Perhaps it was unique to this timeline or perhaps my nerves had frayed my perception of the world around me previously, but Nia seemed off. I found her in the morning before Abigail did, and I noted the tension between her shoulders. Her gaze was focused on nothing, her red jacket half off one shoulder. Her braids had been pulled back and tied into a ponytail.
“Hey?” My greeting a question, her dark eyes flickered to me. Even her smile felt off, but I couldn’t place it. It reached her eyes and showed her teeth, and by all accounts it looked like the smile she always gave me. But there was something skimming beneath the surface I couldn’t place.
She stood from the edge of the planter, “Morning! You and Abigail are late today.”
Late for us, I suppose. My hesitance to get up and face Abigail in the morning had lasted for all but five minutes, but it had resulted in a bombardment of questions that stretched on far too long. I’d said I’d accidentally stayed up too late and was tired because of it. I didn’t tell her it was because I kept thinking about how we were keeping things from each other.
“Just a little. I hope you know everyone was commenting on the doodles you gave me yesterday.”
“Really? Half of them were scribbles.”
“Scribbles that everyone liked.” I grinned when she did. Whatever it was that I was sensing, I was starting to think I imagined it. My overwrought brain was overthinking every interaction now. “Come on, Abigail’s waiting for us.”
“Hey Cinder, have the two of you been alright?”
I tried to mask any expression crossing my face, “Mostly, why?”
“No it’s just…” She shook her head, as though clearing her thoughts. “You know, she’s a pain in the ass sometimes. You rarely show any negative feeling towards her besides worry, but sometimes it feels different.”
My brain searched through the past couple of weeks, trying to pinpoint when exactly Nia could have noticed anything. When I looked back, it was like Nia had been in the background the whole time. I’d always considered myself someone who existed on the fringes, and for a moment I paused.
I picked my words carefully, “We’re fine for now. At least, you don’t have to worry about us. But what about you? You’ve seemed…off yourself.”
“Me? Cinder please, I’m great at holding my own.” She threw an arm around me, and waved a hand towards herself. “I’m the last person you need to worry about. Save it all for Abigail. God knows she needs it.”
“…Are you sure?” She wasn’t looking at me despite the contact. Her arm guided me forward, and I saw Abigail waving at us just ahead on the path. Nia’s arm slipped away and she walked ahead.
I waited for a moment, and when I thought she wasn’t going to answer, she called, “I’m always sure, Cinder. Promise.”
Did I believe her? I couldn’t say as I rushed after her and stepped into place in our circle of three. But it wasn’t like I could pinpoint the source of what I’d been sensing, and it wasn’t like Nia was telling me there was something wrong. She was as she always was. All I could do was drop it and move on.
//
I sat across from Cyrus, hearing not a word of instruction the teacher was giving. He wasn’t paying attention to me, and I doubted he remembered me from the club meeting. Our assignment was on the board, in a barely coherent scrawl. I tried to remember if we’d had randomly assigned groups before, and decided it didn’t matter. I was here now.
Besides Cyrus our group was another girl, specifically the one from Literature club that I hadn’t caught the name of. When I peeked from the corner of my eye, I caught ‘Maeve’ written in perfect cursive on her paper. She hadn’t even glanced at me and the other member, instead striking up conversation with Cyrus.
I’d gotten the feeling when I went, but the group of them felt like they had walls to keep out anyone that wasn’t part of their group. I was an outsider in all ways, and I’d only dropped by the club once weeks ago. The fourth and final member glanced at them with furrowed eyebrows, and he looked to be the only one paying attention to the lesson at all.
“My mom has another one of her business meetings, I don’t know how I’m going to survive.” Maeve had been doing most of the talking and whispering, while Cyrus had only nodded along, grinning or shaking his head in the appropriate spots. A faux warmness dripped from his face. I couldn’t tell if it read as fake because of Justin or not.
The assignment was simple, with each group getting assigned a specific topic and having to present everything at the end of class. I remembered most of this lesson before, and I quietly scribbled away on my paper. It felt safer to let the world go on around me than interact at all.
As always, things weren’t that simple.
“Can you two focus?” Cyrus and Maeve blinked at the boy who snapped. I gave a quick glance from under my bangs. He had thin-framed glasses and short-trimmed, well kept black hair. His uniform was crisp like he hadn’t spent the entire day in it. The tip of his pencil tapped in annoyance against the desk.
Although Maeve’s dark eyes narrowed, Cyrus gave an easy grin. I didn’t think I liked it. I was starting to think I wasn’t going to like anyone that was a part of this story, “Right, sorry. We got a little distracted. I’m Cyrus, and this is Maeve.”
“Great. It’s Amir. Now then—”
“And you?” Maeve effectively cut him off, much to his annoyance. She gave a practiced tilt of her head and a smile, hands folded neatly in her lap. It didn’t reach her eyes, where a sharp glint reflected back at me.
I lifted my head and tried to keep my back straight, “…Cinder.”
“You went to the club once, right? With Abigail?” Amir looked ready to combust as she brought us off topic once again.
Luckily for him, I didn’t want to keep up a conversation, “Yeah. Abigail asked me to come. That’s all. We should focus on the project.”
“Thank you.” Said under his breath but at a volume that indicted he wanted it to be heard, Amir flipped open his textbook.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“You look like you already have.” Cyrus reached out from the square formation we made with the desks and spun my paper around. There was already a series of sentences and notes strewn across it. His paper thin grin was focused on me this time. “Are you the brains of the group, then?”
My tongue was stone. I could only shrug, comparing the version of him in front of me with the standoffish one from club. Maybe it’d been a bad day for him, I’d watched him throughout class and the casualness he was showing had been commonplace from what I could tell. But really, what could I tell?
“There’s no reason to tease her.” Maeve must have kicked at him under the desk because he gave a hint of a flinch. “You’re free to ignore him—How did you like the club anyway?”
I could hardly remember, “Um, fine.”
“You should come back again. The more the merrier or whatever, yeah?” I let the invitation slide off of me.
“Well, that’s more…Abigail’s scene.”
“Right, you came in with her last time. Her and Ava have been really buddy-buddy lately. The two of them talked a lot during the last meeting. Ava even told her about…” She trailed off, as though she thought better of it.
I glanced between the two of them, the hint of tightness around Cyrus’s eyes and the sarcastic wide eyed look Maeve volleyed back. Whatever they were talking about got cut into by an ever increasingly annoyed Amir, “Anyways! Since Cinder’s actually doing the work, let’s get to it.”
“Yeah yeah.” Maeve twisted her lips, but didn’t give any more complaints. I kept quiet, save when I needed to contribute. Throughout it all, I could feel Maeve glancing at me, questions circling around in her eyes. I watched them filter through, waiting for one to get asked, but they never did.
By the time class was over, it must have lasted for a thousand years. I tried not to make it seem like I was rushing out. With all my focus on keeping my hands steady, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
I glanced over, and Maeve gave a too-bright-to-be-real smile, “I’ll see you later Cinder.”
It sounded like a promise. My response was automatic, “See you.”
Her smile became sharp, but she turned and ran up to where Cyrus was already heading out. She smacked him on the shoulder, her laugh ringing throughout the room. He looked back, our eyes catching for a second.
I couldn’t help but turn away first.
//
“What’s the Literature Club’s secret?” Justin must have looked how I did when I found myself in a group project during class. Hunting him down hadn’t been as hard as I thought, and I’d found him where I’d predicted; in a corner of the library. He had a binder open and a scattering of homework in front of him. One glance was enough to tell me he was working on calculus, a subject I couldn’t begin to touch.
He shoved some of his things aside to give me a square of room. I sat down and he went back to doing his work, “Does Abigail know you’re here?”
She did not, “I’ll tell her later. I only wanted to ask you something real quick before I go join her outside. I have class with Cyrus and Maeve. Maeve mentioned—well, I’m not really sure what she mentioned.”
Justin said nothing. His pencil continued writing, and the equation he worked on was starting to take up more of the page than should be considered legal. I was glad I wasn’t in calc, and I was extra glad I had Fox there to help. I let a minute pass as I watched nonsense fill up his paper.
Finally, he boxed whatever the final answer was, and turned his attention towards me, “Have you heard of Werewolf?”
The dream. Abigail had said they’d been doing nothing but playing a game of Werewolf. I gave a slow nod, “Yeah, but what does that game have to do with the club?”
“It’s been going on for a while. Since the club was founded. The club likes to keep it quiet, and only people who are committed to being members know about it.”
My eyebrows furrowed, “W-wait. What does that mean in this context? I mean, it’s just like…a party game. Everyone draws a paper, one person is the wolf, and the wolf kills someone every round. At the end of the round, they have to figure out who the wolf is. If it’s just that, then…”
“What’s it matter to you? Are you going to join in?” He returned back to his work, and I swallowed.
Justin had made it very clear how he saw me. To him, I’d never dare, and maybe in any other case, he’d be right. Heat filled my chest, and I straightened my back, “I…I might, if I have to.”
“For her, of course.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Abigail’s the center of your world, so why wouldn’t you?” The heat spread up my neck and into my face. He still wasn’t looking back at me.
With effort, I took a breath, “She was the center of your world once, too.”
His pencil stilled, his head lifted, and the smirk was back, “A mistake for both of us.” I didn’t know if he meant a mistake for him and Abigail, or a mistake for me and him. He motioned towards the window adjacent to us. “You should go now, speaking of. Don’t want to worry her by being any later.”
I stood, ready to leave the conversation behind but there was one more question on my tongue, “Why did you leave the club?”
“Curious about me?” I attempted to keep a neutral face. At my lack of response, he turned away from me again. “There’s a lot of reasons why. You don’t need to know any of them.”
“…Right.” He was right. Why he went from Vice President to being more a ghost in the club shouldn’t matter to me. And besides, he was so focused on my focus with Abigail. He had all his walls up, despite being the one to reach out and approach me. Outside of what he needed me for, I was nothing to him.
It bothered me more than I wanted it to.
//
It’d been a long time since I’d been to a public library. It was in the center of town, and I had to take a bus to get here. By the time I ran home and got changed, got on the bus, and got here, I was worried it would be closed. But the lights were on, and the building stood welcoming in the beginning twilight.
The building was old, it’s foundation brick. There was a community garden right behind it, and people were free to pick fruits and vegetables during harvest time. My parents used to take me and my sister a lot when we were younger. But when my sister stopped going, so did I.
Nothing about it had changed. I opened the door, and stepped into silence. At the entrance was the front desk, and two workers were sorting through books. I thumbed my wallet I’d placed in the pocket of my cardigan, wondering if my library card was even valid after so long.
All the way to the right of the library were a row of computers. They sat, boxy and pristine, with a login screen waiting. I didn’t know much about computers, but I at least knew how to use a USB.
Taking out my card, I put in the card numbers, and felt my shoulders relaxed that it wasn’t expired. The one hour timer popped up in the bottom corner, but I ignored it. This shouldn’t take me longer than ten minutes. I popped in the USB.
On it were a couple different files. Pictures taken in the dark, too grainy to make out what I was looking at. There were streaks of orange light in some of them, a flashlight or house light or flame. It was hard to say. One of the last pictures was something I could make out. A book of some kind. I squinted at it, but couldn’t make out the title.
The last thing on the drive was a text document. When I opened it, I was met with a string of random words.
To hide is—
Weapon are teeth
Heart
There is something
Don’t read it
Don’t find it
Don’t
Don’t
Don’t’
Don’t
—to die
“What…?” I didn’t know why Justin had given this to me, or what I’d even been looking at. Maybe that was the point. To him, even if I had gone and snooped, I wouldn’t have understood a thing I was seeing or reading.
I scanned through the images a second time, but I didn’t get anything out of it than what I had already seen. With no answers and only questions, I ejected the USB and logged off the computer.
Putting it back into my pocket, I stood, then froze. Today must have been one of those days the world was working against me and pushing the Headmaster’s story straight towards me. Suddenly, the USB I had felt like contraband.
Because ahead of me, I saw Ava and Everett.