by Stella Hart
“I better grab my stuff and go,” I said, picking up my sunglasses.
“Don’t forget the cookies on your way out,” Colette said, coming over to give me a hug.
I chuckled. “How could I?”
Mom reached over to give me a brief hug too. “Don’t party too hard.”
Ten minutes later, the car was packed with anything I didn’t already have at the frat house, and I took off down the road toward Blackthorne.
The Skulls house was a slate-gray Victorian with four stories, wide wrap-around porches with ornate white trim, and several large turrets. When I went inside, the ground floor was almost filled to max occupancy. A bunch of my frat brothers were chilling in the front living room, sucking on vape pens, and groups of girls and guys were hanging around the rest of the place, chatting, drinking, and playing games.
“Small thing with just a few people, huh?” I said, slapping Jasper on the back to get his attention.
He turned to look at me. “I accidentally invited a few more than I originally planned to,” he said with a grin. “By the way, someone’s up in your room.”
“Who?”
He cocked a brow. “You’ll see.”
My room was in one of the turrets on the top floor, and it was large and octagonal-shaped. I strode upstairs and opened the door to find a tanned girl with auburn hair lounging on my bed.
“Georgina,” I said, brows furrowing as I dumped my bags on the floor. “What are you doing in here?”
“Waiting for you,” she said as she sat up straight. “Where have you been?”
“At home.”
“No, I mean, where have you been? You haven’t texted me in weeks.”
“Yeah, I’ve been kinda busy.”
She got off the bed and batted her dark eyelashes at me. “Too busy for this?” she said, reaching for the front of my pants.
I smirked and let her pull the zipper down.
Georgina and I had hooked up a lot over the last year. She was pretty hot, but I never wanted it to go further than sex. I wasn’t interested in relationships, and I didn’t see her as girlfriend material anyway. Too annoying and clingy.
Fuck, though… her blowjob game was immaculate.
She sank to her knees on the floor, lips parting expectantly. I brought my cock out and pressed it to her bottom lip. She let out a little hiss of excitement, which made me even harder.
“Suck,” I commanded, threading one hand in her hair.
She looked up at me, letting my cock slide right into her mouth. A little moan escaped her lips as she started licking and sucking me, and then she got her hands involved, wrapping them around the base and squeezing tight as she jerked them up and down beneath her hardworking mouth.
“Come on, baby, suck harder.” I forced myself deeper into her mouth, making her choke a little, but it didn’t faze her. She kept going, eyes watering slightly, and I held onto her hair and groaned as she took me even deeper.
“That’s it,” I grunted. “All the way down.”
She whimpered, and the vibration from the sound sent a jolt right up my spine.
“Fuck, yeah,” I groaned. “That’s it, Alexis. Keep doing that.”
Georgina wrenched herself away and glared up at me. “Who the fuck is Alexis?”
Her words landed on me like freezing rain, sending a chill to my bones. “What did you just say?”
Georgina wiped some drool away from the left corner of her lips. “You called me Alexis,” she snapped, eyes glittering with jealousy.
“No I didn’t.”
She stood up straight. “Yes, you fucking did,” she hissed, stalking over to my desk to grab her purse. “I guess I know where you’ve been for the last month now. You’ve been fucking Alexis.”
“I haven’t,” I said stiffly.
She whirled around to look at me again, still seething. “Oh, yeah? Then who the fuck is she, and why did you say her name while your dick was in my mouth?”
“She’s nothing. Seriously.”
“Whatever. I’m leaving.”
She stomped out of the room.
I didn’t bother going after her. Couldn’t be fucked arguing. Besides, I probably did call her Alexis.
It wasn’t because I was screwing Alexis Livingston, though, and it wasn’t because I wanted to, either. Sure, she had a stunning face and a hot body, but that didn’t mean I thought about her in that sort of way. She’d just been on my mind a lot lately. That tended to happen when you needed to follow every aspect of someone’s life while plotting their downfall. So the thing a few seconds ago was just a stupid slip of the tongue. Nothing more.
But speaking of Alexis…
I looked down at my watch and frowned. Blackthorne’s top-floor residence halls were opening at three, which meant she’d probably be arriving with all her stuff soon.
I smiled thinly.
It was time to go and welcome her.
3
Alexis
At two o’clock, everything I wanted to take to Blackthorne was crammed into my car. Five minutes later, I was on the road, heading south to Arcadia Bay.
Sascha had helped me pack while lecturing me endlessly on campus safety, and now she was back in our apartment in a much better mood than earlier after I convinced her to download a new dating app. Before I was even five miles out of Avalon City, she messaged me saying she’d found a hot date for tonight.
I smiled, shoulders slumping as I relaxed into my seat. On a good day, Arcadia Bay was only half an hour away, but it was going to take a lot longer with all the traffic today. I figured I might as well sit back and enjoy the view to pass the time.
Several historic lighthouses sat on promontories along the way, and right near the third one was a popular beach my parents used to take Sascha and me to when we were kids. The thought of that beach made me smile as an old memory surfaced.
Back then, I idolized my father and wanted to be a journalist like he used to be before he took up the teaching position at Blackthorne, so I would sit on that beach and write reports on everything I saw and heard. Dad never treated my hobby like it was just a silly kid thing. He helped me edit my little articles, complimented my sharp eye for detail, and gave me suggestions on what to record next time we went.
When I was eight, he bought me a set of notebooks and pens that were exactly the same as the ones he used every day. I carried my notes everywhere after that, proudly reporting on everything in our neighborhood, and I even started my own monthly newspaper that I distributed to all the houses on our block.
My smile faded as I remembered what happened to my very last newspaper. I’d sent it out to everyone the day before Dad was arrested. When Mom brought us home from school the next afternoon, one of our neighbors had collected all of my pages, written ‘MURDERER’ on them in red ink and strewn them all over our front yard.
I never wrote another edition of my newspaper, not even when we changed our names and moved to a city in California where no one recognized us.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I tried to think about something else. Anything else.
By now, the sun had disappeared behind gray clouds. The ocean on my left had turned a dark grayish-blue, and whitecaps were frothing on the surface. The air was growing cold and misty.
The sudden change in conditions didn’t surprise me. Even when it was pleasant and sunny earlier, I could tell we were heading for a cold snap soon. A certain scent always lingered in the air when the cold was on its way, and the deciduous trees on the right side of the road had already lost all their leaves, making them look naked and skeletal.
Fall and winter were usually quite mild on the island—just chilly temperatures, wind, dreary skies, and rain. It rarely snowed, and even when it did, it only lasted for a few days, unless you counted the mountain ranges in the northwest, which were capped with snow for at least six months of the year.
This winter was going to be bad, though. I could tell from the trees I just passed. Most of the time,
they didn’t lose their leaves until October, but when a harsh winter was coming, it happened earlier. I was willing to bet that we’d have snow on the ground by November. Early December at the latest.
The last time it snowed early was ten years ago. That was when the bodies showed up in the Blackthorne quad, dripping blood over the snowy ground as they swayed on the branches.
I swallowed another lump in my throat, wishing I could push the image of those corpses out of my head. Sadly, it wasn’t easy. Not when those very same corpses had shaped my life so dramatically.
My mood improved when I turned onto the road that led up to the main entrance of Blackthorne University. The campus was gorgeous, with noble statues, quaint cobblestone paths, perfectly trimmed hedges, and towering buildings with gray stonework and arched windows.
The place oozed privilege; a little bubble existing only for those who were smart enough, talented enough, or rich enough to make it in. It was huge, too, stretching over hundreds of acres. I could probably explore the campus for two straight days and still only see half of it.
After locating my residence hall, I went to the admin office on the ground floor to collect my keys, student ID, and welcome package. I didn’t go to my new dorm after that, though. My legs were stiff after the long drive, so I wanted to walk around and stretch them for a while.
I wandered around the closest parts of the campus for a while, marveling at the stunning historical buildings. Then I headed west, toward the outer edge of the campus. A national park bordered that side, filled with lush greenery, soaring forests, lakes, streams, valleys, and hiking trails.
Beyond the last building on the western edge was a fifty-foot-long bridge that connected the campus to the biggest hiking trail in the park. Three-foot-high stone walls flanked the bridge, which was suspended over a steep wooded gradient.
When Sascha and I were kids, Dad brought us out here one weekend to show us something he’d discovered when he went exploring on one of his lunch breaks. I still remembered that day as if it were only yesterday.
‘Watch your step, girls,’ he told us as we headed off the hiking trail onto a narrow path to the left. I barely heard him, because I was already running off ahead. When I slipped on a pile of crunchy leaves and started flailing, he surged forward and grabbed my hand. ‘That’s why you need to be careful,’ he said with a gentle laugh.
When we got further down the smaller trail, he took my sister’s hand as well. Then he made us close our eyes as he slowly guided us the rest of the way.
‘Here it is,’ he finally said. ‘Our special place.’
We opened our eyes to see a gurgling stream beside a canopy of wildflowers and mossy boulders. Ancient trees guarded the area on every side, and to my seven-year-old mind, that made it seem like the perfect spot for elves and fairies to secretly live and play in.
‘It’s beautiful, Daddy!’ my sister said, leaning down to smell the flowers. ‘I love it.’
I nodded in agreement, picked up a sharp stick, and ran over to the nearest tree to carve our names into it. My sister didn’t want to do it—she thought I was being rude to the tree and hurting its feelings along with its bark—but I was determined to mark this beautiful place as ours. Besides, the tree was a tough old thing, hundreds of years old with a stout trunk, gnarled branches, enormous roots, and rough bark which had already been patterned by weather and animal activity in the past. I was sure it wouldn’t mind being our signpost.
As the fond memory played in the forefront of my mind, I crossed the bridge and searched for the path which led to the spot with the old tree, wondering if our names were still there.
They were.
Alexandra. Sarah. Daddy.
Smiling, I brushed my hand over the bark, murmuring a ‘hello’ to the tree, as if it might remember me all these years later. Even though I knew I was alone, I swore I could sense my father standing behind me, laying an affectionate hand on my shoulder as he watched me, just like he did when he brought us here the first time. I could even hear his gentle laugh and see his green eyes glinting as he explained to me that his name wasn’t actually ‘Daddy’, which I stubbornly refused to believe when I was a child.
Suddenly I missed him more than ever. The pain was acute, almost physical, leaving me breathless. I wanted more than anything to be able to wrap my arms around him and tell him I loved him, and for him to hug me back and tell me that everything was fine.
But it wasn’t fine. It hadn’t been for a decade.
Grief rose up in my chest, and I sank down beside the tree, sucking down air as I tried to recall the very last time I saw my dad.
The last words he ever spoke to me were probably something mundane and relatively forgettable. ‘Don’t forget your coat, Lexie!’ or ‘Should we get hot chocolate later?’
After all, how could he have known they would be his last words to me? How could he have known he would be arrested out of the blue, charged, and killed within the following two weeks? And how could we have known they wouldn’t let us visit him in prison?
When he realized what was happening back then, he wrote letters to me, my sister, and Mom, and those were what I considered to be his true last words, even though he never spoke them out loud.
As well as the letters he wrote for us to read straight away, he also wrote extra letters for his lawyer to give to Sascha and me on our sixteenth birthdays. Sascha’s was much the same as the first one she received—a letter declaring his love for her and all the wonderful things he thought of her, along with a few pieces of fatherly advice for the future.
Mine was a little different. After reading it almost every day for the last three years, I knew every word by heart.
My darling Alexandra,
Happy 16th birthday! I hope you’re having a fantastic day.
I wish I could be there to celebrate what a wonderful young woman you’ve become, but unfortunately, if this letter has made it to you, it’s because I’m gone. I also wish I could sit here and write out all the fatherly advice that I wanted to give you on such a momentous occasion, but I am short on time and paper, so this will have to do.
I want to ask you to do something for me, darling.
No doubt you’re wondering why I’m asking you and not your sister or mother. Please allow me to explain. It’s not because I love or trust them any less—of course I don’t—it’s because of what I see in the three of you.
Your sister has always taken after your mom: imaginative, creative, passionate, sensitive, and gentle. My two artists.
You were always like a mini-me. A budding journalist. Inquisitive, resourceful, decisive, and hard-nosed. You don’t take no for an answer, and you don’t give up. Now that you’re no longer a child, I have a feeling those qualities will be even stronger within you.
That’s why I want to ask this favor of you (and of course, feel free to ask your mother and sister for help if you need it. This doesn’t have to be a secret. I just have a feeling that you will be the one to see this through to the end due to that wonderful stubborn streak you inherited from me).
Here is my request.
As you continue to grow and think about your future, don’t give up on me or my case. Look at what happened to me, and other people like me, and find out why things like that end up happening in this world. Get those answers for yourself, and then do what you want with that information to make things right for everyone. After all, people should get what they deserve in life, shouldn’t they?
I know I am being very vague, but I think you understand what I am saying by now.
I wish I could help by telling you where to begin your studies and where to look for more information. Unfortunately, I can’t be specific about anything, because I know the guards are reading these letters before they take them from me, and I’m sure anything with the ‘wrong’ sort of material/information will be burned as per the request of those who put me here (Hello, guards. Nothing to see here—just a letter with some future career advice for my beauti
ful daughter!).
Have a wonderful life, darling. I love you more than anything, and I wish you nothing but success and happiness.
Love,
Dad
PS. Please help your mom take care of the books from my study at home. I asked her to hold onto them for you a long time ago, even if you were forced to move away from Avalon. Whenever you get a chance, please read the books as well. There should be lots of educational things in those texts that will help you with issues you might run into as you get older and learn more about the world.
PPS. Remember, if you’re ever feeling completely lost, look up to the sky, think of me, and let the stars guide you home.
After I read that letter for the first time, I understood why he chose to keep those words from me until I was sixteen. If I read them as a nine-year-old, I wouldn’t have been able to read between the lines and figure out what he meant.
It seemed clear when I was older, though. He wanted me to investigate what happened to him and bring the responsible parties to justice, and he’d left relevant notes that I could use in the notebooks he once kept in his study.
Unfortunately, a lot of the books were affected by water damage during our move off the island. Mom had packed them all into cardboard boxes, and there was a rain-induced leak in one of the trucks that carried our stuff from Washington to California, so many of the books lost every trace of ink within them or had the pages stuck together.
Some of it was salvageable, though, so when I looked through the notebooks, I was able to glean several major pieces of information.
Firstly, Dad had been investigating some sort of conspiracy on the island, which he believed to be centered in Arcadia Bay. Secondly, he thought it was extremely dangerous. If his investigation was ever discovered by the involved parties, he knew they would do anything to destroy him. He referred to these people as the ‘Golden Circle’, though his notes failed to say why. Either that or the explanation was buried in one of the waterlogged books that were no longer readable.
