The morning after the blood-painted words, the school gathered in the auditorium. Rows of pale faces stared up at the stage where Principal Morgan stood, her usual authority stripped down to something that looked almost like pleading.
"Students," her voice cracked on the microphone. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I want you to know that the school is safe. The… incident on the gates is under investigation. We have officers stationed nearby. You are not in danger."
The lie hung in the air, sharp and bitter. No one moved, no one believed him.
From the corner of the room, Gabriel's eyes drifted toward Aveline. She stood near the side curtain, arms folded, watching the students instead of the principal. Her faint smile was unreadable, but it lingered when her gaze passed over Gemma, seated dead-center in the crowd.
Gemma didn't blink.
---
By noon, the whispers had shifted again. Not about the gates. Not about the blood-red words. About another missing name.
Clark Reigns.
His friends swore he'd walked out of school yesterday, laughing, heading toward the bus stop. His bag was found later under his desk, untouched.
The weight of absence spread. Every empty desk a gravestone.
Gabriel found Ryan outside the gym, smoking a cigarette with a shaking hand. "That's five now," Ryan muttered, staring at nothing. "Five since Zoë."
"Don't say her name," Gabriel warned, but his own throat ached at the thought.
Ryan's eyes snapped to him, red-rimmed and furious. "You think I don't notice? You think I don't see her just sitting there like a ghost while people vanish around her?" He jabbed the cigarette at the air, his voice rising. "She's either part of this, or it follows her like a shadow. And you—you keep pretending she's innocent."
Gabriel's chest tightened. "Because she is."
Ryan's laugh was hollow, edged with despair. "No, Gabriel. She's something. But innocent?" He dropped the cigarette, crushing it under his shoe. "That's long gone."
---
That evening, the teachers were called to an emergency staff meeting. Gabriel lingered outside, hidden in the dark of the stairwell, just close enough to hear.
"…we can't keep teaching like this," one teacher said. "Half the class is gone, the parents are ready to riot—"
"It's the girl," another interrupted, voice low but firm. "We all know it. We've seen this before."
Silence. A hush so deep Gabriel thought his heart might give him away.
Then Aveline's voice — smooth, calm, cutting through the tension like silk through paper.
"You're all cowards," she said. "Children go missing and you cling to superstition. Perhaps you should be asking not what she is… but what she remembers."
The room rustled with unease.
Mrs. Hailey spoke next, her voice breaking. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare bring it up again. We swore—"
Aveline's laugh was soft, cold. "Yes. You swore. And yet here we are, circling the same fire, praying it doesn't burn us twice."
Chairs scraped, the meeting dissolving into shouts, but Gabriel couldn't hear anymore. His head spun, fragments of words carving into him.
We've seen this before.
She remembers.
Praying it doesn't burn us twice.
He stumbled home that night, the fog curling around the streets like something alive.
And on his desk, when he entered his room, a piece of folded paper waited.
It wasn't his handwriting.
It wasn't Gemma's.
The letters were uneven, written in what looked like ash smeared into the paper.
"You can't protect her."
Gabriel's hands shook as he dropped it.
And in the corner of his room, just for an instant, he thought he saw a figure standing in the shadows — white-haired, watching.