**CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.**
A week had passed since Karina's death. It felt like a dream, an awful nightmare I couldn't wake up from. With the help of Draken, Killian, and Hannah, her body was returned to her parents. I could still remember the hollow silence in the room when we handed Karina's lifeless body over. The memory of her mother’s expression would be etched into my mind forever—her eyes, dull and distant, as though her spirit had broken. It might have. She held her breath as if waiting for a miracle, hoping that at any moment, Karina might move, might stand up, might speak and say she was just playing a harmless prank. But there was no miracle.
When her mother finally spoke, it was to whisper a barely audible “thank you.” Not for the reality that her daughter was dead, not for justice yet to be taken on Tyler, but simply for bringing her daughter's body home. I could still hear her trembling voice calling Karina's name, like an angel sighing a prayer meant to summon her back from the beyond.
Then, when we told them the hunters were responsible, I watched her father—the man who didn't even shed a tear when Karina's body was first brought in — crumble. He stared at the floor, unable to face any of us, murmuring over and over again that they were “the most useless parents” because they hadn't been able to protect their pup. They had raised her, loved her, but in the end, they couldn't save her from the predators that walked among us.
I couldn't tell what Yuri and Tennessee's reaction was since I told them about her death over the phone, but I knew they were equally broken like I was.
Karina's funeral was a quiet affair. Only her family were present. Her death had been announced by her parents to the school authorities and dorm porters and now Mrs. Cannis was at the hostel to pack up all of the belongings that used to belong to her daughter.
She said nothing to me when she walked in, her eyes swollen from days of crying. She moved to Karina’s side of the room, pulling the closet doors open without hesitation, as if her body were on autopilot. For a moment, I stood frozen, but then I moved to help her, unable to just sit back and watch. Even though I was dressed for class, I knew I couldn’t leave. Not yet. As we silently packed her belongings, she gave me a faint, tired smile of appreciation that broke my heart even more.
“You know, Karina was right,” Mrs. Cannis suddenly said, breaking the fragile silence. We were both seated on Karina's bed, folding clothes, placing items into boxes, filling the empty spaces in a room that would soon feel completely hollow. “Dogs have some of the best noses. They know things other people can't see.”
I turned to her, confused for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“She knew you weren’t human, Eline,” she continued, her voice soft but certain. “She told me the first week you started rooming together.”
“Oh…” I swallowed, feeling a lump form in my throat. It had never occurred to me that Karina had figured me out so quickly. She had never said a word about it. It was at that moment I also realized that the thought of Karina not even being human never occurred to me. “She was always so intuitive.”
Mrs. Cannis let out a bitter laugh, her hands trembling as she picked up a framed photo of Karina from the nightstand. “If only her intuition had warned her about Tyler. About the hunters. Maybe she'd still be here.” She stared down at the picture, her thumb brushing over the glass. “I can’t believe she’s gone. My baby…”
“If only…” My voice cracked, and I had to take a deep breath to steady it. “If only I had gotten there sooner.”
Mrs. Cannis shook her head, her gaze piercing mine. Her baby blue eyes, so much like Karina's, seemed to hold me in place. “This wasn’t your fault, Eline. You did everything you could. You brought her back to us. That’s more than anyone else could have done.”
When she finally left, taking with her every trace of Karina, the room felt unbearably empty. Karina's pink bedspread was gone, the vibrant mess of clothes and accessories that had once covered her side of the room was also gone. It was as if she had never been here at all, as if her presence had been erased with the snap of a finger. But I knew better.
The memories of her laughter, her teasing voice, and the way she would go on and on about boys—it all echoed in the quiet of the room. Karina had been the one person who made me feel like I belonged on campus. She was the one who introduced me to the others—Yuri, Tennessee. She had this way of drawing people in, making everyone feel like they were part of her world. And now she was gone, ripped away from us, and the hole she left behind felt too vast to fill.
I sank down onto my own bed, unable to stop the tears any longer. They came in quiet undulations, the kind that no one could see but would leave you gasping for breath.
Just as I cried, my mind went back to the first day of sophomore year. It had been a Friday. Karina had talked about Draken Gallagher, hot mafia men, and even declared her love for pink, as if I didn't know that already.
I remembered she had laughed, stood by the door, and said to me, *"It's the start of our sophomore year, Eline. Don't be late."*
“I'm sorry, Karina,” I whispered, staring at the room door. “I'm sorry…I was late.”
I tilted my head up in order to stop the tears that had begun to well my eyes from falling. After I'd composed myself, I picked up my bag and left the hostel.
As I passed through the hallway, I was bombarded with tons of ‘my condolences’ from those around. And those who said nothing, I was given sympathetic looks.
I walked to the school campus and somehow the school felt foreign to me. The classes, the buildings, the people—it all felt wrong. Like the world had shifted, leaving me behind in the wreckage. After all, it was now a school without Karina Cannis.
I made my way to my first class of the day. It was on Ethics and Society and Early Modern European Philosophy. Just as I walked through the hallway, I came across Amanda Griffin.
Great. Just Great. The last person I wanted to see— excluding Drake, whom Draken told me would also be resuming today.
“Even after all my warnings, you still went ahead to date Draken,” she said, blocking me from going forward.
I tried sidestepping her, but she kept on blocking my way. After a while, I sighed and glared at her. “Get the fuck out of my front, Amanda.”