Keifer's POV
The air brakes of the bus hissed like a warning as we finally rolled to a stop in front of the massive, iron-wrought gates of Holy Saint Academy.
This place didn't look like a school; it looked like a cathedral dedicated to the ego of the elite. Manicured lawns, white marble pillars, and an atmosphere so thick with pretension it made my skin crawl.
One by one, the buses emptied. Section A spilled out first, looking like they belonged here—polished, arrogant, and right at home. Then came the others, a slow trickle of uniforms until finally, it was our turn. Section E. The outcasts. The "trash" of HVIS according to people like Aries.
I stepped off the bus, the gravel crunching under my boots, and immediately looked for her. Jay was standing a few feet away, her phone pressed to her ear. Her face was a mask of stone, but I saw the way her knuckles were white against the casing of her phone.
"Everyone, gather up!" Sir Alvin shouted, clapping his hands. "We're heading to the main plaza to greet the Holy Saint student body. Move it!"
The pack started to shift forward, but Jay didn't budge. She waved a dismissive hand at the group, her eyes fixed on the distance. She was caught in a conversation that looked like it was taking every ounce of her willpower to endure.
"Jay?" I called out, pausing.
She didn't even look at me. She just turned her back, her voice low and sharp into the receiver. Sir Alvin shot me a look that said don't push it, and gesturing for us to follow.
I took a breath and stepped through the threshold of Holy Saint. The moment I crossed the line onto their campus, the air felt different—colder, heavier. I kept my eyes scanning the crowd of Holy Saint students already gathering in the plaza.
They looked like vultures in blazers, waiting for a carcass to pick at. I stayed close to the back, my heart hammering a rhythm of pure, unadulterated aggression. If one of these silver-spooned pricks so much as breathed in the wrong direction, I was going to lose it.
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Jane's POV
Walking back onto this campus felt like stepping into a cold grave. A year. It had been an entire year since the sirens, the blood, and the silence that followed. Every pillar and every hallway held a ghost of the girl Jay used to be before this place tried to swallow her whole.
I looked back over my shoulder. Jay was still at the corner of the entrance, paced away from the crowd, deep in a phone call. She looked so small against the backdrop of the school that had broken her, yet there was a vibrating energy around her that warned everyone to stay away.
In the center of the plaza, the atmosphere was a bizarre mix of formal diplomacy and underlying hostility. The HVIS Principal was shaking hands with the Holy Saint Principal, their smiles as fake as the trophies in the display cases behind them. Teachers were exchanging stiff greetings, nodding like soldiers at a ceasefire.
But the students? They didn't care about diplomacy.
I saw it happen in real-time. A group of Holy Saint boys—seniors, by the look of their ties—swarmed around Freya, Raaki, and Grace. They weren't just greeting them; they were cornering them.
One of them reached out to twirl a strand of Freya's hair, his smirk dripping with a sense of entitlement that made my stomach turn.
"You girls look a little lost," one of them drawled, his voice carrying over the hum of the crowd. "HVIS really is sending their best to entertain us, aren't they?"
Freya looked uncomfortable, stepping back, but they closed the gap. My blood began to simmer. I had spent a year being the "perfect" Mariano, the one who kept the peace. But the peace was a lie.
"Stop it," I said, my voice cutting through their laughter.
They didn't even look at me. They kept leaning in, their comments getting cruder, their hands moving closer.
"I said, stop," I repeated, stepping forward. My voice had dropped into a register I usually reserved for the boardroom—cold, flat, and dangerous. "Do you all forget the rules of Holy Saint? Or do I need to remind you how guests are supposed to be treated?"
One of the boys finally turned, his eyes raking over me with initial annoyance that quickly turned into a flickering shadow of recognition. He paled, his smirk faltering.
"Wait... I know her," he whispered to his friends. "That's Jane. Jean's sister."
The name Jean rippled through the group like a physical shock. The boys straightened up, their eyes darting around the plaza, searching the faces of the HVIS students.
"She's alone," another one sneered, regaining his courage when he didn't see the familiar shock of Jay's messy hair nearby. "Her twin isn't here to protect her today. The 'Jean' is missing."
They began to circle me, their predatory instincts returning. "What's the matter, Jane? Is your sister still in a coma? Or did she finally lose her mind for good?"
Before they could take another step, the air seemed to fracture.
Section E didn't wait for a command. Like a pack of wolves sensing a threat to one of their own, they moved. Within seconds, a wall of black and grey uniforms formed a jagged, protective circle around me.
Felix, Cin, and a dozen others stood shoulder to shoulder, their faces grim. Even the students from Section A and B began to drift over, their usual rivalries forgotten in the face of Holy Saint's disrespect.
"Back off," Aries chirped, though there was no humor in his eyes.
A Holy Saint teacher tried to intervene, shouting for order, but no one was listening anymore. The tension had snapped.
One of the boys, emboldened by the crowd, tried to lung from behind the circle, reaching for my shoulder. He never made it. Yuri moved with a fluid, terrifying speed, blocking the boy's arm with a sickening crack of bone against bone.
In the same heartbeat, Keifer stepped through the gap. His fist connected with the boy's jaw in a blur of motion. The sound was like a car door slamming shut. The Holy Saint student crumpled to the marble floor, unconscious before he hit the ground.
"Who's next?" Keifer growled, his knuckles split and bleeding, his eyes wild with the fight he'd been craving since he got off the bus.
The Holy Saint students surged forward, a wave of anger ready to crash into us. The plaza was a tinderbox, one second away from a full-scale riot.
"STEP BACK, ALL OF YOU!"
The voice didn't just carry; it roared. It was a sound of pure, concentrated authority that seemed to vibrate in the very stones of the plaza.
Everyone froze. It was as if the world had hit a collective pause button.
I looked toward the entrance. Jay was standing there. Her phone was gone. Her hood was down. She looked like an avenging goddess of the underworld, her eyes glowing with a cold, murderous fire.
The Holy Saint students who had been so brave seconds ago literally recoiled. They didn't just stop; they shattered back, tripping over their own feet to get away from her path. To them, she wasn't just a student.
She was the girl who had survived their worst and come back from the dead.
Jay walked through the crowd, the sea of students parting for her like she was the Red Sea. She didn't look at the teachers. She didn't look at the principals. She walked straight to me.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice dangerously quiet.
I opened my mouth to answer, but one of the Holy Saint boys—the one who had recognized me—tried to interrupt, his voice shaking. "Jean, it's not—we were just—"
Jay didn't even turn her head. She just snapped her gaze toward him.
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY A WORD WHILE I'M TALKING TO MY SISTER!"
The boy choked on his own breath, his face turning a ghostly white. He froze, his mouth hanging open, terrified to even blink.
I took a breath and looked Jay in the eye.
"They were harassing the girls, Jay. They thought you weren't here. They thought we were easy targets."
Jay turned slowly, her gaze sweeping over the Holy Saint student body, then over the HVIS students who were watching in awe. She took a step forward, her presence filling the entire plaza.
"Listen to me very carefully," she said, her voice echoing off the marble walls. "You seem to have forgotten who we are. You seem to have forgotten the name Mariano."
She pointed a finger at the group of boys who had started it.
"If any of you—and I mean ANY of you—so much as look at a girl from HVIS with anything less than total respect, I will personally ensure that your time at this academy becomes a living hell. Do not mistake my absence for weakness. Do not forget what happened the last time someone pushed me too far."
She stepped closer to the leader, her face inches from his.
"The Mariano twins are back on this campus. Act accordingly, or suffer the consequences. AM I CLEAR?"
The silence that followed was absolute. Not a single Holy Saint student dared to breathe. Finally, a chorus of hushed, terrified "Yes" rippled through their ranks.
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Keifer's POV
I stood there, my heart still thudding against my ribs, watching the scene unfold. I'd seen Jay angry. I'd seen her defiant. But I had never seen her like this.
She wasn't just a girl from Section E anymore. She was a force of nature.
The way she commanded that plaza, the way she turned the "kings" of Holy Saint into trembling cowards with nothing but a look... it was the most terrifying and beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I looked at her knuckles, then at mine. We were both bleeding in different ways. But as she stood there, shielding Jane and the rest of the girls, I realized something. Jay hadn't just come back to Holy Saint to face her ghosts.
She had come back to hunt them.
And as I looked at the terrified faces of the Holy Saint students, I knew one thing for certain: they were right to be afraid. Because the "Jean" was back, and this time, she wasn't alone. She had a pack, and she had me.
God help anyone who tried to stand in her way.
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A/n
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