Peter reached out and tucked some hair behind my ear. “Come on, let’s get some food.” He slid his arm around my waist, and we continued on our way.

  A little while later, after we finally got our chance to ride the Big Wheel, our group decided the bumper cars might be fun to try next.

  “I’m going to sit this one out,” Angela said. “All that bumping gives me a headache.” She briefly touched Peter’s arm. “Will you stay and keep me company?”

  “Sure, I can stay with you,” he replied politely.

  “Come on,” Grace said, taking my hand. “Let’s grab a car before they’re all gone.”

  I allowed her to lead me onto the platform, and we lowered ourselves into individual bumper cars. Then, like a bad smell, Belinda and Liz appeared and climbed into cars.

  “Are they stalking us?” Grace asked grouchily.

  Belinda eyed us, then leaned across her car to say something to Liz in a quiet voice.

  “I have no idea. Just ignore them,” I replied, slotting in my seatbelt.

  Taking my own advice was tough because both Belinda and Liz made it their mission to attack my car every chance they got. Belinda drove into me from the side while Liz bumped me from the back. I growled under my breath and swung the steering wheel around, determined to get them back. It was useless, though. The two of them worked together, ramming into me repeatedly until I wished I’d taken a leaf out of Angela’s book and sat it out entirely. Grace tried to come to my rescue, but they had me completely penned in.

  “You’re being incredibly childish,” I shouted at them.

  “Being childish is so much fun,” Belinda shot back with a chuckle as she rammed my car again.

  When it finally came to an end, I hopped out of my car and marched toward Belinda. “What the hell was that?” I demanded.

  She turned to face me, cocking her head to the side as she twirled her glossy ponytail around her finger. “It’s just a silly funfair ride, Darya. No need to get your knickers in a twist.”

  I saw red, but then, before I completely lost my temper, Peter’s familiar warmth met my back as his arms came around my waist.

  “She isn’t worth it,” he murmured in my ear, and most of my temper faded. He was so good at that, calming me down. I spotted a few more of Belinda’s friends from school standing several yards behind her and knew pacifism was the only option. I refused to fight with her and give them the entertainment they were clearly after.

  “Just stay away from me,” I seethed and turned around, letting Peter lead me away.

  “I think someone needs anger management,” I heard Belinda joke when she returned to her friends, and they all had a good chuckle.

  Peter squeezed my hand. “Don’t rise to it.”

  “I’m not going to. She’s just so annoying.”

  “Hey, what the hell happened back there?” Grace asked, catching up to us.

  “Just Belinda being her usual charming self,” I replied.

  “What’s her problem? Can’t she just act decent for once?”

  “She’s definitely capable of it, but maybe only when she’s intoxicated.” I sighed, thinking back to the night at Grace’s party when Belinda had been drunk and confessed to me why she always gave me a hard time. Supposedly, it was all down to jealousy. She was jealous that people respected me just because my parents were powerful and that it was unfair because she had to try hard to make people respect her.

  Grace shot me a puzzled look.

  “Remember I told you how she came up to me at your party when she was drunk?” I said to jog her memory.

  “Right. I’m still dubious that actually happened. Are you certain it wasn’t a dream?” she asked jokingly.

  “Maybe you’re onto something. She’s certainly acting like it never happened, or perhaps she’s pretending she can’t remember to save her pride.”

  “That sounds plausible.”

  “Want to go for a walk along the pier?” Peter suggested. “I think I’ve had enough of this fair for one night.”

  I nodded, and we said goodbye to our friends. A few minutes later, we were all alone, walking along the quiet pier lit softly by lamplights.

  “So, are you going to tell me what happened earlier?” Peter asked, referring to my weird moment when I’d felt I was being watched.

  I blew out a breath. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Angela. It’s only been a few months since the attack, and I know she still has nightmares from time to time.”

  He frowned as he gazed down at me, a line deepening between his eyebrows. “Okay, now you have me worried.”

  “You don’t need to worry. Whatever it was, it was only fleeting. I tend to get a feeling when someone’s watching me with ill intent, and I got that feeling back at the fair. It only lasted a few seconds, but I still can’t help wondering who brought it on.”

  Peter’s expression was tense when he stopped walking. “Someone was watching you? Do you think it was the same person from the woods the other night?”

  “I don’t know. I told my mum about it, and she said the scent I picked up was similar to what ghosts smell like. Supposedly, she’s seen a few in her time and remembers them smelling like rotten eggs and burning, too.”

  “She thinks a ghost is haunting you?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a theory. But I don’t really know anyone close to me who died, so it doesn’t make sense that a ghost would want to haunt me.”

  We fell into silence, both of our minds working overtime to figure out what was going on, though I suspected the answer wasn’t going to present itself quite so readily.

  “Are you staying at mine tonight?” Peter asked after we’d walked for a few minutes in quiet contemplation.

  “Of course,” I said, pushing all the foreboding thoughts from my mind. “You have a promise to keep, after all,” I said with a hint of flirtation.

  Peter smiled with heat and affection. “I do believe you’re right.”

  4.

  The following day at school, I went to the cafeteria to grab a quick bite. Grace hadn’t arrived for her night classes yet, and Peter was working on an extra credit assignment for Mrs. Kanumba. I grabbed a bottle of water and a sandwich before joining the queue to pay.

  “Darya, wait up!” someone called, and I looked behind me to see Ren hurrying to catch up with me.

  “Hey, want to eat together?” he asked.

  “Sure.” I grinned. Ren was delightful company. I never minded spending time with him because his chatter was so entertaining. He held a tray with two ham sandwiches, curly fries, chicken goujons, two sausage rolls, and a large cola.

  “Okay, so my secret is I eat, like, a lot,” he confessed when he saw me eye his tray.

  “Hey, no judgement,” I replied.

  “The plus side is I have a fast metabolism, so I don’t gain weight. Maybe that’s also why I’m always so hungry. My body burns up the food super-fast.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed.

  Two students ahead of us began heatedly arguing over a spell that had supposedly gone wrong in one of their labs, and Ren shot me a raised eyebrow.

  “You got the ratio wrong,” one student said. “It should’ve been sixty-forty, not seventy-thirty.”

  “For crying out loud, will you give it a rest?” the other complained before whipping around in annoyance and accidentally knocking their companion off balance. The student fell back a few steps, bumping into me and causing my water bottle to fall from my grasp.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” the girl apologised, but I waved her off.

  “Don’t worry about it.” I recognised the startled look in her eyes. She knew who I was, or more specifically, who my parents were.

  “No, seriously, that was so clumsy of me,” she went on.

  “Really, it’s fine,” I assured her before bending to pick up my water when I saw someone had gotten there already. One of the school’s caretakers grabbed the bottle and handed it back to me. I thanked him, and he gave a quick nod before going on his way.

  A moment later, that distinct gone-off eggs and burning smell hit my nose and invisible spiders began crawling down my spine. My attention went to the caretaker walking away with his back to me. I expanded my senses and realised the scent was coming from him. I knew everyone who worked at the school, if not by name, then at least by sight, and I’d never seen that man before.

  On instinct, I left the queue and hurried to follow him.

  “Darya, where are you going?” Ren called, but I didn’t stop to reply.

  To my annoyance and irritation, lots of students were entering the cafeteria, slowing me down substantially. By the time I got into the corridor, the caretaker was gone. I no longer smelled him, and the spiders crawling down my spine sensation had evaporated.

  I frowned and returned to the cafeteria, finding Ren by the entrance, a curious look in his eyes. “What was all that about?”

  “Nothing. I just had a weird feeling for a second.”

  He eyed me sceptically but didn’t question me further. We joined the queue again and paid for our food before sitting at a table by the window. Belinda, Anna, and Liz were just a few tables away. I spotted them shooting me a few bitchy looks before giggling with one another.

  “I bet she’s the type to come into your house and open the fridge without asking permission,” Ren said, and I glanced at him.

  “Huh?”

  “Belinda Williams,” he replied. “She seems like one of those friends who comes into your house and looks in the fridge to see what you’ve got to eat without even asking first. It’s my own personal version of the psychopath test. They get extra points if they do it in front of your parents.”

  I chuckled at that. “I don’t think anyone’s ever come into my house and done that. My parents are far too scary.”

  “Or maybe you’re lucky not to have any psychopaths in your life,” he countered, and my gut twisted, my thoughts immediately going to Vasilios.

  Ren seemed to realise his error when he said, “Oh, Darya, I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine,” I cut him off, not wanting to talk about that particular person. “I don’t think Belinda’s a psychopath. She’s got a superiority complex, but deep down, she’s just insecure. Why else would she feel the need to throw her weight around?”

  “True,” Ren agreed before taking a big bite out of one of his sandwiches.

  Watching the other students come and go, I opened my water bottle and took a sip. My lips tingled oddly. The water tasted funny, and it was only then that I noticed the seal had been tampered with. I stood immediately.

  “Darya?” Ren questioned.

  “I’m not feeling well. I have to go,” I blurted, then dashed to the nearest bathroom. Safely inside a stall, I prepared to stick my fingers down my throat and force myself to vomit, but faintness hit me swiftly. My mind raced back over the events of the last half an hour, and in those few seconds, it became clear what had happened. My water had been tampered with, and only one other person touched the bottle.

  The man in the caretaker’s uniform had taken advantage of the disruption in the queue to put something in my water.

  He’d poisoned me, and I had no idea why.

  ***

  When I came to, my head was groggy and sore. My hands felt dry and sticky, and I held something in my right hand. My nose was filled with the familiar, coppery tang of blood tainted with the heavy weight of death. Something was very, very wrong here. I was lying on a cold, hard surface. My entire being recoiled, and I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet.

  When I finally managed to peel my eyes open, a scream erupted. I was in so much shock at what I saw that it took me a moment to realise the scream had come from me. I stood in an empty classroom, and the floor was covered in blood. A few feet away from me was a body, familiar dark hair fanning out from a limp, lifeless form.

  “Fuck,” I whimpered, still with the object clutched tightly in my hand. I glanced down and saw it was a dagger. A dagger covered in blood. A jolt shot through me as I approached the body and knelt, pushing the hair from her face and confirming my suspicions.

  Belinda.

  From the looks of it, someone had stabbed her several times in the gut, and she’d bled out. Someone had killed her and wanted to make it look like I was the one who did it.

  I started trembling. A sick sense of fear and dread filled me. I was standing there with the blood of a girl I was known to dislike all over me.

  Suddenly, I felt a presence before a faint, whispery voice asked, “I-is t-that m-me?”

  My head shot up, and there was Belinda. Well, an incorporeal version of her, at least. She stared down at her lifeless body.

  “Yes,” I replied quietly.

  Belinda’s ghost looked up, her attention going to the blood on my hands and the knife I was still holding. “Did you kill me, Darya?” She sounded so small, so vulnerable. So unlike her usual self. Then again, she wasn’t her usual self. She was dead.

  “No!” I was quick to deny it. “It wasn’t me. Someone set me up.” My senses were overwhelmed, but I managed to pick up the slight scent of her ghostly presence. It was similar to what I’d smelled in the woods and at the funfair, but different somehow. I started to believe that whoever had been watching me wasn’t a ghost, as my mother had theorised, at least not in the usual sense.

  They were very much alive, and if my suspicions were correct, they’d dressed up as a caretaker, spiked my water bottle in the cafeteria, waited for me to pass out, then planted me there with a dagger in my hand after brutally murdering my classmate.

  The next time I looked up, Belinda’s ghost was gone. The classroom door burst open, and several armed members of the Guard filed in.

  “Hands in the air,” one of them roared at me, and I complied immediately, still clutching the murder weapon. Why the hell hadn’t I dropped it?

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” I said as he approached me from behind and deftly extricated the weapon from my hand before enclosing a pair of handcuffs around my wrists.

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” he said with derision.

  “Who called you?” I demanded. “Who tipped you off? Whoever it was is clearly the one who framed me.”

  “You should stop talking,” the officer said. “Unless you want to incriminate yourself further.”

  A large crowd stood outside the classroom. Mainly members of the Guard, but a few teachers and students, too. They stared at my bloodied state with horror in their eyes. For all they knew, I’d just brutally murdered one of my fellow students, and it wasn’t the first time I’d been on the scene when someone was killed in school. I was still haunted by images of Mr Williams when he was murdered in his classroom by Vasilios’s partner in crime, the vampire demon Sven.

  How on earth would I fix this? How would I prove my innocence? My mind raced until it finally hit me.

  The water! Whatever substance they used to knock me out must still be in my system. They could test my blood and prove my water had been spiked.

  “Someone put something in my drink,” I told the officer escorting me to the exit. “I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I was lying on the classroom floor with blood all over my hands.”

  “You’ll be given a chance to tell your version of events when we get to the station,” he replied gruffly. The lack of empathy in his voice told me he didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. I had, after all, been caught red-handed holding the murder weapon.

  We reached a van, and the doors slid open. I peered around, hoping to catch sight of Peter or Grace or Rebecca, anyone who I could tell to call my parents. I was so scared, and though I considered myself a grown woman, at that moment, all I wanted was my mum and dad.

  Tears filled my eyes as they lowered me into the van. The door slammed shut, and the engine started. Half an hour later, we reached The Hawthorn Guard headquarters, where I was promptly brought to a holding room. The officer who’d cuffed me initially set me down on a chair and then left the room. I swallowed the thick lump wedged in my throat when I heard the lock click.

  Then I proceeded to bawl my fucking eyes out.

  I allowed myself a few minutes of pure panic and fear before I forced myself to get it together. The whole situation would be cleared up. My parents would see to it.

  Right?

  Only my parents weren’t all-powerful. Sure, they had power, but they couldn’t stop me from being sent to prison if it was decided I was guilty. It wasn’t like innocent people were never wrongfully convicted.

  I lifted a shoulder, trying to dab away my tears with the fabric of my blazer, but it was useless. Whoever came into the room next would know I’d been crying.

  Time passed. I wasn’t certain how much, but then the lock clicked over, and two members of the Guard entered, a man and a woman. I recognised Sergeant Davis, whom I’d met when I’d accompanied Angela to pick her attacker from a line-up.

  “Miss Cristescu,” Sergeant Davis greeted. “I’m sorry we’re meeting again under such unpleasant circumstances.”

  My first instinct was to shout from the rooftops that I was innocent, but I needed to conduct myself in a calm, even-tempered fashion. After all, proclaiming your innocence too passionately often had the effect of making you appear guiltier.

  I nodded and noticed the lady who’d come in had carried in some sort of medical kit and was putting on a pair of surgical gloves. To my relief, Sergeant Davis removed my cuffs and handed me a small handkerchief to dry my eyes. I was uncomfortable with him knowing I’d cried. One day, hopefully, he would be my superior.

  Well, so long as I’m not sent away for murder, I thought soberly.

  “Your arresting officer said you claimed to have been poisoned,” Sergeant Davis stated. “Is that correct?”

  I swallowed thickly, then replied, “Yes, I’d been queueing in the cafeteria when another student knocked my water bottle from my hand. When I bent to pick it up, a caretaker was already there picking it up for me. He handed me the bottle and went. It was only after I drank the water and began to feel ill that I realised he must’ve tampered with it.”