chapter 20 " Ghost dont get buried "

The call came in just after midnight.

Tessy.

Found.

The entire school had been shaken when she went missing two days earlier. Posters had gone up. Teachers had scrambled. Greg had nearly torn through the student council lounge demanding answers. But now, she had been discovered—tied up, drugged, and locked inside an old maintenance shed behind the tennis courts.

Still alive.

Helena stood by the hospital window, arms wrapped tightly around her middle as the rain drizzled outside. Tessy lay asleep on the bed, a shallow bruise along her jaw, IV in her arm, lips dry and cracked. The doctor said she had been sedated with something mild, nothing lethal—but enough to keep her unconscious for hours.

Greg burst into the room, drenched from the storm. He saw Tessy, saw Helena—and froze.

“Is she… okay?”

“She will be,” Helena said softly. “Barely. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

Greg’s jaw tightened. “They’re sending a message.”

Helena turned to face him. “They’re not just targeting me anymore.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out something small, water-streaked, and trembling.

A letter.

Postmarked from Madrid, Spain.

Helena’s heart stuttered.

“What is that?”

Greg handed it to her. “It came this morning. My housekeeper found it stuck to the bottom of a shipment box addressed to the estate. The handwriting… it's Sophia's. I’d know it anywhere.”

Helena took the envelope, her hands shaking as she opened it. Inside was a single page, creased and faded.

"You never asked the right questions, Greg. You only wanted the truth that made you feel innocent. But I was never dead. I was just erased. And now… the ghosts are coming back."

No signature. Just the faint scent of jasmine—the same scent from the photo frame Helena had once found on Greg’s bedside.

Greg looked stunned. “She’s alive.”

“And trying to warn us,” Helena whispered.

They both turned as Tessy stirred slightly, her fingers curling weakly around the bedsheet.

“We need answers,” Helena said, voice steel now. “Starting with who tried to erase her. And who’s trying to erase us now.”

Back at the Carter Estate — Midnight

The rain had stopped, leaving behind thick fog and silence.

Until the flames started.

The Carter mansion lit up like a dying star. Fire climbed the walls, devouring the eastern wing. Alarms shrieked. Staff ran. Greg’s father screamed from the lawn as the blaze painted the sky in orange.

Greg’s car screeched to a halt at the gates.

He jumped out—Helena right behind him.

But it wasn’t just the fire that made their blood run cold.

Carved into the wet lawn in giant, burned-black letters were the words:

YOU CAN’T BURY GHOSTS

Helena stared at the message, eyes wide with fear and fury.

“They’re not done,” she whispered. “They never were.”

The smell of smoke still clung to Helena’s hoodie as firefighters doused the last glowing embers of the east wing. Ambulances lined the Carter estate’s long driveway. Staff members were wrapped in blankets. Greg’s father, red-eyed and disheveled, was arguing with police officers, demanding answers that no one had yet.

Helena stood beside Greg near the edge of the lawn, the charred message still fresh in the grass behind them.

YOU CAN’T BURY GHOSTS

Greg stared at it, unmoving.

“This wasn’t random,” Helena said. “They wanted to scare you.”

Greg didn’t speak. His fingers were clenched at his sides.

“They wanted us both to see it.”

“Not just scare,” Greg finally said. “They’re trying to burn away everything I ever touched. Sophia. My name. Even this house.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the letter again. It was slightly damp now, the corners curling. He read the lines again, voice steady this time:

"You never asked the right questions, Greg. You only wanted the truth that made you feel innocent. But I was never dead. I was just erased."

Helena watched his face as he read it.

“She was never dead,” she whispered. “She was sent away. Someone made her disappear.”

Greg turned toward her. “The school?”

“Or someone even bigger,” Helena said. “Someone with money. Power. Someone who wanted her out of Brentford for good.”

Greg nodded slowly. “She knew something… or saw something. And now that we’re close, they’re panicking.”

At that moment, a black SUV pulled into the drive, tires crunching the gravel. The back door opened, and Theo stepped out, hood over his head, laptop bag slung across his shoulder.

“You two need to see this,” he said without a greeting. “Now.”

Inside the Carter Library – 30 Minutes Later

Theo sat on the leather couch, Helena and Greg flanking him as his laptop whirred open.

“I pulled footage from the school servers and backed it up. Most of it is clean,” he said, “but look at this.”

He clicked on a grainy video file—surveillance footage from three weeks ago, a hallway camera no one knew was active.

The three of them leaned in.

In the middle of the night, someone crept into the principal’s office.

Black hoodie. Gloves. Face turned away from the camera.

They moved fast—clearly familiar with the place. And then they did something none of them expected:

They deleted something from the school’s archives.

“What are they erasing?” Helena whispered.

“I traced the deletion ID,” Theo said. “It matches a student file. Old. Purged years ago.”

He clicked again—and a single name flashed on-screen:

Makinde, Sophia A.

Status: Transferred – Unauthorized Access Lock

Helena covered her mouth. “They didn’t just delete her grades… They wiped her entire existence.”

“They wanted her gone for good,” Greg muttered.

“But someone didn’t agree with that plan,” Theo added. “Someone helped her escape.”

Greg’s phone buzzed again.

This time, it wasn’t from the unknown number.

It was a Madrid area code.

Greg answered immediately. “Hello?”

A pause.

Then a voice.

Female. Calm.

“If you want the truth about Sophia… come to Spain. But come alone. No police. No press. Or I disappear again.”

The line went dead.

Helena’s eyes locked with Greg’s.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“No. You can’t. You’ve already lost too much.”

“I’m not losing this too.”

Cliffhanger – End of Chapter Twenty

As the three of them sat in silence, the burned grass outside the window crackled under the wind.

Far away, in a hotel room in Madrid, a young woman with long dark hair stared at a wall filled with newspaper clippings, phone numbers, and a photo of Brentford Academy circled in red.

She picked up a silver locket from the desk and opened it—inside were two photos.

One of her younger self.

And one of Helena James.