Chapter 15- A Lie in Her Own Name

The silence inside the dorm room wasn’t peaceful.

It was waiting. Like something inside it already knew.

Sonia shut the door behind her and stood with her back against it, the photo from the Cartel meeting burning a line through her thoughts.

Silas was alive.

Or at least he had been.

And he’d been with Claire Lexton.

The assistant headmaster.

The woman who oversaw student discipline.

The same one Sonia had overheard saying, "We don’t know if it’s him or her."

This wasn’t just about hidden surveillance anymore.

Someone inside Daxton wasn’t just watching her.

They were orchestrating something around her name.

Around her brother’s ghost.

And maybe… around both of their deaths.

---

She didn’t sleep that night. Again.

Instead, she sat cross-legged on the floor with Silas’s notebook open in front of her and a pencil between her fingers. Her thoughts were spinning, but she forced herself to focus.

There were things to be done.

If Claire Lexton was involved, Sonia needed proof.

Not just suspicions. Not just another blurry photo.

Something she could use.

She opened her laptop and dug through the faculty database.

Claire had one assistant. A senior student intern.

Name: Tamsin Shore.

Top of her class. Quiet. Always in the background.

And more importantly, she worked the document room every Wednesday.

By lunchtime the next day, Sonia had a plan.

She wasn’t going to barge into Claire’s office. That would be reckless. Stupid. The kind of move Silas might’ve made without thinking twice.

But she’d learned.

You didn’t walk into power at Daxton.

You slipped through the cracks.

She found Tamsin Shore alone in the archive wing. The girl sat at a table under one of the dusty skylights, headphones in, a neat pile of student files beside her.

Sonia waited until the girl stood and walked toward the back stacks before making her move.

She slid behind the desk, pulled open the main drawer, and grabbed a slim folder labeled “A–F / LEGACY EXEMPTIONS.”

Inside were sealed pages. Some medical records. Some waiver letters. All stamped with the Daxton crest.

And then she saw it.

Sonia Vale — Admission Request

Submitted by: Richard Vale (Father)

Status: Denied

Note: Duplicate record exists. Refer to file #SV2007.

She stared at it.

Denied?

Her heart knocked hard once.

Her father had submitted an application under her real name?

But she’d never been accepted into Daxton. Silas was. Not her.

She scanned further.

Another line.

“Subject enrolled under sibling file—SV2007. Identity merged for twin continuity. Subject file marked: inactive.”

Her name didn’t exist in Daxton’s system.

Only Silas’s.

Which meant she didn’t exist here at all.

Everything she was living… was a lie Daxton itself had once written for her.

---

Footsteps.

Sonia closed the file, slipped it back into place, and stepped away just as Tamsin returned, still bobbing her head to whatever classical piece was playing in her earbuds.

“Hey,” Sonia said casually. “Do you know if Claire is reviewing scholarship updates today?”

Tamsin blinked. “Not sure. I think she’s in the south wing with the board. She said she’s prepping something for the October gala.”

“Right. Thanks.”

She smiled and walked off, mind reeling.

That evening, Sonia sat across from Eric in the common room, both of them pretending to study.

He watched her over the edge of his textbook.

"You look like you’ve been in a war zone," he said finally.

“I feel like it.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

He closed the book slowly.

“Then maybe you just need to hear something normal.”

She raised a brow. “Such as?”

He leaned forward, voice low.

“I’m thinking about kissing you.”

She froze.

Her breath hitched.

But her face stayed still. Just like she’d practiced.

“Bad idea,” she said softly.

“I know.”

They didn’t say anything else for a long time.

But he didn’t move away.

At exactly 11:13 p.m., Sonia returned to her room to find an envelope taped to her mirror.

Plain. Unsealed.

Inside was a single printed sheet:

“Daxton Legacy Candidates — October Gala Induction List”

She read the names one by one.

And then she stopped.

Right at the bottom.

Vale, Sonia.

Status: Confirmed.

She stared at it, throat tightening.

She didn’t apply.

She wasn’t even supposed to exist.

But someone had just put her name on the most public stage Daxton had.

And if they called it out on Gala Night..

The entire school would know:

Silas Vale is dead.

And Sonia is wearing his blazer.