All Chapters of The Bully's Regret: Chapter 71 - Chapter 74

Cyrus BlackwoodI stared at the screen for several seconds before my brain finally caught up with what my eyes were seeing. The photo was recent. Painfully recent. The fluorescent hospital lighting. The pale blue blanket. The heart monitor beside the bed.Wren's mother.Sleeping.My stomach twisted violently. Beside the image was a single message from an unknown number.Stop running away if you want to see her alive.For a moment, I couldn't breathe. The words seemed to burn themselves into my brain as I read them again and again, hoping they would somehow change. They didn't.Slowly, I turned the phone toward Wren.The moment her eyes landed on the screen, all the color drained from her face. Her entire body went rigid. "No..." The whisper barely reached my ears. Her fingers trembled as she took the phone from my hand. "No. No, no, no..." I watched her stare at the picture. At her mother. At the message.Again.And again.Like if she looked long enough, it would somehow stop being re

Cyrus BlackwoodI barely slept.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face.Not the furious version of Wren Carter that used to glare at me in class. Not the stubborn girl who refused to back down no matter how hard I pushed.The broken one.The girl standing in that alley with tears running silently down her face while staring at a photograph of her mother.The memory sat in my chest like a stone.I stared down at the notebook in front of me, realizing I had read the same sentence at least six times without processing a single word. My pencil snapped between my fingers."Jesus."Ryan looked over from the next desk."You look like shit."I ignored him.Unfortunately, Ethan decided to join the conversation."You've looked like shit for days."I clenched my jaw. "Thank you for your valuable observation."Ryan snorted.Lucas glanced between us. "He's got a point though."I shoved the broken pencil aside. The last thing I wanted this morning was company. The last thing I wanted was a lec