Chapter 6

RAYNA'S POV

“I... I didn't,” I stuttered, my voice cracking as I shook my head, taking a blind step backward away from the hand Mother had just raised.

A gasp wheezed out of me as the stinging heat of the slap burned across my left cheek, a sharp, familiar agony that had defined my entire childhood.

It didn't make me shrink down into myself like it always did before though. It just made the blood roar louder in my ears as I felt my muscles curl tighter.

“Don't you dare lie to me!” Mother shrieked, her chest heaving beneath her expensive woolen coat as she pointed a manicured, trembling finger right at my nose.

“You've been ungrateful and deceitful since the day you were born! You ruin everything you touch, and now you come here, dragging our family name into the mud, pretending to be your sister! Have you no shame?! You should be embarrassed, Rayna!”

“Please do not hit her again, Mrs. Collins,” the vice principal said.

Beside our mom, Michelle stood with her arms tightly crossed over her chest, her chin tilted up in that smug, self-righteous way that used to make me want to scream.

“Is this true, Ms. Collins?” I heard the vice principal ask in a calm voice.

“It's true, Vice Principal Liana,” Michelle chimed in, her voice trembling pathetically. “I left my admission portfolio on the kitchen island last Tuesday. When I woke up Wednesday morning, it was gone, and so was my sister. She stole my identity, my future, everything…”

Michelle broke into a sob l, a genuine sob that made me feel a painful tug of disappointment in my chest…disappointment in myself.

“She doesn't even belong here,” my sister added.

The silence in the office after Michelle’s declaration felt heavier than lead.

My heart hammered painfully against my ribs. I stood there, bruised, humiliated, and exposed, waiting for the inevitable drop of the guillotine.

I knew what was coming, and I was barely holding back my tears as I waited.

The vice principal would call campus security, to have me dragged off the grounds, to hand me over to the police for identity theft, or worse…send me right back to the suffocating prison of a house I had risked everything to flee.

But I was wrong.

Because instead of all these, Mrs. Liana turned her cold, piercing gaze away from us entirely and let out a long, exhausted sigh.

“Mrs. Colin. Michelle,” she said, her voice dropping into a firm tone that brooked zero argument. “Can you both step outside please? I need to talk to Rayna in private.”

Mother blinked, her mouth dropping open in sheer outrage. “Excuse me? Leave? She just committed a felony! She belongs in a holding cell, she should be the one leaving this…”

“I understand you,” vice principal Liana cut in gently, “and we're going to get to the bottom of this. But please, I need to speak to your daughter first.”

She waved towards the door, her eyes on me as she stood up from her leather chair and walked towards my huffing mother.

“You have every right to be upset but I assure you, everything will be fine and Michelle will get her admission back. For now, just let the security lead you to the private waiting area, I'll see you two soon.”

For a second, Mother looked like she wanted to argue, but then decided against it. Snorting in disgust towards me and grabbing Michelle roughly by the arm, she shot me one final, venomous glare that promised hell when I finally returned home.

“Come along, Michelle,” she spat, turning on her heel. Michelle hurried after her, casting one last triumphant look over her shoulder before the heavy wooden door swung shut behind them, sealing us inside the quiet, tense room.

The sudden drop in noise made my skin prickle.

I stood frozen in the center of the Persian rug, my fingers trembling at my sides, waiting for the axe to fall. But Mrs. Liana didn't look at me with anger.

She walked slowly towards me, stopping a few feet away, her eyes fixed entirely on my left arm.

I instinctively pulled my sleeve down, but it was too late.

The fabric had ridden up during the confrontation, exposing the inner forearm where the three strange, glowing lines had manifested once again, like faint, silver-threaded scars that pulsed with a quiet, inner warmth.

The vice principal stared at them, her expression softening into something unreadable.

“You're gifted,” she murmured, her voice so soft, it was almost inaudible. “You're not like a normal human girl, Rayna.”

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat. I shook my head violently, backing up a step away from her. “Stop it.There's no such thing as ‘gifted’like this. I'm clearly dying, something's wrong with my health…but I'm just a normal girl who wanted out of a miserable life, okay?”

I swallowed hard, “I made a mistake, I stole a letter and I'm going to be punished for it, I get it and I'm making peace with the consequences of my action.”

Liana tilted her head, watching me with an intensity that made it difficult to draw a full breath. “You heard something call your name last night, and you've been having these moments where it feels like something inside you is alive and begging to be let out.”

I froze, the blood draining completely from my face. My breath caught in my throat.

“How... how do you know…” I stuttered, my voice dropping to a terrified, breathless whisper. The words felt impossible, heavy with a reality I had spent my entire life trying to outrun.

“I know because I know what you are,” Liana replied simply, stepping closer. “And I know you aren't supposed to be at Elmor right now, not just because you stole your sister's admission letter, but because your arrival was supposed to happen under entirely different circumstances.”

A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck. Elmor wasn't just a rich kids' prep school. I knew that now.

The realisation confirmed every paranoid thought I had pushed away since I stepped through those gates.

“Just tell me what my punishment is,” I choked out, the panic finally overriding my shock, tears stinging hot behind my eyelids. “Please, jus... I don't want to be a part of whatever weird secret society or supernatural nonsense you're talking about. I just wanted a scholarship, I wanted an education, I wanted to be safe!”

Liana ignored my panic entirely, her expression turning deeply, sorrowfully observant. “Did your mother always treat you like that?”

The abrupt shift in topic hit me like a physical blow. I stared at her, blinking back the hot moisture in my eyes. “What?”

She blinked at me. “Did she always beat you?”

I nodded, sniffling. “She hates me because I ruined her life,” I whispered, my voice cracking as the old, familiar shame crept back in. “She told me I was a mistake.”

“She lied,” Liana replied. “Your mother knew about Elmor. She knew precisely how special this place was, and she knew what happens behind these walls, which is precisely why she schemed for years to get Michelle's name on that roster.”