Too clean. Too deliberate.
He brushed past a cluster of whispering students, their voices a jittery buzz. He caught fragments of words: “Did you hear—?” and “It was on the news—” and “She lived nearby, right?” The words floated, broken, and refused to stitch into sense.
Silas didn’t ask. He never asked.
But the announcement came anyway. The TV in the student lounge, normally reserved for mindless cartoons, had been switched to the news. A reporter stood outside a neat suburban house, yellow tape stretched behind her like a scar.
“—the body of Leah Kate, a Ravenwood student, was found late last night. Authorities have not released details, but the death is being investigated as a homicide.”
Leah Kate.
The girl who’d sat two rows down in history last week. The one who tapped her pen against the desk when she thought. The one who wouldn’t tap anymore.
Students gasped. Some murmured “oh my god.” Evan, standing just a few feet away, froze with a half-smile that never quite finished. Silas only slipped his hands deeper into the pocket of his hoodie.
Stolen story; please report.
He didn’t show it, but the words coiled around him like smoke: homicide.
Ms. Caldwell tried to wrestle the day back into order, but her voice had a slight tremor when she began math class.
“Now—focus, everyone. I know the news is…disturbing, but the best thing we can do is keep to our work.”
She flipped the chalk with unnecessary force and started writing on the board. Equations bloomed like wounds on the slate.
Silas stared at them, not the numbers but the rhythm of Ms. Caldwell’s hand, fast and anxious. The kind of speed that came when someone was hiding unease.
Evan leaned toward him, whispering, “You think it’s related? I mean… she was in our class.”
Silas didn’t answer. He just stared forward, expression as flat as stone.
Later that day, in history class, their teacher rambled on about Ravenwood’s unique heritage. Silas usually ignored the patriotic speeches schools loved to give, but something snagged this time.
“Ravenwood,” the teacher declared, “has always been proud of its independence. Unlike other academies, it receives no outside donations. Not from the government, not from wealthy families. We stand alone. Self-sufficient. Strong.”
Silas blinked slowly. No donations? That was… odd. He’d been in enough schools to know they practically survived on alumni checks and shady endowments. But Ravenwood?
He scribbled it down absently in the margins of his notebook:
No donations. Independent. Why?
The word independent sat there, dark and bold, heavier than it should be.
Evan, beside him, was doodling a dragon with a crooked smile. He leaned over and whispered, “Maybe that’s why the lockers squeak so much. No rich donors to buy oil.”
Silas didn’t even glance at him. His eyes stayed fixed on the word.
Independent.
And in the back of his mind, a date hovered now.
12 January.
The day Leah Kate had died.
It wasn’t just grief buzzing through the school. It was something tighter. Sharper. Like the walls themselves knew what had happened.
Silas pulled his hoodie tighter, as though it could muffle the questions clawing at him.
Something was wrong with Ravenwood.
And it wasn’t just a murder.