The sun hung low over Ever Thorne's campus, painting the lawns in strokes of gold. The air smelled faintly of wildflowers and distant pine, soft music drifting from open dorm windows. Students sprawled across the grass in lazy clusters, their laughter blending with the breeze.
Aubrey lay back on the slope near the lakeside, one arm tucked beneath her head, half-melted pistachio ice cream dripping onto her fingers. Beside her, Chloe licked the last of her cone with a quiet hum. For once, there was peace—no assignments, no tension, no pretending. Just sunlight, grass, and the faint lapping of the lake.
"Ever since that night," Aubrey's voice carried softly in narration, "things between us changed. Not all at once… but slowly, like thawing ice. We started talking more—cafeteria lunches, walks near the ponds, late study nights that turned into confessions. And now… this just felt right. Like we were both learning how to breathe again."
Chloe leaned forward, her dark hair catching the light. "Hey," she said suddenly, voice lighter than usual.
"You want the last bite?"
She offered the soggy cone toward Aubrey, who grimaced playfully. "You're a menace."
Chloe snorted. "You love it."
Their laughter carried across the field, soft and genuine. But after a while, it faded. The quiet settled heavier now. Chloe's eyes had drifted toward the water, reflecting something unreadable.
"I was at the apartment that night," she said finally, voice almost a whisper. "The one Damien… the night he…" Her throat tightened.
Aubrey straightened, the smilevanishing. She reached out, fingers brushing Chloe's wrist. "You don't have to—"
"No," Chloe interrupted, shaking her head. "I do. I need someone to know. Someone who won't twist it."
Aubrey said nothing, only nodded, letting the silence speak for her.
Chloe inhaled slowly. "It was late. I was alone. Mom and Dad were at some event. Damien had come home early—said he wasn't feeling well. Next thing I knew…" Her voice cracked. "Next thing I knew, he was gone."
A soft breeze rippled the surface of the lake. Aubrey squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry."
Before Chloe could respond, a familiar voice called out across the grass.
"Are you two having a secret picnic without me?"
Casey came running toward them, her oversized hoodie flapping, hair tied in a messy bun. She dropped to her knees behind Aubrey and wrapped her arms around her neck in a playful chokehold.
"Casey!" Aubrey laughed, wriggling free. "You almost killed me!"
"Love hurts," Casey said cheerfully, flopping down beside them. "So, what are we gossiping about? Boys? Professors? Existential dread?"
Neither Aubrey nor Chloe laughed this time.
Chloe's voice trembled, fragile but steady. "We were talking about my uncle. Damien."
The air shifted again, like a cloud crossing the sun.
Aubrey's narration softened into memory.
She could almost see it—Chloe, younger, in a sterile white morgue, cold air pricking her skin. Her mother, Viola, stood beside her, hand pressed to Chloe's back. Her father, William, stood apart—stiff, unreadable, holding his grief like a weapon.
On the table lay Damien. His chest was marked with something that shouldn't exist outside nightmares—a spiraled carving inside a triangle of three closed eyes, each weeping what looked like black blood. Around it, a warped handprint with six fingers pressed deep into the flesh. And at the center, a small, empty void—like the world itself refused to touch it.
The way Chloe described it… it wasn't just murder. It was ritual. Precise. Cold.
The memory dissolved. Chloe's voice continued, low and hollow. "After that, the house felt haunted. Not by ghosts, but by silence. Dad buried himself in work, calling in favors, shaking hands with police chiefs. Mom tried to act
strong, but every night, I'd hear her crying through the walls."
A new memory surfaced—William at the police station, tall and commanding, his voice a sharp edge against the dull walls. Beside him, Chief Slate and the two captains, Jacob and Lily, exchanged grim looks. Chloe had told Aubrey her father's temper nearly tore the department apart. He wanted results. Blood for blood.
Then came the image of him storming out, sliding into his black Rolls Royce, sunglasses on, rage disguised as control. "That's when the manhunt started," Chloe whispered. "He turned the whole city upside down. But nothing ever led anywhere."
Another shift. Aubrey could almost see the later nights—William drowning himself in whiskey and women, his grief leaking through charm and arrogance. Viola, alone in her wing of the mansion, drinking too much wine, surrounded by strangers she paid to stay a little longer.
"Mom tried to cope," Chloe said, her voice breaking now. "But she… she just unraveled. I walked in one night and she was… she wasn't even herself anymore."
The memory stung even for Aubrey, who had only heard it. The smell of
alcohol. The slurred apologies. The door slamming shut on a daughter's pleas.
Silence. The three girls sat together on the grass, the afternoon light fading into amber.
Casey finally exhaled. "That's… rough. I mean, damn, Chloe. Your parents sound like—uh—open marriage with a side of midlife crisis."
"Casey!" Aubrey hissed, glaring.
But Chloe… smiled, surprisingly. "It's okay," she said softly. "Really. I think they just forgot how to love each other. Or maybe they were never meant to."
Tears glimmered in her eyes, but this time, they weren't only from pain.
There was something freeing about speaking it aloud. She reached out, and Aubrey took her hand. Casey joined without hesitation.
Aubrey smiled faintly. "Then it's settled. We make a promise."
"Promise?" Chloe asked.
"Yeah," Aubrey said. "Pinky swear. No matter what happens—school, love, life—we face it together."
Casey grinned. "I'm in."
Their pinkies intertwined, the gesture childish but sacred. For a moment, it felt like the world could be kind again.
They stood, brushing grass off their clothes, the sun dipping lower behind the trees. Aubrey stretched, content to head back toward the dorms when Chloe's phone buzzed.
She answered, her cheerful expression fading almost immediately. Her hand trembled.
"What's wrong?" Aubrey asked quietly.
Chloe's face drained of color. "It's… the news. There's been another killing."
Casey frowned. "What kind of—?"
Chloe swallowed hard. "The same pattern. They're saying it's the Azaqor killer. It happened again."
The world around them seemed to pause. The soft wind still carried the
faint scent of lake water and flowers, but the warmth from moments ago had vanished. Aubrey and Casey exchanged horrified glances as Chloe lowered the phone, her eyes glassy and distant.
The laughter, the sunlight, the pinky promise—all of it now stood under a shadow too dark to name.
Somewhere behind the lakeside, the ripples of water caught the dying light and fractured it, scattering gold into the dusk—like tiny reflections of something fragile, already breaking.