AUTHOR'S POV
The silence in the dorm room was heavy, smelling of copper and old secrets. Jay sat on the edge of the bed, her silhouette framed by the moonlight filtering through the window. Her eyes, usually so sharp and defiant, were clouded with the fog of memories she had spent years trying to bury.
Zein sat across from her, trembling. The mention of her sisters—Allison and Samnath—had stripped away her defenses. The air felt thin, as if the room itself was holding its breath.
-----------------------------
Jay's POV
I looked at my hands. They were stained with the blood of the guards from the lab, but in my mind, I was seeing a different kind of red. A much older red.
"I was five years old," I began, my voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "Too young to understand that the world was a hungry beast. My mother worked in the laboratory here at Hell University. Back then, it wasn't a slaughterhouse—or so I thought. To me, it was just the place where Mom worked late, a place of white walls and the smell of bleach."
I closed my eyes, and suddenly, I wasn't in the dorm anymore. I was a small, shivering girl hiding in a dusty corner of the lab's ventilation room.
"My stepfather... he was a monster before I ever met the Council."
" That day, he had told me I was a mistake. That I was worthless, a waste of air. I had run to the lab to find my mom, but I got lost in the corridors. I sat in a dark corner and cried until my chest burned. I whispered it to the shadows: 'I'm worthless. I'm nothing.'"
I felt a ghost of a touch on my shoulder.
"Then, I heard footsteps. A girl, maybe nine years old, knelt in front of me. She had bright eyes and a smile that felt like the sun. That was Allison. She asked me why I was crying, and when I told her what my stepfather said, she didn't pity me. She grabbed my shoulders and looked me in the eyes. 'He's the one who's worthless, not you,' she told me. Then another girl stepped out from the shadows—Samnath. She was quieter, but her gaze was like iron. 'Don't ever believe a lie just because it's shouted at you,' she said. They hugged me. For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged to something."
I looked at Zein, whose tears were falling silently now.
"From that day on, I went to the lab every day. Not just for my mom, but for them. We played games in the restricted hallways when the guards weren't looking. But one day, I saw the needles. I saw the bruises on Allie's arms.
I asked my mom, 'Mom, why are sister Allie and Sam here?'"
My voice hitched. "My mother looked so tired. She whispered to me that her senior told her their blood was special. They said a dangerous disease would peak in the future, and Allie and Sam were the only ones who could provide the cure. They were testing the serum on Allison, using Samnath's blood as the base. My mother thought she was saving the world. She didn't realize she was just feeding it."
The memory shifted, turning dark and jagged.
"Then came the day the music stopped. I was playing near the private offices when I heard shouting. I hid behind a heavy curtain. There were two men. They looked exactly alike. Identical twins. One was Keizer, Keifer's father. The other was Andrew."
I could still hear their voices echoing in my skull. Keizer was screaming, his face pale with horror. 'Have you gone mad, Andrew? You locked me up! You stole my identity, you killed my wife... and now you are hurting these children?'
And Andrew... he just laughed. It was a sound that belonged in a graveyard. 'I was always your shadow, Keizer. Hidden. Ignored. So I took your life. I became you, and I did it better.' Keizer tried to fight back, screaming that he would expose the truth to the Board, but Andrew was faster. He pulled a knife. I watched, paralyzed, as he stabbed his own brother again and again. He didn't stop until the floor was soaked. He didn't stop until Keizer was gone."
I shivered, the cold of that basement floor seeped into my bones.
"I ran. I ran to my mother and the girls, screaming that a monster was coming. But the shadows were faster. Andrew stepped out of the dark, wiping blood from his cheek. He looked at me and said, 'Little girl, you saw something you shouldn't have. But it doesn't matter. You're useful to me too.'"
"My mother tried to jump between us. She fought like a lioness, but he hit her with something heavy. She went down, her head hitting the concrete. Everything went black for me after that."
"When I woke up... I was on the bed. The same one you saw on the screen tonight. My head felt like it was being split open with an axe. The pain was rhythmic, pulsing with every beat of my heart. To my left, Allison was tied down, her body jerking in pain. And Sam... Sam was forced to sit in a chair beside us. They had tubes in her arms, literally draining the life out of her to pump it into us. I can still hear them screaming. Allison's voice would give out, and then Sam would start. It was a symphony of agony."
"Days passed. Or maybe weeks. Time doesn't exist when you're being dismantled. But then, one night, the door creaked open. It was my mother. She was crawling, her body broken from whatever they had done to her. She didn't say a word. She just used a pair of surgical scissors to cut our restraints. 'Run,' she hissed. 'Don't look back.'"
"We tried. We reached the exit, but the lights flashed red. Madam Violet and the Administrator—the 'Sir' you all fear—were standing there. They didn't even look at us. They looked at my mother like she was a broken tool. They... they finished her right there. In front of us.They burned her alive."
"Allie and Sam grabbed my hands. They were older, stronger. They dragged me through the secret tunnels. When we finally hit the surface, we had to split up to survive. We promised to find each other. I went back and they disappeared into the night. I thought I'd never see their faces again... until today, Zein. You resembles them."
The room was deathly silent. Zein was curled into a ball, sobbing for the sisters who had endured the unthinkable to save a five-year-old girl.
Keifer stood by the door, his jaw set so tight his muscles were jumping. He had known parts of this, but hearing about his father's murder—the real Keizer—was a fresh wound.
Jay stood up. Her movements were fluid, predatory. The "tired" girl was gone again, replaced by the Queen who had declared the end of the Bloody Night.
She turned her gaze slowly toward the corner of the room where Ace and Raze stood. They had been unusually quiet, their faces masked in shadows.
"The experiments didn't just give me strength," Jay said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "They gave me a memory that never fades. I remember the faces of everyone who was in that lab. I remember the guards. I remember the doctors."
She stepped toward Ace, her glowing eyes locking onto his.
"And I remember the two boys who were being groomed in the next room. The ones who saw us escaping and chose to look the other way. The ones who have been keeping their own ledgers of blood for the Council ever since."
Jay leaned in close to Ace, the scent of smoke and iron clinging to her.
"Don't you both think you should also tell the truth now?" she asked, her voice a jagged blade. "
---------------
Aces POV
"You think we stayed because we liked the taste of blood?" I asked, my voice cracking. "We stayed because we were hunting a ghost. Our father wasn't just some Council lackey. He was the Headmaster—the real one, before the 'Administrator' took his seat and turned this place into a tomb. He was Julian Thorne. He tried to shut the labs down. He was the one who authorized your mother, Jay, to find a way to smuggle you out."
Raze stepped forward, his eyes fixed on a point in the distance that no one else could see. "He was assassinated for it. Right in front of us. They called it a 'tragic accident,' but we saw the shadow of the rival organization—The Hallow—working with Andrew. We didn't come to Hell University to be students. We came to find the man who pulled the trigger and the system that handed him the gun."
---------------
Raze POV
When we came back to this school, I was hunting ghosts," Raze whispered. "I went to the vents every night. I thought I was talking to Samnath. We spoke in the dark for months. I fell in love with that voice—it was sharp, guarded, and filled with the trauma of the lab. She was my haunting loyalty, the only one who understood the monster I was becoming. I thought she was the one who had stayed behind in my heart."
"But then there was Allison. She was the unexpected light in the infirmary, cleaning my wounds with a gentleness I didn't deserve. She saw the person I could be outside of these walls. I felt like a traitor for being drawn to her, thinking I was betraying my deep, visceral connection to Samnath."
"One night in the vents, I confessed my feelings for Allison to the girl I thought was Sam. The voice on the other side went quiet for a long time. Then, she started to cry—but it wasn't Samnath's cold, jagged crying. It was Allie's."
"Allison revealed the truth. Samnath had been there, listening, but she was too broken to face the world. Allison had been taking Sam's name in the dark, mimicking her sister's guarded tone, because she knew I was addicted to the pain of the past. She knew I wasn't ready to love someone who represented a future. She wore her sister's identity like a shield to keep me close until I was strong enough to choose the light."
"I was torn between the duty to the girl I thought I knew and the redemption Allison offered. I realized that love isn't enough to erase pain, but Allison gave me a reason to finally step out of the shadows. I chose her, even if the ghost of Samnath still lingers in the corners of my mind."
"But Samnath isn't in those vents anymore," I said, my voice barely audible. "After Allison revealed the truth, Samnath... she couldn't carry the weight of what they did to her. The serum didn't just change her blood; it ate her from the inside out. She died in my arms in the lower levels, whispering that she was finally glad to be a ghost so she wouldn't have to feel the needles anymore."
I looked at my trembling hands. "And Allison? After Sam died, the guilt broke her. She told me she couldn't look at me without seeing the sister she tried to save by lying to me. She disappeared into the night, leaving nothing but a note saying that some lights are meant to burn out so others can see. I lost them both. One to the grave, and one to the wind."
-------------------
A/n
Sorry to keep you all waiting. Here's the new chapter. Do you like it. If some of you are thinking it's different from original book then it's true it's slightly different as it is my story.
So what is your reaction to today revelation ???
Let me know in comment box.
Target :25+comment 🎯
See you soon 💕 🫶