Chapter 37 CHAPTER 37

Chapter 37 CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 37
\[Rhea’s POV\]

I woke up to a dull ache at the base of my skull. It vibrated through my entire jaw every time I breathed. My vision was a blurred mess of grey and beige. I tried to lift my hand to touch the back of my head, but my arms felt like they water.

I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the fog from my brain. As the world stopped spinning, I realized I wasn't on campus anymore. I was in a strange, cramped apartment. The wallpaper was peeling at the corners, and a single lightbulb flickered overhead, casting long, sickly shadows against the walls.

Panic surged through me, sharper than the physical pain. I tried to sit up, but my head spun so violently I nearly vomited. I let out a choked cry, my voice sounding raw and foreign to my own ears.

"Help!" I croaked, my throat scratchy. "Is anyone there? Help me!"

I struggled to my feet, leaning heavily against a tattered armchair. My mind was racing. Mark.bIt had to be Mark. He had finally found a way to get past the twins. He had waited for them to leave and then he had struck. I looked toward the door, desperate for a way out, but it was locked tight from the outside.

The sound of a key turning in the lock made me freeze. My heart leaped into my throat, hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears. I braced myself, expecting to see Mark’s cold, triumphant face. I was ready to scream, to fight, to do anything to escape him.

The door swung open.

But it wasn't Mark.

Isolde walked into the room. She was wearing her usual leather jacket and dark jeans, her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. For a split second, a wave of pure, overwhelming relief washed over me. I almost collapsed back onto the floor.

"Isolde!" I cried, my voice breaking with tears of joy. "Oh my god, you found me. Thank god. Mark... Mark must have taken me. He hit me from behind. We have to get out of here before he comes back. Please, help me."

I reached out to her, my hands shaking. I expected her to rush to me, to hug me, to tell me that everything was going to be okay. I expected the friend who had shared my secrets and held me when I was sad.

Instead, she stayed by the door. She didn't move toward me. She didn't reach out. Instead, a slow, dark smirk spread across her face, a look I had never seen on her before.

"Mark didn't take you, Rhea," she said. Her voice was cool, calm, and utterly chilling. "Stop being so dramatic."

I blinked, my hand dropping to my side. "What? What are you talking about? If Mark didn't take me, then who..."

Isolde let out a short, mocking laugh. She walked further into the room, her boots clicking sharply on the hardwood. She looked me up and down with an expression of pure disdain.

"I took you," she said simply. "I was the one who followed you out of the library. I was the one who hit you over the head. And I’m the one who brought you to this dump."

I stared at her, the words not making any sense. My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. "You? But... why? Isolde, this isn't funny. If this is some kind of sick joke, please stop. My head hurts, and I'm terrified."

"It’s not a joke, Rhea," she snapped, her eyes flashing. "I told you to stop being so slow. Catch up. Your 'best friend' would never do this to you, right? That’s what you’re thinking? Well, maybe you never really knew me at all."

I shook my head, tears spilling down my cheeks. I refused to believe it. This was Isolde. This was the girl who had helped me find herbs to hide my scent. This was the girl I had known for years. The girl who'd followed me to every city I ran to. "No. You’re lying. Mark must be forcing you to do this. Did he threaten you? Did he hurt you? Isolde, tell me the truth. We can get help. The professors..."

"The professors aren't coming," she interrupted, her voice rising. "The professors are miles away, frantically trying to save Damian from a poison that has no cure. A poison I made."

I froze. The room seemed to turn. "What?"

"You felt it, didn't you?" She leaned in, her face inches from mine. "That presence. That heavy, malicious feeling that made your skin crawl every time you were alone. You thought it was Mark. You thought he was stalking you from the shadows."

She let out a dark laugh. "It was me, Rhea. I was the one watching you through the window. I was the one standing in the trees. I was the one who baited Damian into the woods. I’m a fucking witch, Rhea. Not just some small one. I have power you can't even imagine."

The realization hit me. The intense, dark presence I had been sensing for weeks, the one that had terrified me to my core, wasn't coming from a stranger. It was coming from the person I trusted most in the world.

"You poisoned him," I whispered, the horror finally sinking in. "You mixed the wolfsbane with your magic. You sent them away on purpose."

"Of course I did," she rolled her eyes as she walked over to a small table and sat on the edge. "It was the only way to get you alone. Mark is many things, but he isn't patient. He wanted you, and he wanted you now. He couldn't get past those two Alphas, so I did the heavy lifting for him."

I was in tears now, my chest heaving with sobs. I looked at the stranger standing in front of me, trying to find even a glimmer of the friend I loved. "Why? Why would you do this to me? Isolde, we were like sisters. I shared everything with you. When your parents died, I was the one who stayed by your side. When you had no one, I was your backbone. What did I do to deserve this betrayal?"

Her ace shifted. The smirk vanished, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. Her eyes narrowed, and for a second, they seemed to glow with a faint, sickly green light.

"You really want to know?" she asked, her voice trembling with rage. "You want to know why I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to destroy you? It’s because I’ve hated you for a long, long time, Rhea."

I gasped, the words cutting deeper than any knife ever could. "Hated me? But why?"

"Because you have everything!" She screamed, jumping off the table. She began to pace the small room, her hands gesturing wildly. "You’re the special one. The 'halfling.' The one the Alphas want to claim. Even when we were kids, everyone looked at you first. You were always the pretty one, the kind one, the one everyone wanted to protect. And me? I was always your sidekick. The 'poor Isolde' who lost her family and needed your charity."

"That’s not true!" I cried. "I loved you! I never thought of you as a sidekick!"

"It doesn't matter what you thought!!" she spat. "I spent years watching you get everything while I had nothing. And then Mark came along. He was the only thing I wanted, the only person who saw me first. But who did he fall for? You. Always you."

She stopped pacing and looked at me, a twisted, satisfied smile returning to her lips.

"So when Mark approached me and asked for my help to 'fix' you... I realized it was finally my turn. I’m not your backbone, Rhea. I’m the one who’s going to snap yours. I’ve been harboring this hatred, letting it grow, waiting for the day I could see you look at me with that exact expression of shock and pain. And believe me... it feels even better than I imagined."

I was speechless, the weight of her words crushing the last bit of hope I had left. I looked at my best friend and realized she had never been my friend at all. She had been a monster hiding in plain sight, waiting for her chance to strike.