Chapter 27
*Jiselle*
I didn’t dare tell Eva what happened. The last thing I wanted was for her to be targeted too. But it had been three days, and I hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of Max.
By day two, I couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe it was stupidity or downright fear, but I had left my class early and cornered Instructor Havelyn after his class, and I wasn’t letting him walk away without an answer.
“Where is he?” The words left my mouth sharper than I intended, but I didn’t care. Max. They took him three days ago and I haven’t seen him since.”
The instructor’s expression remained impassive.
“He’s being punished for breaking a rule,” was all he said.
My stomach twisted. “Punished how?”
”
Havelyn didn’t blink. Instead, his piercing blue eyes narrowed, sharp and assessing.” Are you sure you didn’t see anything?”
My pulse skipped.
Nothing in my life had ever depended on a lie more than this moment.
“Nothing, sir.” I forced the words out smoothly, keeping my expression blank. “I hit my head in after getting trapped, and then there was chaos everywhere.”
Silence stretched. His gaze drilled into me, dissecting, waiting for a crack.
“It’s unfortunate your year mates got killed in a similar trap not long after. You were lucky.”
I swallowed the bitterness in my mouth. “Indeed.”
“Did you
I hear what any of them were saying, by chance? About what Maximus did?”
I shook my head. This interrogation turned right around on me. I wasn’t smart coming to him like this.
“All I heard for the first few minutes was ringing in my ears,” Llied.
The seconds dragged. Five. Ten.
The pressure built, but I held firm, gripping the straps of my bag to keep my hands from shaking.
“I highly doubt she would have seen something and remained so calm, sir,” a new voice- a voice I knew too well said from behind me. “And from the reports of the other stúdents, they didn’t see her witnessing it.”
Yeah because Max threatened their asses.
Havelyn’s eyes narrowed at me, as if he was trying to see through me. Then finally, he
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exhaled, curt and unreadable.
“Noted.”
He turned and left, his stride controlled, as if he wasn’t completely convinced.
I barely had a second to breathe before Nate gripped my wrist with a deadly force that told me he could have snapped it if he wanted.
It was the first I’d seen him in three days too, since I cancelled our midnight sessions because I was dying from worry.
“Are you out of your damn mind?”
Nate yanked me down the hall, his grip firm, his pace fast. I barely kept up, my pulse still racing from the interrogation.
He pulled me into an empty hallway, shoving me lightly against the wall before stepping back, palms braced on his hips. His chest rose and fell, and his jaw ticked with restraint, giving away his evident frustration:
“What the hell were you thinking, cornering an instructor like that?” His voice was low and sharp–furious.
“I had to know,” I shot back, still breathless, still spinning from what just happened.
“You had to-? Jiselle, they would have killed you if he even caught a glimpse of a lie in your posture.”
My stomach lurched at the bluntness of his words.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, then exhaled sharply.
“Are you that desperate to die? Because you just gave him a reason to suspect you.”
I swallowed, my heart still hammering against my ribs. “I didn’t have a choice, Nate. I haven’t seen Max in three days. I needed to-”
“And now he’s watching you.” Nate cut me off, his voice tightly controlled, like he was fighting the urge to yell. “Do you even realize what you just did?”
I clenched my fists. “What was I supposed to do? Sit back and do nothing while Max is missing? I know he means nothing to you but he means something to me, okay?” I shot back.
His jaw ticked, but he said nothing.
“Do you know? What happened out there?” I asked much softer now.
He nodded. “From what the other third years are saying, it seems like you know too much.”
He didn’t sound accusing. He sounded… afraid.
Fear. The same kind’I had seen in Max’s eyes.
My pulse spiked.
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“Nate, they killed four people.” My voice cracked, guilt pressing against my ribs like a vice. My nails dug into my palms as my breaths came quicker, shallower. “All because Max saved me.”
Nate exhaled sharply, looking away.
“It’s not that he saved you,” he muttered, jaw tight. “At least the ass did one good thing in his life.”
His next words sent a chill through me.
“It’s how he saved you.”
A shudder ran down my spine. “But-”
“Don’t ask me how.”
He sounded just like Max.
Always cryptic. Always keeping secrets.
“When Max talks in circles like this, it’s because he’s trying to stop himself from dying,”
I whispered, more to myself than him. “You guys have some type of powers, don’t you?”
Silence.
I swallowed and grabbed Nate’s hand, eying the familiar scar.
“He said he’d die if he told me.” I glanced at his hand. “You’re all sworn to secrecy, aren‘ t you? Not just you and Nate. Every second–to–fourth–year student.”
Nate’s entire body stiffened. “Jiselle, stop.”
“But about what? What is this school hiding?” My voice rose. “No one on the outside
knows this. I mean, there are rumors, but-”
Nate grabbed my wrist, yanking me down an empty corridor before I could make a
scene.
He pulled through a door and slammed it shut.
It didn’t take long for me to realize we were in his room. It looked like Max’s with an equally big bed, but his scent was everywhere and it was uniquely… him.
Still, I was too deep in my own thoughts to think about that.
“If you tell us, you die,” I muttered, pacing now. “If we find out, we die.”
I shook my head.
“But what?” My voice cracked. “When will we know?”
He hesitated. “About two months before first year ends.”
My stomach dropped. “Semester three.”
Max had said that.
Nate nodded once.
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I clenched my fists. “Why do they kill people?”
“Because information is vulnerable if you know it.”
My brow furrowed. That made zero sense.
“What information?”
Nothing.
I let out a frustrated breath. “How did Max do that? How did you do it?”
His entire body tensed. His eyes flared, as if he didn’t know I had seen him too–that day when we were hunting claws, and the second year was strangling me. I thought it was because I hit my head, but now I knew better. He moved just like how Max had moved.
Like a shadow.
He looked away, clenching and unclenching his hand with the scar as if it hurt. “Maximus and I are the same,” he admitted. “It’s one of the reasons we don’t get along.” “Same what?”
Third year? Wolf? What?!
Silence.
I let out a shaky breath, my mind spinning.
“What are they doing to him?” My voice broke, and I didn’t even care that I was alone in Nate’s room while my boyfriend was missing.
For a moment, I swore I saw jealousy flicker in his eyes, but he did a damn good job masking it. But I grew a tiny bit more respect for him when I realized he didn’t take any pleasure in his next words.
“They’re probably torturing him.”
I gasped, stumbling back. “They’re what?!”
Panic ripped through me, fast and sharp.
“Why?! Why are they doing this?!”
Nate sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “The first day was supposed to just be punishment for letting you guys see in the first place, even if the others are already dead.”
My breaths came in ragged heaves. I had to sit before my legs gave out.
“If they still have him,” Nate continued, “they’re probably trying to get information out of him. Information like if you really didn’t see.”
“They’re torturing him for me?”
Nate exhaled sharply. “And my guess? He’s doing a damn good job at protecting you.”
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He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if he wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or grateful. It seemed like gratitude won.
“Gotta give it to him. He’s a resilient, strong asshole.”
1 swallowed. “And you would have given me up?”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“I would rather be beaten with a bat covered in silver spikes, laced with wolfsbane, bleed out and heal torturously slow, only for those wounds to be torn open again with a dull, rusty dagger over and over again, than say or do anything that would end your life.”
I just stared at him.
That was… graphic.
But message received.
Nate sighed. “When you first got here, I wasn’t pissed because I thought you weren’t strong enough..”
I frowned. “Then why?”
“Because I know you and I know you wouldn’t stop until you found out what was happening,” he admitted. “And that is what can get you killed.”
A shudder ran through me. “But I-”
“I’m begging you, Jiselle. Let it go until second year. Please.”
“For Ethan’s sake?” I asked quietly.
He held my gaze. “For mine.”
I froze, stunned. It was the first hint of honesty I’ve gotten from Nate since… since we were like eleven.
My attention was snapped back to the present when I heard a door closing down the
-hall.
Funny enough and to their disappointment, Nate and Max’s rooms were a few doors apart. And I knew that distinct click anywhere.
I shot up and ran to the door catching a small, almost invisible trail of blood.
Nate didn’t try to stop me as I ran.
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