8. Elyssa
ELYSSA
“ E lyssa! Elyssa, open the door!”
I groaned, pulling the cover right over my face in the hope it would drown out whoever was knocking on my door at the ass crack of dawn.
“Bitch, we’re late!”
More banging echoed in my small room. Cracking open an eye, I looked at the alarm clock on my nightstand and when eight o’clock stared back at me, I closed my eyes again, ready to go back to sleep.
That’s when it hit me. Classes started at eight-fifteen.
My eyes snapped open and I leaped out of bed, running to open the door. Mia entered, flinging her arms around.
“What the hell, Lyssa? You’re usually the one waking me up.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” I groaned, hurriedly searching for my uniform from the small wardrobe, “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
The reason why was voluntarily left out as I simply couldn’t afford a whole interrogation at the moment and I knew that would happen if Mia learned I’d spent a good chunk of the night with a Korolov.
“Go wash your face and brush your teeth, I’ll grab your uniform and prepare your bag.”
I smacked a loud kiss on her cheek and hightailed it to my bathroom.
My room wasn’t as big as that of my cousins, but it was my own: cozy and practical.
Ten minutes later we were running through the corridors towards the opposite wing of the castle where all our classes were held. There was only one minute left to get to class when we reached the great court, in the heart of the building, but to our surprise, a large group of students was still gathered there.
We stopped dead in our tracks and exchanged a confused look. It seemed like everyone was staring at something at the entrance of the academic wing. People around us looked shocked, someone was even retching against a tree not that far from us. A few girls I recognized from my Introduction to Child Psychology class were hugging and crying.
Something dark and deeply sorrowful was in the air; we didn’t know what it was, but we did know it was big. Lethal.
Mia grabbed my hand and started walking through the crowd, until finally, we had a front-row seat to what everyone had been staring at so morbidly.
I felt the blood drain from my face as I took in the scene in front of me.
“Oh fuck,” was all my cousin said before bending over and throwing up all over the floor.
What was staring back at us was so fucking gory and disgusting I had half a mind to do the same. Students whispered among themselves in shock, some crying softly, others typing furiously on their phones, probably alarming their friends who weren’t there to see it for themselves.
“Who would be so cruel as to hurt a dog?” the girl behind me whispered to her friend and I swallowed, asking myself the same thing.
Buxley wasn’t only hurt, he’d been eviscerated . Blood was soaking the stone floor where the little beast lay, dripping down the steps. His stomach had been cut up to his throat and his organs were spilling out.
Something else caught my eye about the gruesome sight. I frowned and took a step closer, my head tilting to the side in confusion.
A symbol was drawn on his little forehead with blood. It looked like the letter T but upside down.
I closed my eyes as a deep sense of loss settled through me. It wasn’t even my dog, but just like everyone here, I liked Buxley. He was the little dose of sweetness we all needed in this cold castle.
And now, because of somebody’s cruelty, he was dead.
“Move!” a voice boomed from behind me. “Let me pass! I need to see him!”
My breath caught in my throat at Charles’s voice from behind me. I stepped away and turned halfway in his direction, but he didn’t spare me a glance. He didn’t look at anyone but at the sanguineous scene on display for us.
Charles came to a stop as he took it all in, tears filling his eyes, lips pinching as he tried to keep his sobs in. He walked up to the dead animal before his knees gave out. He sunk next to him, seemingly unbothered by the blood soaking his uniform before letting out a silent, resigned sob.
“No, no, no, no, no…” he whispered to himself.
Charles broke my heart a little more when, out of panic, he tried to put Buxley’s organs back inside of him. The scene was heart-wrenching, it made me want to cry a little bit. We had only known Buxley for the last two years but Charles had had him since he was twelve. He wasn’t losing a pet that day, he was losing a friend. His best friend.
“Please, wake up. Please. I’m sorry.” His voice was broken as he madly tried to bring the animal back to life.
Two guys I recognized as his friends walked up to him and had to forcefully take him away from the scene while he fought them off, screaming for them to let him go.
There was no consoling him, he had just lost his best friend in the most cruel of circumstances.
Suddenly, the click of heels echoed around us, causing me and everyone else to turn around.
Dean Taylor and Mrs. Gastow, his secretary, stomped their way through the crowd, confused about what this was all about.
“Classes have started since—” Taylor came to an abrupt halt as students parted, giving him a perfect look at the scene.
His face fell as if he had seen a ghost and he stumbled back a step. Gastow, who stood behind him, moved to step aside, catching sight of Buxley’s corpse too. She gasped audibly and put a hand in front of her mouth in shock.
Taylor opened his mouth but no words would come out; he and Gastow exchanged a look, like they were communicating with their eyes, before turning towards the crowd.
“Everybody get to class. Now.”
His tone left no room for discussion, and soon everybody scattered away, whispering among themselves about what just happened.
Mia grabbed my hand and led me away from the courtyard, still visibly shaken.
When we sat down in class, her gaze was still lost in the distance.
She shook her head, confused. “How could someone do that to an animal? It has to be someone who had beef with Charles; this was meant to hurt him.”
“I don’t know, probably. This school is filled with crime lords’ spawns. It could be anyone.”
She sniffled, silently agreeing. “I’ll miss him. I’ll always remember the sound of his little paws and the way he liked his tummy scratched.”
Her words made everything around me blur and I froze.
The sound of his little paws.
I was transported back to the night before when Konstantin and I were hiding in the staircase from the people in the hallway. There was a dog with them.
I had immediately assumed it was the guards but it wasn’t. It couldn’t have been: they had a strict schedule and had stuck to it for the past two years. There was no reason for them to start straying from it now.
Bile started to rise in my throat when I remembered the sound of the footsteps in the corridor. There hadn’t been only one person leading Buxley last night, but at least four.
Just as the thought passed through my brain, Konstantin entered the classroom, late for the first time since I’d known him. The teacher didn’t seem to mind as she sat on her desk, chatting with a couple of girls who were telling her about earlier’s morbid discovery.
When Konstantin’s gaze met mine and held it, it dawned on me that he had put the pieces together too.
We both knew something malicious and disturbing was brewing within these walls.