Alone."

Myles grabbed my arm. "We have to stop her."

We ran.