Chapter 170: Two sides of a Coin

Riven's POV

The room looked like the epicenter of a localized warzone. Splintered oak from the destroyed wardrobe littered the floorboards, mixing with a thick, glittering carpet of broken glass that crunched with every micro-movement we made.

But I didn't care about the destruction of the room. I didn't care about the freezing mountain air biting into the exposed skin of my arms, or the sharp, agonizing ache in my ribs where the kinetic blast had thrown me against the stone wall.

My entire universe had narrowed down to the fragile, trembling girl locked securely in my arms.

Kathy was still completely limp against my chest, her breaths coming in shallow, ragged hitches that terrified me to my core.

The violent, bone-breaking convulsions had finally stopped, replaced by a severe, uncontrollable shivering that shook her entire frame.

I had my heavy jacket wrapped tightly around her shoulders, my chin resting gently against the crown of her head.

The thick, ink-black veins that had threatened to map her entire face had receded slightly, pulling back down beneath the collar of her shirt. But her skin was still terrifyingly pale, and the dark, bruised exhaustion beneath her closed eyes made her look like a ghost clinging to the edge of the living world.

"Just breathe," I murmured against her hair, my voice a ragged, exhausted rasp. "I'm right here. You're safe. Just keep breathing."

Across the ruined bedroom, Zayden stood perfectly still, his heavy boots planted amidst the shattered glass. The hollow resignation in his golden eyes from just moments ago hung heavily in the freezing air.

He had suggested we call her parents. He had suggested that this was the end of the line—that the vessel was failing, and we couldn't save her.

I refused to accept it. I would burn the entire academy to the ground before I gave up on her.

The suffocating silence of the suite was suddenly shattered, not by a demonic roar, but by a sharp, piercing electronic trill.

My cell phone was vibrating frantically against the hardwood floor, having been knocked out of my pocket during the violent skirmish. The bright screen illuminated a small patch of the shattered glass, flashing persistently in the dim gloom of the ruined room.

I didn't want to answer it. I didn't want to move a single muscle and risk breaking the fragile thermal cocoon I had built around Kathy. But the phone kept ringing, a shrill, desperate sound that grated against my heightened Alpha senses.

Zayden stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching loudly. He reached down, scooped the phone off the floorboards, and glanced at the cracked screen. His dark brow furrowed.

"It's Lina," he said, his voice tight with confusion.

"Put it on speaker," I grunted, tightening my grip around Kathy's waist as she let out a soft, unconscious whimper in her sleep.

Zayden swiped the screen and held the phone out. "Lina, what is—"

"Riven?!" Lina's voice exploded through the tiny speaker. She wasn't just crying; she was absolutely hysterical, her voice pitched into a breathless, terrified shriek that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. "Riven, where are you?! Oh my god, you have to get down here right now!"

"Lina, calm down," I commanded, projecting a fraction of my dominant Alpha tone to cut through her panic. "I'm in the suite. What's going on?"

"It's her!" Lina sobbed, the sound of chaotic background noise suddenly bleeding through the receiver. I could hear the distinct, heavy thud of timber smashing against stone, followed by the distant, echoing screams of terrified students. "She's destroying everything! Riven, you have to stop her!"

My blood ran completely cold. I exchanged a sharp, bewildered look with Zayden. "Lina, slow down. Who is destroying everything? Make sense."

"Kathy!" Lina screamed, her voice breaking on a loud, terrified sob. "She just walked into the classroom block! We were just sitting in the study hall, and the double doors blew right off their hinges! Riven, she looks like a monster!"

The words hit me like a blow to the stomach. The air in my lungs completely evaporated.

"That's impossible," I breathed, my amber eyes dropping instantly to the girl huddled securely in my lap.

Kathy was still right here. I could feel the faint, fluttery beat of her heart pressing against my chest. She hadn't moved an inch.

"She's right in front of me!" Lina cried, entirely missing my denial over the sound of a massive crash echoing through the phone. "Her eyes, Riven... her eyes are glowing completely red! Like, this terrifying, bright crimson! She isn't even speaking. She's just raising her hands, and the desks are exploding! She just threw a solid oak lecture podium across the room without even touching it! She's using some kind of raw kinetic energy to tear the hall apart!"

"Lina, listen to me," Zayden interjected, his golden eyes wide with an absolute, unadulterated horror as he stared at the phone in his hand. "Where exactly are you?"

"I'm hiding behind the stairwell in the East Wing!" Lina whimpered, the sound of breaking glass shattering over the line. "People are running everywhere! The vanguard enforcers just showed up, but she threw them against the lockers like they were nothing! It's like she's a machine! Riven, please, she's going to kill someone!"

"Get out of the building," I ordered, my voice dropping into a lethal, dead-calm register that completely masked the sheer terror ripping through my chest. "Do not engage her, Lina. Do not try to talk to her. Get as far away from the East Wing as you possibly can. We are handling it."

Zayden cut the call, the sudden silence in the ruined bedroom feeling heavier and more suffocating than before.

He slowly lowered the phone, his brilliant golden eyes lifting from the cracked screen to meet mine. The color had completely drained from his face.

"She's right here," Zayden whispered, his voice trembling slightly as he pointed a shaking finger at the exhausted girl in my arms. "Riv, she's right here. She hasn't left this room."

I stared down at Kathy’s pale, sleeping face. The realization hit me with the devastating, unstoppable force of an avalanche.

Amaya had been right. She had been completely, horrifyingly right.

The rogue demon hadn't just spiked its energy to attack us; the massive kinetic blast that had blown out the windows and thrown us across the room hadn't been an act of random violence. It had been an expulsion.

"It split her," I rasped, the horrifying truth tasting like ash on my tongue. "Zayden, the demon isn't inside her right now. It's in the hallway. It's using a shadow projection of her body to tear the academy apart."

Zayden swallowed hard, taking a slow step backward as the catastrophic scale of the threat finally settled over us. "If the enforcers don't know it's a projection... if they think that's really Kathy out there in the East Wing..."

I looked down at Kathy. Her breathing was still terribly shallow, her skin still like ice. She was safe in my arms, but the entire school was currently hunting down a monster wearing her face.

"We can't hide her anymore," I said, my voice hardening into a dark, unyielding resolve. I gently scooped one arm under Kathy's knees, keeping my other arm wrapped securely around her back, and slowly stood up. My bruised ribs screamed in protest, but I ignored the pain, holding her flush against my chest.

Zayden looked at me, his golden eyes filled with a desperate, frantic urgency. "Riv, what are we doing?"

"We're ending the quarantine," I stated coldly, turning away from the shattered window and marching toward the ruined doorframe of the bedroom. "We can't fight a shadow-double while guarding her body at the same time.”

"Where are we taking her?" Zayden demanded, rushing to keep pace with me as we moved through the dimly lit corridor of the suite.

I adjusted my grip on Kathy, my amber eyes burning with a fierce, protective fire as I looked at the heavy iron deadbolt of our front door.

"To the authorities," I said. "We're taking her straight to Principal Wolffur. It's time to put everything on the table.”