I know she's here.
And nothing—nothing—is going to be the same.
I turn the envelope over, reading the return address—her P.O. box, the one I've been sending responses to for five years. Then I flip it back, running my thumb over the wax seal, feeling the slight ridge of dried blood beneath my fingertip.
A smile curves my lips.
Not the friendly kind.
The kind that promises mischief and chaos and the understanding that the game has just changed in ways no one saw coming.
"Cotton candy," I murmur, the words barely a whisper in the morning air.
The envelope gleams pink in the sunlight.
Her blood marks it as hers.
Her scent lingers on my skin.
Her face is burned into my memory—mismatched eyes and pink hair and that sharp, bright smile that hides something broken underneath.
"So you're my secret admirer."
CHAPTER 5
Sacred Things Profaned
~SERAPHINE~
Classes are bullshit.
I've known this since I was twelve years old—since the night my parents died and I was thrown into the academy system like a piece of trash someone forgot to properly dispose of. But today, after sitting through six hours of lectures that might as well have been delivered in ancient Sumerian for all the relevance they have to my life, the truth feels particularly sharp.
Calculus.
Fucking calculus.
As if I need to understand the rate of change of velocity when the only math that matters in Ruthless Academy is counting money and dead bodies.
I killed two people this morning before breakfast.
But sure, let's talk about derivatives.
The giggle escapes before I can stop it—high and bright and just unhinged enough to make the girl next to me flinch awayfrom her desk. I don't blame her. I'd flinch away from me too, if I had the option.
Sorry, I don't say.My brain is a funhouse mirror and sometimes the reflections are hilarious.
Everyone thinks I'm stupid.
That's the thing that burns, buried somewhere beneath all the chaos and violence and carefully cultivated madness. They see the twitches. The counting. The way my eyes go unfocused sometimes when the world gets too loud. They see the diagnoses—OCD, ADHD, PTSD, whatever other acronyms the academy shrinks want to slap on my file—and they assume the broken parts mean I'm dumb.
Poor crazy Sera. Can't even sit still in class. Probably doesn't understand a word the professor's saying.
They're wrong.
I understand everything.
I just don't care.
