Lily couldn't stop thinking about him. Not his face, not his laugh, not his eyes—though all of those were unforgettable—but the way he had appeared exactly when she had needed him to vanish. It wasn't protection, exactly. It was… manipulation.
The thought sent a shiver through her spine.
By lunch, the whispers had grown louder. Some students speculated Marcus had been kidnapped. Others wondered if he had run away. The administration, as always, remained silent, issuing statements of concern and urging students not to spread rumors.
Lily observed it all, taking careful mental notes. The chaos was instructive. It taught her which people could be easily swayed, who would follow a story without questioning it, and how rumors could be shaped to fit her design.
She closed her notebook and scribbled a single note in the margin:
People are fragile. Control the story. Control them.
As school ended and students filed out, Lily lingered behind, pretending to organize her desk. Her chest pulsed with quiet anticipation. She had passed the first test—Marcus. She had hidden her darkness, controlled the narrative, maintained the mask.
Yet the shadow of Jason loomed in her mind. She thought of him constantly, wondering if he had returned to the scene after she left, cleaning up traces she didn't even know existed. The thought both terrified and exhilarated her.
She imagined him somewhere, watching, shaping events from behind the curtain. And a part of her—the part that craved control—was beginning to want him there, always, even if she didn't fully understand why.
That night, Lily returned to her room. She locked the door, placed the keys and her knife in their hiding spots, and poured herself a glass of water. Her reflection in the window looked calm, controlled, innocent. But in the darkness, she could feel the other Lily—the one who thrilled at blood, who cataloged and observed, who plotted—stretching her fingers, sharpening her mind.
She opened her diary. Not the one she showed to her mother, neat and tidy. The other one, the secret one.
Marcus is gone. Perfect. But the next one… the next one will be more satisfying.
Her pen paused. She stared at the words, thinking of Jason. Not his face, not his smile, not even the unsettling calm with which he had watched her. Just the idea that someone else had noticed. Someone else had been there.
Her chest tightened. She didn't know if she wanted him to be there—or if she feared him more than anyone else.
Sleep was difficult. Her dreams were fractured, disjointed, a collage of Marcus's laughter, and an unfamiliar figure always lurking at the edges of the shadows. She woke with a start, heart hammering, hands trembling, and a curious sense of exhilaration that was quickly replaced with obsession.
The mask of Lily Dawson remained intact. She smiled, she answered politely, she blended perfectly with the world outside her door. But inside, the rules had evolved. The next act had begun. And somewhere, unseen, someone else was shaping the stage.