Yes, and I couldn’t find a road out. Surely, there must be a way out. I mean, how did they bring all the food and supplies up here? Also, the buses. How did they get the buses up here when there’s no road?
“On the back of the train,” she clarified as her finger scrolled across her screen. “Oh my god, I can’t find a road out. I’ll ask my sister-”
“Now? You’re going to ask her now?” I was horrified at the thought of Mila walking up to that table of jocks, enemies to people like us, to ask her sister a question.
“God, no. I’ll message her later.” She made a face in disgust at the thought of going over there. “But give it time. You might love it here.”
I snorted, and she cracked up laughing like it was our private joke, then her smile vanished as her eyes stared at the screen of her phone, growing wider as a look of horror washed across her face.
“Mila? Are you alright?” Her sudden change in demeanor was perturbing.
She sat up, so she wasn’t hidden under the table, and leaned across the table to whisper, “Did you know that there was a student found dead on our train?”
“Our train? Today’s train?” I pointed my thumb behind me toward the train tracks. “Oh god, that’s terrible. How did he die?”
“Under suspicious circumstances. The police will be arriving on tomorrow’s train to investigate,” she explained as she read. “This was sent in a student email, so it’ll be in your inbox. They’re informing us that we might be required to be interviewed by police because we were on that train, so we are required not to leave campus.”
“Leave campus? If only,” I cackled as I remembered the jock carriage clambering all over each other. I bet one of them accidentally smacked another jock in the head and knocked them out, and then died or something. Reckless buffoons.
I opened my emails on my phone and found the email from the Castlehill University administration with the gold seal at the top of the page. The email didn’t specify who the victim was or how they died, apart from stating that it was under suspicious circumstances, or which carriage they were found on, but it did make me uneasy that a potential murderer was on the same train as me.
The image of opening the bathroom door on the train and seeing that man slammed against the wall with White T-Shirt’s hand at his throat. But he was alive the last time I saw him, though the whole situation reeked to high heaven.
“Good evening, ladies,” a deep, charming voice chimed next to my ear as Mila’s eyes gaped in fear at the figure towering over us.
Large hands were placed on the back of the empty chair beside me, but I knew who it was without looking up at him. “This is a private conversation,” I snapped at him as a waft of his cologne swept past my nose.
Mila was even more horrified that I spoke to him in such a rude way, but he was a proven loser and a bully, so I didn’t care.
Ignoring my message for him to leave, he said, “Enjoying your meals, are we?”
“Why did you slip poison in it?” I hissed as Mila shrank back down under the table. “Am I going to start choking in a minute? Is my throat going to start swelling up where I can’t breathe?” I placed my hand at my throat and faked a cough. “Mila, I hope you’re an expert at the Heimlich technique, because this guy is trying to kill me.”
He grunted, and I glanced at his handsome face for the first time since he came over to find that he was smiling, completely unaffected by my spitting words. “I gotta keep my eye on you, Adina.”
“Oh, you got my name correct this time,” I hit back.
His eyes flicked to the screen of my phone, of the email about the dead student found on the train, and his smile vanished. “I definitely need to keep my eye on you,” his voice turned dark and sinister, and I swiped off my emails.
He hesitated a few beats before pulling, and I pointed my thumb behind me as he went, “What the hell? What a dickhead?”
Mila cocked her head at me as fear rippled across her face. “That’s Ezrah…the other brother.” She was completely freaking out. “I’m taking my plate back to Morgana.”
“Oh, okay, but… Mila, what other brother? What do you mean?” She stood up, her eyes filling with fear. She flicked her gaze to the table at the side of the hall where Nicolai was sitting, surrounded by his sycophants. One of them was her sister, but she still hadn’t pointed her out to me yet.
Following behind Mila and carrying my plate, it wasn’t until we stepped outside into the dark that she turned back to see if we were being followed. I was still confused about what it was that stressed her out so much about that bulky ogre.
“Warwick,” she panted, striding ahead as the blood drained from my face.
“Him? He’s the other brother?” Oh no, what have I done? He’s my enemy, but at least I know what he and his brother look like. The kingmaker Warwicks who then became kings.
“Yes, Ezrah Warwick,” she hissed quietly as a group of students walked by.
She sprinted back to Morgana so fast I had to jog to keep up. Once inside Morgana, we found the dorm kitchen and relaxed, glad we weren’t in that noisy, crowded dining hall full of people who hated us—well, to be precise, hated me.
If Ezrah recognized my name, he would also know that my father was the one who put his father in prison.
This was war.
