Chapter 3
My phone beeped and almost leapt out of my skin because it was so quiet in my room.
As the sun fell below the horizon, the temperature dropped with it.
There was very little foot traffic on this floor, and it was weird how Mila and I didn’t see a single resident while we were finding our rooms. Yet there were plenty of students walking about, mostly in friend groups, but no sounds of closing doors or footsteps along the halls here in Morgana.
The message was from Mila: Are u hungry? Meals are served in the dining hall.
Me: Starving. Do u know where it is?
Mila: On the map, it looks like it’s at the end of the road.
Me: Okay. Let’s go. I’ll meet you at the stairs in ten mins.
Mila: See u soon.
My finger scrolled over the message from my mom’s account again, and I was tempted to answer it, but decided against it.
Dad still hadn’t answered the message I sent him earlier, but that’s not unusual, as he’s probably too busy to view my message as a little tantrum that he thought was best to ignore.
Or, that wicked stepmother read and deleted it.
Or, she slipped poison in his whiskey, and he’s dead.
No, no, don’t start thinking like that. She’d never kill him this soon after I left, as it looked too suspicious. No, no, she’d wait a few days, unless…unless she wanted to pin it on me.
Stop. My mind was getting away on me. The downside to spending many hours alone was that I tended to make up dramas in my head.
The upside was that I didn’t have to talk to people and discuss topics I didn’t care about to be a nice person.
Mila, on the other hand, was different as she was easy to like.
I pulled a black sweater over my ponytail and put the black baseball cap back on my head. I grabbed my keycard and backpack, which held my phone, money card, and a heavy wool jacket if I got cold.
My footsteps echoed through the hallways as I walked to the stairs, and when I paused to listen for sounds of voices or footsteps—anything to suggest other students were there.
Are we living in an empty hall? I mean..
. I didn’t mind that, but, strangely, I ran into Mila at the bus stop, who just so happened to be assigned to my hall, though no one else was.
Mila came trotting down the stairs, “I ate the raspberry cupcake,” I confessed.
“So, did I,” she admitted. “I’m keeping the chocolate for tomorrow.”
“I don’t suppose you know where the nearest gym is?” I asked her.
She snorted, pointing to her stomach. “Me? Do I look like I would know where the gym is?”
I laughed with her as we walked down the stairs and to the entrance. “Have you noticed there are no other students here yet?”
“Yeah,” she was baffled too. “It’s so weird. I have the entire third floor to myself, and I thought I could hear voices earlier, but it was someone outside.”
“Maybe another train load of students will arrive this week, and some of them will be our roommates,” I wondered aloud.
“Maybe,” she sounded doubtful. “If no more residents are moving in, then you should move into a larger room.”
“Sure. Why not?” I was slightly embarrassed that my wealthy father had to pay for a less expensive room, but perhaps that was because I had enrolled late and there were not many self-contained rooms left.
We walked outside into the dying sunlight as streetlamps flicked on, and as students along the street were heading in the same direction as us.
Except one. One man, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, with messy, raven-black hair, was walking in the opposite direction, expecting the crowd of students to move out of his way.
There was something untamed about him, a wolf on the hunt for his next prey.
Then he bared his teeth and hissed at a girl, making her scream.
“Who the hell is that?” I muttered as his gaze fixed on us walking on the footpath directly toward him, and Mila grabbed my forearm and pulled off the path onto the road to avoid him.
A smirk glided across his face as his nostrils flared as if he enjoyed intimidating us and everyone else around him.
When he passed, I turned back to see where he was going and was disturbed to see that he’d entered Morgana Hall, unlocked the door, and caught me watching him just before he closed the door behind him.
“He has a keycard to Morgana,” I pointed out to Mila in horror.
“Visiting someone?” she breathed. “Maybe his girlfriend is a resident.”
“But there’s no one there but us,” I stated, clearly, relieved that I had a lock on my door because he seemed so sinister and reckless.
We entered the dining hall that seemed like an afterthought - a modern building lacking the Gothic details of all the others I had seen.
But the scent of roast chicken and sweet potatoes reminded me that I hadn’t eaten properly since breakfast and made me eager to dive into a large plate of warm, cooked food.
We grabbed a warm plate, lined up at the buffet, and loaded our plates with roasted meats, vegetables, gravy, and French bread. Then I followed Mila to a table in the far corner where two nerds sat, staring at their phones while eating.
One of the nerds was so transfixed on whatever was on his screen that when he opened his mouth to shove a forkful of potato, he missed and stabbed himself in the cheek.
I suppressed a laugh with my hand as Mila had to turn away to disguise her smile, but the dorky guy was oblivious to us even being there, let alone laughing at him.
“Oh god,” Mila reached across the table and tapped my forearm.
“There’s my sister. Don’t let her see me.
” Mila slid down in her chair, so I could only see her head as I glanced behind me to a group of older students who were sitting together on the largest table, having a great time throwing food at one another while laughing loudly.
“I thought this was a dining hall for sophomores,” I snarled as I noticed in the middle of the bedlam of jocks and men, who looked like the ringleader or kingpin, sitting quietly, speaking to no one, but everyone around him was aware that he was there.
He was probably one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen, carrying a vibe of charisma and the alpha of the pack, who didn’t need to speak to get his message across.
The girls fussed over him, trying to catch his eye with a flirty smile, which he ignored, while his lower alpha and beta boys guarded their leader.
Weird.
“That’s Nicolae Warwick,” Mila screwed her face.
“His brother and close friends call him Sickle. After the hooked corn cutter, I guess, but I’m not entirely sure.
It could be Sick with extras.” Her scowl deepened as if she smelt something bad.
“My sister has a massive crush on him. God. Embarrassing.”
“Warwick?” A shiver ran down my spine. My father’s enemies were called Warwick.
The family tried to siphon territories from my father, initially through open negotiations.
But when my father declined, they resorted to force and sent a hitman to try to eliminate him.
If it weren’t for my father’s excellent security, he would’ve been killed.
The man who ordered the hit was Leon Warwick, the boss, and he was arrested and convicted.
My cheeks burned as the floor seemed to open up and engulf me. I wanted to disappear, run back to my room, pack my bags, and leave.
“How many Warwicks are there?” I asked quietly, leaning over the table to Mila.
“Too many,” she hissed back. “One Warwick is one too many. But he has a younger brother here, too.”
“Leon Warwick’s sons?” I whispered, hoping the geeks glued to their phones weren’t listening. I needed clarification because they might be distantly related and had nothing to do with the hit on my father.
Her eyes gaped in fear as she nodded, her chin hitting the table as she did so. “Do you know them?”
“A little,” I whispered, trying not to make a big deal about it and draw attention to my little dilemma. “How do I get out of here?”
Her clear blue eyes darted around as if she were trying to understand what I meant. “We could take our plates back to the hall,” she suggested, but that wasn’t quite what I was asking. “And eat in our rooms.”
“I mean, how do I get out of this dump called Castlehill University?” My chest tightened with frustration and discomfort. “I need an escape plan if it becomes unbearable."
“I thought the train was the only way up here,” she replied as she grabbed her phone. “Have you looked at the map?”
Yes, and I couldn’t find a road out. Surely, there must be a way out. I mean, how did they bring all the food and supplies up here? Also, the buses. How did they get the buses up here when there’s no road?
“On the back of the train,” she clarified as her finger scrolled across her screen. “Oh my god, I can’t find a road out. I’ll ask my sister-”
“Now? You’re going to ask her now?” I was horrified at the thought of Mila walking up to that table of jocks, enemies to people like us, to ask her sister a question.
“God, no. I’ll message her later.” She made a face in disgust at the thought of going over there. “But give it time. You might love it here.”
I snorted, and she cracked up laughing like it was our private joke, then her smile vanished as her eyes stared at the screen of her phone, growing wider as a look of horror washed across her face.
“Mila? Are you alright?” Her sudden change in demeanor was perturbing.
She sat up, so she wasn’t hidden under the table, and leaned across the table to whisper, “Did you know that there was a student found dead on our train?”
“Our train? Today’s train?” I pointed my thumb behind me toward the train tracks. “Oh god, that’s terrible. How did he die?”
“Under suspicious circumstances. The police will be arriving on tomorrow’s train to investigate,” she explained as she read.
“This was sent in a student email, so it’ll be in your inbox.
They’re informing us that we might be required to be interviewed by police because we were on that train, so we are required not to leave campus. ”
“Leave campus? If only,” I cackled as I remembered the jock carriage clambering all over each other. I bet one of them accidentally smacked another jock in the head and knocked them out, and then died or something. Reckless buffoons.
I opened my emails on my phone and found the email from the Castlehill University administration with the gold seal at the top of the page.
The email didn’t specify who the victim was or how they died, apart from stating that it was under suspicious circumstances, or which carriage they were found on, but it did make me uneasy that a potential murderer was on the same train as me.
The image of opening the bathroom door on the train and seeing that man slammed against the wall with White T-Shirt’s hand at his throat. But he was alive the last time I saw him, though the whole situation reeked to high heaven.
“Good evening, ladies,” a deep, charming voice chimed next to my ear as Mila’s eyes gaped in fear at the figure towering over us.
Large hands were placed on the back of the empty chair beside me, but I knew who it was without looking up at him. “This is a private conversation,” I snapped at him as a waft of his cologne swept past my nose.
Mila was even more horrified that I spoke to him in such a rude way, but he was a proven loser and a bully, so I didn’t care.
Ignoring my message for him to leave, he said, “Enjoying your meals, are we?”
“Why did you slip poison in it?” I hissed as Mila shrank back down under the table.
“Am I going to start choking in a minute? Is my throat going to start swelling up where I can’t breathe?
” I placed my hand at my throat and faked a cough.
“Mila, I hope you’re an expert at the Heimlich technique, because this guy is trying to kill me. ”
He grunted, and I glanced at his handsome face for the first time since he came over to find that he was smiling, completely unaffected by my spitting words. “I gotta keep my eye on you, Adina.”
“Oh, you got my name correct this time,” I hit back.
His eyes flicked to the screen of my phone, of the email about the dead student found on the train, and his smile vanished. “I definitely need to keep my eye on you,” his voice turned dark and sinister, and I swiped off my emails.
He hesitated a few beats before pulling, and I pointed my thumb behind me as he went, “What the hell? What a dickhead?”
Mila cocked her head at me as fear rippled across her face. “That’s Ezrah…the other brother.” She was completely freaking out. “I’m taking my plate back to Morgana.”
“Oh, okay, but… Mila, what other brother? What do you mean?” She stood up, her eyes filling with fear. She flicked her gaze to the table at the side of the hall where Nicolai was sitting, surrounded by his sycophants. One of them was her sister, but she still hadn’t pointed her out to me yet.
Following behind Mila and carrying my plate, it wasn’t until we stepped outside into the dark that she turned back to see if we were being followed. I was still confused about what it was that stressed her out so much about that bulky ogre.
“Warwick,” she panted, striding ahead as the blood drained from my face.
“Him? He’s the other brother?” Oh no, what have I done? He’s my enemy, but at least I know what he and his brother look like. The kingmaker Warwicks who then became kings.
“Yes, Ezrah Warwick,” she hissed quietly as a group of students walked by.
She sprinted back to Morgana so fast I had to jog to keep up. Once inside Morgana, we found the dorm kitchen and relaxed, glad we weren’t in that noisy, crowded dining hall full of people who hated us—well, to be precise, hated me.
If Ezrah recognized my name, he would also know that my father was the one who put his father in prison.
This was war.
And I had no intention of losing.