Chapter 4 CHAPTER 4: The Lie
ELIZABETH’S POV
The disciplinary probation meant everyone knew by noon.
I don’t know how information moves this fast in a school this size but by the time I got to first period the following morning people were already stepping out of my way in the corridors.
And it wasn’t out of respect, they were doing it like I was a problem they didn’t want near them.
So I kept my head down and went to class. But my life just got worse.
It started with a post. I don’t know who made the account or when they set it up but by second period it was everywhere on the school’s internal network.
A profile with my name and my ID photo from the freshers assembly and post after post going back three days, things I had never written, conversations I had never had, messages to other students that were cruel in a very specific way.
Someone had sent a message to a werewolf boy in third year telling him his girlfriend was cheating.
The person also sent something to a hybrid wizard girl about her family.
Also told a vampire senior that his scholarship application the previous year had been sabotaged by a named student.
All of it from an account with my name on it. All of it was sent in the last forty eight hours.
By third period people I had never spoken to were looking at me in the corridors with something that was worst than disgust.
A werewolf girl stopped me on the way to the bathroom. “Did you send my brother that message?” She asked.
“I don’t have an account on the school network.” I said. “I haven’t set one up yet.”
She slapped me before I finished the sentence. I pressed my hand to my cheek and stood there and didn’t say anything and she walked away and two students who saw it happen kept walking like nothing did.
I went to the bathroom and stood at the sink and looked at my reflection. I fought back the tears as I told myself to keep going.
Lunch was the worst of it. I walked into the dining hall and the noise didn’t just drop this time, it stopped.
Someone said something from a table on the left and the people around them laughed.
I took a tray and turned to find a seat and every table I looked at someone turned away or moved their bag to the empty chair beside them.
I found a table at the very back alone and sat down and ate without tasting anything.
Kae didn’t come and sit across from me this time. I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t going to think about it.
I looked up once during lunch and caught Lucif Boston watching me from across the room. He was sitting with the wizard group but he was turned slightly away from them with his eyes on me. He was the Wizard king.
When I looked at him he didn’t look away. He just watched me for another second then turned back to his table. I didn’t know what that meant.
After lunch I went to the library to study because I had nowhere else to go and work was the only thing I could control right now.
I found my corner table and opened my books and put my head down.
Twenty minutes in, someone sat down across from me.
I looked up expecting Kae out of habit, and I will use the perfect opportunity to ask him why he lied against me.
But it wasn’t him as then I immediately felt something I refused to name. Because sitting right in front of me was Andy Jostled.
He put a single sheet of paper on the table between us and slid it toward me. I looked down at it.
It was a printed screenshot of three of the fake messages from the account with my name on it, the worst three, the ones that had caused the most damage.
“I need you to explain these.” He said.
“I didn’t send them.” I said. “Someone made a fake account.”
“The account has your ID number linked to it.”
“Then someone used my ID number.” I said. “I haven’t set up any account on the school network. I don’t even know how to access it yet, I’ve been here three days.”
He looked at me for a long moment. Andy Jostled had the kind of face that didn’t give anything away easily.
In class he was sharp and controlled. Now, he was looking at me with that same control and I couldn’t read anything behind it.
“One of those messages was sent to my sister.” He said.
I hadn’t known that. I looked at the paper again. “I didn’t send it.” I said. “I’m sorry she received it but I didn’t send it.”
He picked the paper back up and stood. “I hope that’s true.” He said. And then he left.
I watched him walk out of the library and join two vampire seniors waiting for him by the door and all three of them left without looking back.
I sat with that for a minute then opened my book again.
“I hope that’s true.” What the F does that mean. Was it a threat?
I put my pen down and stared at the page and didn’t read a single word on it.
I stayed in the library until it closed at eight. Walking back to the dorms alone at night wasn’t ideal but I didn’t have a choice.
I was halfway down the east corridor when the lights went out and everywhere goes dark.
I stopped walking and stood still and listened. The corridor was completely quiet.
Then something hit the back of my neck and the floor came up and everything went black before I even finished falling.