While some of us learned how to survive in fragments. And some of us didn’t.
I came to St Augustine’s University for one reason and one reason only.
Revenge.
Not closure or healing. Because that can only comeaftermy revenge. I didn’t come for answers to questions no-one wanted to ask. I came here because this is the alma mater of the men who took something from me that I won’t ever get back. It’s thekind of theft that doesn’t leave bruises you can point to, only a hollow you learn to carry like an extension of one of your vital organs.
And I’m here to bury the past.
My revenge won’t be a moment. It will be an undoing.
The campus is awake now, and students are buzzing with the scandal of last night. I hear their movements in the hallways—doors opening carefully, voices pitched too high, shoes squeaking against the linoleum flooring. I imagine students moving in clumps, their eyes glued to their phones as they trade their version of what happened. I hear their voices as they carry through the door. The rumor mill is well and truly alive.
He died.
They’re saying it was a drug overdose.
He was foaming at the mouth.
They’re saying the CIA poisoned him.
I don’t react. I don’t even blink when the word poison hits the air. I sit with my hands on my knees and breathe carefully. For me, it’s just another day.
There’s no way anyone can prove I had anything to do with what ended up in his system. No way on this earth. Because I researched the hell out of chemicals until I found one that couldn’t be detected in the bloodstream once ingested. My only regret is that I should’ve doubled the dose and ended it. Ended him.
Sound hums at the back of my skull, a low, satisfied purr that isn’t a voice so much as an urge. A vibration. A hunger.
See? it seems to say.They noticed. Someone finally paid attention.
I ignore the sound. I’ve learned to live with ghosts, enough that I don’t let them steer me.
My phone lights up again.
LOCKDOWN LIFTED. CLASSES RESUME AT 1PM. COUNSELING SERVICES AVAILABLE FOR THOSE AFFECTED.
Counseling.Huh.
I roll off the bed and cross to the sink. Wash my hands. Once. Twice. A third time. Not because they’re dirty. Because I need to feel like I’m in control of something.
When I’m done, I open my bag and take out the envelope.
It’s not fancy or dramatic. Just paper and ink that spells three names.
Two names. And a mystery.
I’ve already crossed one off with a slow, deliberate line. William Scott-Evansfelt my wrath. His body betrayed him in front of strangers. He lost the one thing men like him believe they’re entitled to forever—composure. He went down in a room full of witnesses and didn’t get to decide how it looked.
It’s a beginning.
I don’t want him beneath the earth. I want him above it, watching his world turn on him. Because a grave is too quiet. Too kind. Too final. I want the long version.
The version where he wakes up and checks his phone and sees his name crawling across screens. The version where his mother stops answering his calls. That same version where he walks into a room and feels the air change, where every door that used to swing open now sticks, then locks.
I want him alive for that. And not just him.
That’s the part people always misunderstand about revenge. They picture violence like it’s the whole meal. Like blood is the point. It isn’t. Blood is quick. Blood is easy, and it washes off. Legacy doesn’t.
St Augustine’s isn’t just a campus. It’s a breeding ground. A greenhouse for the kind of men who inherit power like it’s abirthright and treat consequences like an optional elective. They come here to get away with murder. They join the right clubs, shake the right hands, learn how to smile while they do damage. Then get away with it.
