Chapter 1 The Blood In The Hallway

My alarm went off at 6:45, the same as it did every school day, and I hit snooze twice before my mom banged on the door and told me I'd be late again.

I wasn't late. I was never actually late. I just liked the ten minutes of lying there pretending the day hadn't started yet.

By the time I got downstairs, my little brother had already eaten half a box of cereal standing up at the counter, and my mom was doing that thing where she talks and packs lunches and checks her phone all at once, like she's three people stacked into one body.

"Did you finish the English essay?" she asked, not looking up.

"Turned it in yesterday."

"And you ate?"

"I'm eating now." I grabbed a granola bar off the counter as proof.

She finally looked at me, gave me the once-over moms do, decided I looked fine, and kissed the top of my head on her way past. "Have a good day. Text me if practice runs late."

Ravenwood was a fifteen-minute walk if I cut through the park, and I liked that walk more than I ever admitted out loud. It was the only part of the day that belonged to just me, before I had to be anyone for anyone else.

I met Jenna at the gates like always. She was mid-rant about her chemistry partner before I even got close enough to hear the start of it.

"He erased my half of the lab notes. On purpose. I watched him do it and pretend it was an accident."

"Tell Ms. Whitfield."

"And be the girl who tattles on Deacon Price? No thank you." She looped her arm through mine as we headed for the doors. "Anyway, forget my problems. Are you going to talk to Ethan today, or are we still doing the thing where you stare at him across the courtyard and say nothing?"

"We are not doing a thing."

"You've been doing a thing since September."

I didn't have a good answer for that, mostly because she wasn't wrong. Ethan Cole had this way of looking at people like he was actually listening, which shouldn't have been rare but somehow was, and I'd caught myself watching for him in hallways more than I wanted to admit. We weren't anything. We'd talked maybe a dozen times, mostly about a history project neither of us cared about. But something about him made me curious in a way most people didn't.

The halls were already loud by the time we walked in, lockers slamming, someone's laugh echoing off the tile, a group of freshmen clumped by the trophy case looking lost the way freshmen always did in September. Ravenwood smelled like it always smelled in the morning, floor polish and coffee from the teachers' lounge and someone's too strong perfume drifting from homeroom.

Jenna peeled off toward the science wing, still complaining, and I kept walking toward my locker near the music room, half thinking about the essay I still needed to start for Government class, half still thinking about Ethan without meaning to.

That's when I noticed how quiet it had gotten.

Ravenwood was never quiet. Not at eight in the morning, not with three hundred kids crammed into one building trying to wake up at the same time. But as I turned the corner toward the music room, the noise behind me seemed to fall away, like someone had shut a door between the rest of the school and me.

I told myself it was nothing. Maybe everyone was already in homeroom. Maybe I was just tired.

Then I saw it.

At first I thought someone had spilled red paint across the hallway floor, right at the base of the music room door. It was too bright. Too much of it, spreading slow and dark across the tile.

I stopped walking. My backpack slipped off my shoulder and hit the floor before I even realized my hands had gone numb.

"Hello?" My voice cracked against the tile, and nothing answered.

I should have turned around right then and found a teacher. Instead, I found myself walking closer, one step and then another, until the toe of my sneaker was almost touching the edge of it.

I reached for the door handle. It was cold under my fingers.

I pushed the door open, and the smell hit me first. Copper, thick enough to taste.

Then I saw her.

I couldn't move.

Maya Collins was on the floor beside the piano, her uniform soaked through, her blonde hair fanned out around her as she'd just lain down to rest. Except her eyes were open. Staring at the ceiling as it had betrayed her.

I knew Maya the way everyone knew Maya. Senior class president, cheer captain, the girl teachers bragged about and half the school quietly resented. She had everything. Or she had looked like she did.

My back hit the wall before I realized I'd moved. "No," I whispered, as the word could undo it.

That's when I saw it, clenched in her right hand. A silver chain with a small black raven charm. I'd seen that pendant somewhere before. I just couldn't place where.

Footsteps behind me. I spun around so fast my shoulder cracked against the doorframe.

A boy stood at the end of the hall. Dark hair, black jacket, and a face that went the color of paper the second his eyes reached the music room.

"Rina?" Ethan Cole's voice barely made it out of his throat.

"Don't." I put a hand up before he could take another step.

"What happened?"

"Maya." My own voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. "She's dead."

For one second, just one, Ethan didn't look shocked. He looked scared. The kind of scared that comes from already knowing.

"You knew she was here," I said before I could stop myself.

"What? No, I heard something."

"I didn't scream, Ethan. How did you know to come?"

He opened his mouth, but the fire alarm ripped through the building before he could answer, and the hallway filled with running feet and shouting teachers. He grabbed my wrist. I yanked it back.

"Don't touch me."

His eyes dropped to my shoes. I followed his stare down and saw it. Blood, smeared across the white canvas, soaked into the hem of my jeans.

A girl nearby gasped. "Is that blood on her?"

"That's Rina. She found Maya."

"Why does she have blood on her?"

I heard the word before anyone said it out loud, but I saw it land in their faces anyway. Suspect.

Mr. Harris shoved through the crowd, took one look through the door, and went white. The police showed up twelve minutes later. I know because I stood there counting every one of them, watching people stare at me like I was already guilty.

By the time they let us go, the whole school was under lockdown, and my phone had already started buzzing with messages I didn't recognize.

One new message. Unknown number.

I stared at it standing outside the front doors, my mother's car still ten minutes away, my hands shaking too hard to type back a response even if I'd wanted to.

You shouldn't have opened that door, Rina.

I looked up. Students were pouring out around me, teachers were shouting instructions nobody was following, and somewhere close enough to see me do it, someone had just watched me read that message.

My phone buzzed again.

I have to kill you too.