a/n: if you're sensitive to topics like blood and suic*de, i recommend reading this chapter with caution

An ambulance takes her away, but by the lifeless look in the girls eyes — it was like staring at glass — Jade knew Vicki Wang was dead. The admin was considerate enough, they let students go home early. So when she finally reaches her house, Jade dives towards her bed. She doesn't even bother changing.

A nap was desperately needed. Maybe a nap could clear her head of her thoughts. An hour later though, she's still wide awake, staring at her mango-colored ceiling. Jade groans loudly.

Was Vicki murdered? What even happened? But Jade already knows what happened, she got to see the scene. Sometimes she hated the fact her brain put together the pieces too quickly, because this was not easy to stomach.

Lei finally passes out after taking a pill for the terrible headache that was coming on. And of course her sleep is horrible, she wakes up around an hour later to a text. It's from Jeongguk. He wants to meet her at the rooftop. Jade doesn't know what it's for, and he wasn't in school all day today.

She texts him back with a simple 'ok' and gets off her bed. Deciding to finally change out of her uniform, Jade looks at her reflection and grimaces, splashing water onto her face. Then she chooses a casual choice of jeans and a simple cropped shirt.

"Jennie, can I borrow your car?" She peeps her head inside the girl's room. The brunette glances up, removing her glasses.

"For what?"

"I'm going back to school. One of my," She hesitates with the word. "friends asked me to meet him there."

She shrugs, and reaches over to her night-desk, tossing the hot pink lanyard to Jade. Yelling out a "thanks!" she dashes out the door and straight for the white car parked in front of their house.

Jade can drive, she got her license the day it was legal for her to, but her parents never bothered to add her into the insurance — it cost too much when there were four other kids still living under the same roof, all with cars as well.

She wonders why this meeting is suddenly so urgent. And why at the school? So Jade begins to drive.

§

It's tiring, climbing up the flights of stairs all the way to the top. She's almost completely out of breath when she reaches her destination. Scanning the area, the girl spots two boys standing on the other side of the rooftop. Jade thought maybe it was just going to be Jeongguk, but as she gets closer, she can't say she's surprised to see Jaebum there. The two are good friends after all.

"Took you long enough." The Crown says leaning against the cement railing. His face is grim, and Jade has a bad feeling what this conversation is going to be about.

"Why'd you call me?"

"What do you think happened to Vicki?" He asks honestly, not even bothering to beat around the bush. "You saw her body."

"It was crowded." She half-lies, not wanting to get too into it.

"I saw you there Amethyst." Jaebum says, and Jade rolls her eyes.

"It's Jade."

"Whatever Opal."

"I know you were there Jade." Jeongguk looks at her, usually there's some sort of light in his eyes — he's always smiling of some kid — but it's scary to see that now it's just completely black. "Ryujin told me."

"And I'm relying on what you say more than anything right now. I can't trust the cops."

The cops? Why can't he trust the cops?

"I..." Fine. She decides to tell him. "There was, uh...she was laying on the ground. Room 122B, I think that's the chemistry lab room. There was a lot of blood, coming from her head. The English teacher was in there — I don't know why she was in a chemistry room but she was — and that's how I found her."

"What do you think happened?" He presses, and now Jaebum is also staring at her intently. He's seen Jade discover some incredible things just from the way his knuckles looked, so he wants to bet she already knows exactly what happened. That's probably why she is so hesitant to bring it up. Meanwhile, Jeongguk is scared someone murdered her.

"She committed suicide." Jade lets out a breath. "There was a gun in the room, I noticed a silencer on it, and it was near her left hand. They're probably going to assume it's a murder, the gun wasn't near enough to her hand to consider it a suicide, and most people are right handed. But it's not. Vicki's left handed, isn't she? I noticed the led stains on her left hand." Her eyes flicker to Jaebum momentarily.

"Um, a chair was knocked over. I think she spent a lot of time in that room, deciding what she was going to do. She was either sitting on the chair or standing on it. The cops will probably scan it for prints, if I were to guess, I think she was standing on it. I think she," And Jade hesitates because thinking of it makes her imagine it, and now she has the urge to throw up.

"I think she shot herself on the chair when she fell...she brought the chair down with her. The gun probably fell out of her hands because of the force, which is why it's so far away. She either debated on hanging herself or using the gun. You can probably find the rope somewhere else in the room, or she got rid of it using a burner." One last thing pops up in Jade's mind before she decides to stop talking about it.

"She must've gone to school early morning, maybe around 2 or 3 o'clock. And she probably sat there for a while. The earliest people to enter the school buildings are the cafeteria ladies, and they only come in around 5 or 5:30. Though there was a silencer on the gun, she did knock the chair down which would've caused a lot of noise, so it must've been done before anyone even arrived at school. And the Bunsen burner — which she might've used, I don't know — has a very strong gas smell. The cafeteria ladies would have smelt it had she burnt the rope and pulled the trigger in around the same time frame. But I don't know about that part, that's just me hypothesizing."

And Jaebum knew he was right to get Jeongguk to call this girl over. Jade knows far more than both of them combined, and both the boys are very smart. Jeon only expected her to give an opinion, he didn't think she would've already thought about the scene and all the little details that many would fail to notice. He is impressed, but doesn't show it because the boy has other things to worry about.

Jade sees that he doesn't know what to say. So she decides to make some conversation.

"Why weren't you at school today?"

"I had some shit I needed to take care of." Jeongguk mumbles. "So Vicki killed herself because of that stupid freak who leaked her private information?"

"From what it looks like; yes." Jaebum looks at the younger boy. "But don't get a hot head over it. This is far from over, and I think it's just started actually."

"Just started?" Jade is confused. He looks at her. "On the Dark Web an anonymous person posted a link to a new website — Bimil-ui Dobag. Gambling of Secrets. Basically you get to expose someone else's secret so that you don't get exposed. The owner of the game, or the person who's behind all of this, gets to decide whether that secret is good enough. If it's not; you get exposed. If it is, then you are safe for the time being."

"They're eager to expose everyone."

"Not everyone." Jaebum corrects. He looks at Jeongguk. "It's mainly the Olympians and the Crowns. Vicki has already gone down, so imagine what could happen with the rest of them."

It's a sinister trick. She's sure all of them feel intimidated by this face-with-no-name. They managed to tear Vicki down from her title, she used to be someone many people adored. If they could do that to her, imagine how easy it would be to ruin everyone else. Not just that, it was now a game of survival. Friendships will be ruined, people will betray each other.

It's something that has been heating up for a while now. And now she supposed ESS reached its boiling point.