12. Elyssa
ELYSSA
I couldn’t sleep.
I was hungry and hot and I just. C ouldn’t. Sleep.
Usually, I would take that opportunity to sneak down to the kitchens and make myself a sweet treat, but something kept me from leaving my bed that night.
Against my better judgment, a part of me was worried about running into Konstantin.
He didn’t scare me, but he did have things on me that I’d rather nobody else knew. Not only that but ever since we got stuck in that room days ago, it felt like something had shifted.
Like we were sharing a secret.
Well, it was the case for me, since I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it, not even my friends or my cousin.
Konstantin didn’t strike me as the type to tell anyone either. I had been dying to get back there for days now, especially to retrieve the journal I had found, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it; the darkness scared me shitless.
When I was finally allowed to hang around my cousins, Renaldi, Mia and Lorenzo’s father, was not happy about it. He couldn’t say anything, since my grandfather’s word outweighed his, but he never failed to make me feel it. I walked on eggshells whenever he was around and one of the things he did to ‘discipline’ me when he thought I deserved it, was locking me up in a closet at the far end of their house.
It was dark and cold and he left me there for hours on end sometimes. I hated it.
Nobody knew about it, not even Mia. It was probably one of those things I would take to the grave.
With sleep still evading me, I decided to just get up and go for a walk around my floor. I was too chicken to wander farther really, both because I didn’t want to risk running into Korolov, but also because I still wasn’t convinced that whoever we’d heard roaming the halls last time weren’t the same people who killed Buxley.
Putting on my fuzzy slippers, I opened the door to my dorm as quietly as possible, making my way out and locking it after me.
Walking through the dimly lit corridor, I made my way to the common area where a sort of lounge was set up: a TV and sofas, a dining room table and several loveseats, as well as a few bookshelves.
The books in there were very different from the books we could find at the library: from romance to fantasy, with some good thrillers and horror novels. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to read but I told myself I would look at the selection and maybe pick something up to pass the time until sleep came to me.
Just as I was about to enter the lounge, footsteps echoed from the stairs behind me and a door slammed shut. Jumping, I quickly hid behind one of the statues that decorated the castle. It was that of an angel, not the biggest but still big enough for me to hide behind without being noticed, especially with the light so low.
“Quick, sit her down, I think she’s going into shock!” I recognized Mrs. Gastow’s voice, and sure enough, our dean’s secretary ran straight past where I was hiding, rushing into the lounge.
And she wasn’t alone. She and Mrs. Chapman, our dorm’s supervisor and a professor of biology, were holding another girl up.
I recognized her as Hannah Fronwerg, a first-year student on a scholarship, and she looked downright frightened. Her whole body was shaking and she was crying, shaking her head and sobbing about wanting to get back home.
“What happened?” Chapman whispered. She was a sweet woman in her late fifties who, from what I knew, had dedicated her whole life to teaching at the Academy.
She ran to the little kitchenette in the corner to get Hannah a glass of whatever, rushing back to her side. The girl didn’t want it though; she gazed into the distance, her hands clutching at her dress, tears soaking her face.
When Mrs. Gastow didn’t answer, looking almost as distraught as Hannah, Chapman asked again, “Agatha, will you tell me what happened, for goodness’ sake!”
That seemed to get Gastow—Agatha—out of her trance; she looked up at her colleague and swallowed thickly.
“S-she found a body. In the woods.”
The glass in Mrs. Chapman’s hand hit the ground in a deafening clink, shattering into a thousand pieces.
I watched from my hiding place, growing more curious by the second. And then it hit me, what Gastow said.
They’d found another body, in the woods this time. An image of the article Konstantin and I had found a few days before, in that secret room, came back to me and I froze.
“W-was she? Was her??—”
“Yes. They slit her throat and… she was abused.”
My eyes widened and I was suddenly glad for the light dinner because my stomach was churning.
“Who?” Chapman asked quietly.
“She’s one of those girls who disappeared from the village.” My hand flew up to my mouth in shock. “The second one is probably in there somewhere. John and the guards are roaming the woods before students start waking up.” Agatha then gestured to Hannah with her head. “She and her boyfriend were meeting by the mill when they discovered her. John wants them to be sent back home as soon as possible. They cannot tell anyone what they saw.”
John was Dean Taylor’s name. Wondering why he wouldn’t want anyone to know there was a killer on campus, I took a step back as stealthily as I could, ready to run back to my room. Only, my back came in contact with something hard and warm, startling me. I was about to scream when a hand clamped over my mouth, effectively muffling the sound and keeping me from getting discovered.
I recognized his scent before he could even speak.
Konstantin hissed, “What did I tell you about wandering the halls at night, moshennik ?” And I just knew my fate was sealed.