Two Days After the Murder
The school halls were silent, like a graveyard.
No one laughed. No one ran. Students walked in clusters, speaking in hushed tones. Armed officers still patrolled the perimeter. Cameras were everywhere.
And then it started.
The rumor.
It was whispered between lockers, during lunch, in the bathrooms. It crawled through the school like smoke under a locked door:
> "I heard Bella did it."
"You mean prom Bella?"
"Kelvin rejected her, right? After she asked him?"
"She flipped. I heard she has a basement... and knives."
"He said he was just using her, and then... this? Come on."
At first, Bella smiled through it. Let them whisper.
She even cried once in the hallway—perfect, timed, theatrical.
But she felt it.
The shift.
The eyes.
The tension in the air.
Even her teachers glanced twice. Even her friends were growing quiet.
Lunchtime
Bella sat alone.
She stirred her soup slowly, listening without looking.
At the next table, Kelvin's friends leaned in close, talking low—but not low enough.
> "The cops need to look at her harder."
"She was obsessed with him."
"He told me she said, 'You'll regret laughing at me.'"
One of them—Nate, Kelvin's closest friend—stood up and shouted across the room.
"Hey, Bella."
She looked up calmly.
"You sleep okay the night they found his body?"
The entire cafeteria went still.
Bella blinked. Tilted her head.
"Better than he did," she whispered. Just loud enough for Nate to hear.
He flinched.
---
SPolice Station – That Evening
Detectives sat around a board full of photos, maps, and strings. And on it, for the first time:
A sticky note with Bella's name.
"She was the last to talk to him at prom."
"She asked him out."
"She has no alibi past midnight."
They didn't have proof.
But now they had a suspect.
---
That Night
Bella sat in the dark, staring at the jars.
The heart.
The ear.
The eye.
She traced her finger down the glass. Thought of Kelvin's friends.
How they were getting loud.
Getting brave.
She smiled to herself.
Maybe it was time for a second message.
One that would shut them up...
Forever.