Mr. Raz led us to his office, situated atop the reception building, where we'd all entered five years ago, shaking and sweating, crying and smiling, for our first day of highschool. Now, we brush right past the desk where we were greeted that day, into the staff quarters, a hallway filled with various offices of various teachers and professors, names engraved on the doors. He leads us up to a set of stairs, and we trudge after him carefully, quiet in his wake. The only sound for minutes is the pounding of our footsteps as we climb, and the shortness of breath climbing three flights of stairs leaves us with.

"Here." He calls at the end of the staircase, signalling for us to all wait as he unlocked the door to his office. Under normal circumstances, those directed to the principal's office would sit on a small bench outside the elevator, and wait for his assistant to come and pick them up. Fancy school shit I know. But, for some reason, he led us personally up the stairs, a grand gesture for a grand problem I suppose.

He finished unlocking the door, and opened it, beckoning us into the office.

"Take a seat." He says, gesturing to three chairs strategically placed across from his desk.

We glance at each other, unsure. Then, Amaia sits down in the middle seat, directly in front of Mr.Raz's chair. Khoi and I followed shortly after.

"Now," Mr. Raz starts, surveying the three of us with an eye of superiority, recognising that us, his students, are at his mercy. "I'm sure you all know why you're here, but I'll explain the situation to you all anyway." He reaches for a mug at the side of his desk, filled presumably with tea, taking a sip slowly. "Last night, I have multiple reports of you three allegedly sneaking out of Woodbridge sometime around 11pm, and arriving back, covered in blood in the early hours of the morning."

I gulp. Shit. Does he know where we went? Does he think we killed his son? Why isn't he more distressed? His cool, calm and collected aura bugged me. It seemed suspicious. His son died last night and he was more pressed about a group of teenagers sneaking out?

He continued, eyes fixated on our faces. "What do you have to say about that?"

Amaia looks around nervously, and Khoi fiddles with his fingers distractedly. I take a deep breath then try to get us out of this mess.

"Did you see us?" I ask, hoping that my plan won't backfire on me.

"Excuse me?"

"Last night," I continued, still praying, "you said you had multiple reports, but do you have any proof?"

He glanced at me, surprise glistening over his features. "Well, no, but I'd assume, with multiple reports from multiple students, that the most cohesive part of their story is indeed correct."

"And that is?" I ask, eyebrows raised, questioning.

"That you three returned to school in the early hours of the morning, covered in blood." He responds, hands clasped together on the table, no nonsense look upon his face.

"Okay," Khoi starts, "but I don't believe that we did that."

"No?" Mr. Raz asks, face bemused albeit infuriated, like he knows what game we're trying to play. "Well I believe you did."

"Well now Mr. Raz, that's just assuming." Amaia speaks now, playing innocent victim perfectly. "You know how the kids at this school treat us, wasn't it merely a few months ago we were in here every day, courtesy of the rumours spread about us by various members of the student body?"

Mr. Raz stiffens. "That was a matter of the endangerment of student wellbeing and mental health. This is different."

"How so?" I inquire.

"You understand that there have been multiple reports of you three covered in blood  in the early hours of the morning. This is a serious matter."

Amaia laughs, like actually laughs, hearty and authentic. "Prove it then."

"Excuse me?"

"Prove it. Search our rooms, look at the footage. When you have evidence, then we will speak to you." She seems so certain in this idea, but she hasn't thought it through. We sneak out because we know that they only check the security footage when an incident occurs. We literally left our bloodied clothes on the floor of our dorm. We're probably on the security feed of all the businesses we walked past, our blood splattered selves appearing on recordings all over town. We're so stuffed, and her stupid idea cements that. But we can't take it back. That makes us look guilty.

I nudge Amaia's foot, and when she looks at me I muster a look of what the fuck did you just do, and she just smiles- got us out of this.

"Okay." Mr. Raz agrees with Amaia's deal. "I'll look into it. In the meantime, I expect you three to be on your best behaviour. No more sneaking out."

"Of course." Amaia puts her hand on her chest. "We'd never."

She's so good at that faking innocence thing.

"You're dismissed." We all stand up, and he signals to the door, smiling politely.

"Oh, and Mr. Raz," I say, turning back to look at him. "I'm sorry." -best to show my condolences as I leave his office. The poor guy just lost his only child. 

"Whatever for?" He asks, smile unwavering.

"Nevermind." 

𓆙

We are in the library, I'm studying for my biology test next week, Khoi's reading some book for his literature class, and Amaia is playing random unblocked games on her laptop. The library is alight with the quiet mumblings of other students, the scratching of pen on paper, the clicking of keys on a keyboard. The table where we're situated is on the bottom floor, bookshelves towing over and around us, filled to the brim with countless literary collections. The whole place is dimly lit, the only light sources the large floor to ceiling windows behind our table, and the soft lamps strategically placed around the room, creating an ambiance too calm for a school.

"I can't believe I got us out of that." Amaia looks up from her screen smiling, so pleased with herself, or her game, I can't decipher.

I sigh, "But you didn't. That's the issue. What about our clothes? I left my bloodied ones on the floor." I close my textbook. I'll get back to karyotypes later.

Amaia grins, excitement flashing through her hazel eyes. "I've taken care of that." Her face is mischievous, her grin growing wider as she observes our weary faces.

"Amaia." Khoi's voice was concerned, scared. "What did you do?"

Amaia smiled. She seemed so pleased with herself and her efforts. "I got rid of the evidence."

I stared into her eyes, attempting to see through her smiley facade. "What did you do?" I repeated Khoi's question, repeating the words slowly, attempting to excrete a reaction out of Amaia.

"Don't worry about them finding your bloodied clothes. Or mine. I got rid of them."

So that's what she meant when she said she was 'getting her bearings'. I knew she was up to something sketchy. "How did you get rid of them?" I didn't want to ask, but I had to. It was only last year she almost killed me in our dorm, chasing a rat that sneaked into our room with an axe she stole from the gardeners shed. Who knew what she'd been up to today.

"So, don't kill me," her face was sheepish, as if she did something horrible she couldn't cover up. "But I kinda like..maybe burned our clothes." She says the last part fast, like the words go against everything she lives for, directly contradicting her morals. Funny, because I know for a fact they don't. She stares at my face for a moment, striving to decipher my blank look.

"Where did you burn the clothes?" I was attempting to calculate the severity of the situation. Were our reputations, our records, our lives, on the line because of Amaia's reckless actions?

Scratching her head guiltily, she responded "The window." She paused for a moment, sensing my stare. "One of the bushes is like totally smouldered."

Idiot.

"So you threw burning clothes out the window of our dorm and didn't- what didn't think anyone would see that?" I questioned.

"Yeah..."

"Oh my god." I cradled my face in my hands, an exacerbated sigh leaving my mouth as I stared into the table, instead of willing my eyes closed.

To my surprise, Khoi started laughing. "Where's this bush?"

Amaia smiled.

𓆙

The bush was, as Amaia said, burnt to a crisp. Luckily the gardeners had watered the garden mere minutes beforehand, otherwise the situation could have been a lot worse. Thankfully though, there were no more remnants of our clothes, all reduced to ash. I was there alone, Amaia and Khoi had left, Khoi to study, and Amaia to go for a run. Pacing along the line of bushes, I was left alone with my thoughts. That was, until I was rudely interrupted by the presence of a hand on my arm.

"Hazel."

I turned around, and as I glanced into blue eyes, ever so familiar, I shuddered.

"What do you want?" My voice was filled with venom, all my distaste for the creature in front of me mustered in that question ever so heavily.

"Are you okay?" The creature asks, its eyes narrowing as it takes in my demeanour. "I saw you and your friends last night, one of them was crying and you were all covered in blood."

"You didn't see anything of the sort." I reply, purposefully choosing to retract any possible chances of condolences, or her seemingly inevitable apology.

She twirls her blonde hair around one of her fingers, adorned with elegant jewellery and perfectly manicured nails.

"Oh, but I did see it." She glares at me, face filled with an anger that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "You can't keep brushing me off."

I scoff, bemused. "I can. And I will." I shove her in the shoulder, satisfied as she glares back at me, horrified.

"Send mother my love."

𓆙

authors note

Just thought I'd jump in to say thank you for reading this chapter! I've got a lot planned for this story, so many twists and turns, and I'm really excited to share them with you.

My update schedule is going to be a little hectic until the end of Febuary. I am writing the first 8 chapters to compete in the 8CC hosted by justwriteit. After the first eight chapters are uploaded, updates will come weekly, probably on a Sunday. 

Anyway, thanks for supporting my story, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!