The silence between us had become a suffocating blanket, thick with unspoken pain and forced distance. Days bled into one another, each one a stark reminder of the chasm that now separated me from Krista. My pureblood senses, always attuned, kept me agonizingly aware of her presence on campus, her movements, the subtle shifts in her emotional state. I still registered that faint, unidentifiable anomaly in her pulse and scent, a persistent, worrying detail I couldn't understand. My father's watchful eye was a constant pressure, reinforcing the necessity of our charade. Christian, Ethan, Marcus, and Jeremy were equally strained, their faces mirroring the grim determination we all carried. We were protecting them, we reminded ourselves, even as it tore us apart.
Lunchtime. The usual campus bustle. I was with the others, tucked away in our usual secluded spot behind the gym, feigning casual conversation. My eyes, however, kept drifting, searching for her. And then, I felt it: a sudden surge of raw, unfettered grief mixed with a potent, simmering anger. She was coming.
She walked towards us, her gait unsteady, her face pale. The usual fire in her eyes was replaced by a hollow emptiness, and fresh tear tracks marred her cheeks. The sight of her, so utterly broken, was a punch to the gut. My breath hitched. Every instinct screamed to go to her, to offer comfort, to apologize for the pain we were inflicting. But the threat of my father, the image of what he could do, held me rooted.
She stopped a few feet away, her gaze burning into me. My carefully constructed indifference wavered, crumbling under the weight of her suffering.
"What do you want?" I forced out, the words tasting like ash in my mouth, the practiced coldness a cruel mockery of what I truly felt.
She said nothing, just stared, her eyes holding a depth of pain that stole my breath. It was a silent accusation, and I felt every ounce of it. My resolve, already frayed, threatened to snap. I loved her. I still loved her. The thought was a raw wound, exposed and bleeding.
"If there's nothing, we'll get going," I stated, the words mechanical, devoid of all feeling. I rose, signaling to the others. They moved with me, their faces grim reflections of my own internal torment. We turned to leave, to complete the agonizing charade.
"Amelia's dead."
The world froze. The words, uttered in a ragged whisper, echoed in the sudden silence of the bustling campus. They were impossible. Dead? No. It couldn't be. The little girl, so vibrant, so uniquely gifted, the one we had all implicitly sworn to protect. Amelia. Dead.
I spun around, my gaze locking onto Krista. Her face was a mask of profound sorrow, her eyes swimming with a desolate grief that made my own vision blur. The anger that had momentarily flared in her earlier had vanished, leaving only a terrifying emptiness.
"Amelia's dead," she repeated, her voice cracking, barely audible. "I just thought you should know."
She didn't wait for a response. She simply turned and walked away, her steps slow, heavy, as if each one carried the weight of a world shattered. I watched her go, a profound shock rendering me immobile. My pureblood senses, which had been registering the subtle, unidentifiable shift in her, now focused entirely on the devastating truth she had just delivered.
Amelia. Gone.
My hands clenched into fists, nails digging into my palms. Guilt, sharp and agonizing, tore through me. We hadn't been there. We had been locked away in a pureblood conclave, while the innocent child we swore to protect had been brutally taken. My father's actions, his obsessive pursuit of "order" and "control," had directly led to this. The anger I had felt towards him after his threat now flared into an inferno of cold, calculating rage. This was the cost of his power, the direct consequence of his twisted vision. And it was a price I would never, ever forgive.