Lyra took a sip from her cup and leaned back against the headboard. She was already thinking about going back to sleep as it was already midnight.
The room was quiet except for Sienna's soft snoring, she placed the glass down and was getting back in bed, when she heard a noise.
It came from outside. She tried to ignore it, maybe she was imagining things. But then a muffled scream came through the window.
She frowned slightly and stood, walking toward the window. The curtains were already half open, and she pushed them aside just enough to have a look.
She didn't see anything at first, but she noticed the movements. Two guards were dragging someone between them.
Lyra's eyes widened when the light caught the girl's face for just a second.
It was the girl from the assembly, the one that had been expelled.
Her feet was barely touching the ground as they pulled her along, toward the trees at the far end of the campus. The girl struggled weakly, but the guards didn't slow down.
Lyra pressed her hand against the window.
"What…?"
Lyra didn't think twice, she just grabbed her hoodie and slipped it on, opening the door as quietly as she could, hoping not to wake Sienna.
The hallway was empty. Lyra moved as fast as she could, her heart pounding in her ears.
She took the back stairs, following the direction she'd seen from the window.
She turned corner after corner, the stairs were worse. Sienna was right about the corridors being unnecessarily long.
She took them two at a time and by the time she passed the stairs, she was breathing heavily.
When she finally got to where they had been a while ago, they were gone.
She stood there, staring into the woods, wondering if she'd imagined it all. Should she follow?
She took a step forward when a hand grabbed her shoulder. She gasped and turned around. Kieran? He looked even more unreal than he had during the day. Truly breathtaking.
"What are you doing here?"
"D-did you see that? The girl...they said she was expelled." her voice came out shaky.
He glanced toward the trees, where the guards had disappeared. "She was."
"That's not expulsion."
"Nothing you should be bothered about." He released her shoulder. "You should go back inside."
"Why are they taking her into the woods? Shouldn't she be taken home or-"
Sienna said he was dangerous, she said to avoid crossing paths with these people, but the girl...
"Want to have a look?" He tilted his head. Did she? "If you stay, it won't end well for you."
"So I'm just supposed to pretend I didn't see that?" she asked. "Pretend someone didn't get dragged into the woods in the middle of the night?"
"Yes."
"What? That's insane. She was expelled," Lyra said, louder than she had intended. "You don't expel someone like that. You don't...do that."
"Go back." He turned around, wanting to walk away.
"And if I don't?"
"Then you become part of the problem. And I'm sure you don't want that."
"So that's it?" she said. "You just stand there and act like this is normal?"
He took a step closer, close enough that it made her skin prickle.
"This place runs on rules, I don't think you'd want to learn them the hard way."
"Dragging someone into the woods in the middle of the night doesn't look like discipline to me."
He leaned down slightly, his voice dropping. "Curiosity gets humans killed at Ravencrest. Don't let yours make you memorable."
°•°•°•°•°•°•°
Lyra lay on her back with eyes fixated on the ceiling and the blanket pulled up to her chin. Sleep wouldn't come no matter how hard she shut her eyes.
Kieran's voice kept threading through her thoughts, like it had been carved there.
'Curiosity gets humans killed at Ravencrest. Don't let yours make you memorable.'
Humans. The word sat wrong, why had he said it like that?
As if she wasn't the same thing as him, as if he was something else entirely.
She rolled onto her side, facing the wall and squeezed her eyes shut.
She wondered if the girl from the assembly had ever really been expelled or if she'd simply been removed.
If the girl could be taken like that, then it could happen to anyone who stepped out of line.
Sienna shifted in her sleep, mumbling something under her breath.
Lyra watched her for a moment, then let out a quiet breath.
"What would I even tell her? Hey, by the way, while you were peacefully snoring, I watched a girl get dragged into the woods like a bad horror movie, then crossed paths with one of those high-class people you specifically warned me about, and he threatened me without actually threatening me." She said to herself. "Yeah. That would go really well."
Sienna would look at her like she had just signed her own death form.
"Oh and just a casual detail, he said "humans" like he wasn't one to begin with." She shook her head slightly into her pillow. "No. Definitely not telling her. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. "
Not telling Sienna felt wrong. Telling her felt worse. She tried to convince herself that Kieran was right, that it wasn't her business, that whatever happened had nothing to do with her.
Tomorrow, classes would go on. People would laugh and argue over stupid things. No one would mention the expelled girl. No one would ask where she went, because they'd think she's home.