LOGINThe hospital hallway smelled like antiseptic and floor polish, sharp and chemical in a way that made Liam's eyes water if he breathed too deeply. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a harsh white glow that made everyone look slightly ill.While the police came to take statements and photograph evidence, Deborah and all those who had been injured were rushed to the hospital in a convoy of ambulances, their sirens wailing through the night like a chorus of grief.Liam had ridden in the ambulance with Deborah, holding her cold hand while the paramedics worked around him. Her face had been so pale, almost grey in the harsh ambulance lighting. Her breathing had been shallow and rapid, her pulse thready under his fingertips."Is she going to be okay?" he had asked the paramedic, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes."We're doing everything we can," she had replied, which wasn't really an answer at all.Now, hours later, Liam sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the I
Deborah smiled as she watched Emma play around the garden.The little girl was chasing butterflies through the rose bushes, her laughter carrying across the manicured lawn like music. Emma's dark hair bounced with each leap, and her small hands reached out, trying to catch the delicate insects that always managed to flutter just out of reach.It had easily been a couple of days since Liam brought her back to his family's home. Four days, to be exact. Four days of slowly piecing herself back together in this place that felt more like a fortress than a house, with its high walls and security cameras and armed guards stationed at every entrance.And though she still had a few nightmares about Noah and Alice and even sometimes Caleb, she knew she was getting better. The nightmares came less frequently now. Some nights, she even slept through until morning without waking up screaming.It was all thanks to Liam and Charlotte.She saw their effort in every small gesture. The way Liam never l
Liam's POV Please be fine. Please be safe.The words circled around my mind like a prayer. I couldn't stop repeating, over and over until they lost all meaning and became just sounds, just desperate noise filling the silence of my own fear.My hands gripped the dashboard of the lead security vehicle so hard my knuckles had gone white. Every second felt like an hour. Every mile stretched out endlessly in front of us.We were tracking the location of the last call Alice had made. One of my father's tech people had traced it within minutes, pulling strings and accessing systems that probably weren't entirely legal, but I didn't care about that right now. All I cared about was finding Deborah.Alice had ordered takeout and had it delivered to an abandoned warehouse at the outskirts of town, which was a bit far from the college. Too far. The distance made my chest tight with anxiety. What if we were too late? What if something had already happened?While I prayed for Deborah's safety, ano
Deborah's POVI couldn't look away from those droplets of blood on Noah's face and shirt. They caught the dim light in the room and seemed to glow red against the pale fabric of Noah's shirt. Some were tiny, like freckles. Others had spread out in small streaks where his movements had dragged them across the surface.Alice lay crumpled on the floor behind him, her body twisted at an angle that made my stomach turn. I couldn't tell if she was breathing. I couldn't see her chest rising and falling. Her perfectly styled hair had come loose and covered part of her face, and one of her arms was stretched out toward the door she had tried so desperately to reach.The knife in Noah's hand dripped slowly. Each drop seemed to take forever to fall, and when it hit the concrete floor it made a soft sound that I felt more than heard. Plop. Plop. Plop.My mind wanted to shut down completely. It wanted to retreat somewhere safe where none of this was happening, where I was back in my dorm room stud
Deborah's POV The implications of what Alice had just said settled on me like snow and cold seeped into my body like I had been dropped into an ice bath. Did Alice just say redhead?The question formed in my mind slowly, as if my brain was struggling to process information through thick fog. The message Charlotte had sent me days before popped into my mind with sudden clarity. A student found dead. Red hair. Covered up as an accident.It couldn't have been random or even a coincidence for Alice to mention Noah's name in the same sentence as the redhead. Redheads, which meant there were two of them. And I had red hair.My stomach twisted into knots so tight I thought I might be sick right there in the chair. The rope cut deeper into my wrists as my hands clenched involuntarily, but I barely felt it. All my attention was focused on Alice and the gun she held pointed at Noah."The most laughable thing is how you can claim to love this bitch right here with what you've done," Alice cont
Deborah's POV "What are you doing?" Alice asked, her tone carrying that particular brand of aristocratic dismissiveness that suggested she wasn't the slightest bit threatened by the knife in Noah's hand. She looked at him the way someone might look at a dog that had forgotten its training, annoyed but not actually concerned.Noah ignored her completely, as if she had ceased to exist or had never been in the room at all. Instead, he turned his full attention to me, and the intensity in his eyes made every muscle in my body tense with fear. The knife caught the light as he gestured with it, the blade glinting in a way that made my mouth go dry."You know," Noah began, his voice taking on a conversational quality that was somehow more disturbing than anger would have been, "ever since high school, I've always been the weirdest among the weirdos."His words hung in the air between us, heavy with years of accumulated pain and resentment. I could see it in his face now, all that buried hur







