We explored inside and around the back found a hidden basement.
The basement door was locked.
Siri broke it open.
What we found there was nothing like what we imagined.
The basement was filled with baby posters. Toys. Books. Tiny clothes. And in the center stood a bed. On it lay the couple's daughter, asleep, holding two babies in her arms.
Beside her, the old couple sat in chairs, watching quietly.
They noticed us and tried to shout.
Siri moved faster than their shouts.
She rushed to the bed and lifted the babies from the woman's arms.
For the first time, I saw Siri look weak.
Her steps were heavy as she walked toward me. She placed one baby into my hands.
And then I understood.
They were dead.
I looked back at Siri.
She was crying.
At that moment, I lost all reasoning.
I dragged the sleeping woman out of the bed by her hair. She screamed and tried to hit me, her arms flailing wildly, but she could not land a single blow. The old couple rushed forward, shouting, trying to stop me. I shoved them aside like they weighed nothing.
She dug her nails into my hands, trying to pry me off. I caught one of her hands and snapped a finger.
She wailed, a raw, animal sound. Before I could break another, a voice cut through the noise.
"Stop."
It was Siri.
Her eyes were still wet with tears, and she held the babies in her arms. The sight froze me. She ordered the couple to follow her. They did not move at first. I turned my head slowly and showed them my devil's smirk. Siri leaned close and whispered something I could not hear.
That was enough.
They followed her without another word.
When the couple stepped outside, Siri turned back to the woman struggling in my grasp. Her eyes, still wet, burned with rage hot enough to melt stone. She then turned to me, in a voice stripped of emotion, she said, "I need silence."
The door closed.
Something inside me snapped completely.
Any restraints I had left shattered. The woman seemed to realize what hellhole she got stuck in. She tried to scream.
I did not allow it.
I dislocated her jaw.
After that, I broke her limbs. First her hands, the hands that had held the babies Siri loved so much. I twisted each finger slowly. Then her legs, bending them in directions they were never meant to go.
As she cried, I laughed.
When I felt satisfied, I twisted her head.
Strangely, for my first human kill, it did not feel different from killing a beast. There was only one difference.
I enjoyed it far more.
As the rage drained out of me and her muffled, broken sounds echoed in the room, I realized I liked it. Beasts died too quietly unlike humans.
When everything finally settled, I left the basement.
I found Siri in the daughter's room.
The two babies lay on the bed. The old couple sat on the floor, silent and obedient. Siri moved through the room calmly, touching the photographs as if she were walking through her own home.
I do not know what she said or how she said it, but the couple obeyed her completely. I did not hear every word, but I understood enough.
She told them to burn the place.
She noticed me then. Instantly, she became herself again. She smiled, took my hands, and pulled me outside. She told me to follow her and led me back to the resort.
A few minutes later, I noticed small flames licking through the forest.
Other student council members saw it too. Siri stopped them, questioning them sharply about patrols, asking if anyone had left the resort or tried sneaking out. I understood she was stalling, buying time for the building to burn.
Their answers angered her. It seemed the vice president himself had fallen asleep after we left.
I knew Siri would be hurt if students broke the rules while she was leading.
So I acted.
I triggered the fire alarms and started banging on every door I could reach. Siri understood immediately. She began shouting, "Fire, everyone rush to the garden."
We brought in more chaos than needed, making everyone occupied in saving themselves instead of setting of the fire.
At the same time, the flames at the cottage surged unnaturally fast. The entire structure was swallowed, collapsing into ash.
As we evacuated the students, few of the resort staff and faculty tried to control the fire, but it only grew stronger. Even before the fire engines arrived, the cottage burned down completely.
In the chaos, multiple couples were caught sneaking out of rooms. After the trip, Siri punished them all without mercy. There were curses, tears, forced transfers. She was satisfied. Her rules had been enforced.
The vice president who Siri made incharge also quit school a few days later.
A few days after the trip, the news reported that the resort owners had died in a fire accident. The cause was undetermined. Investigators believed the couple had accidentally left an electronic appliance running.
Days passed.
Peacefully.
Neither Siri nor I ever spoke about the cottage again. We returned to our duties as presidents, family visits, schoolwork, and daily life.
This time, I understood something.
My fear of losing Siri had been a delusion.
She never cared about my past or my eccentricities. She was the first girl who spoke to me on her own will. Bryce might have been the bridge, but she chose me. She helped me whenever Bryce hurt me. She never questioned.
She noticed how I changed, how I spoke to others, how my tone shifted with her. It never bothered her. She never left me. She helped me with campaign speeches, with my struggles, with everything.
I know she noticed my devil's smirk. I know she noticed how I laughed at pain and screams. She was never obvious about it, but there were always signs. She pulled me away before others noticed. She made sure we were alone when she stayed close to me.
She heard about my childhood from my mother and barely reacted, as if she had known me long before that.
She did not ask me to kill the woman.
She did not stop me either.
As days passed, I stopped pretending entirely when I was with her. I even started teaching her how to hunt, because she asked me to.
For the first time in a long while, I felt free.
And I believed it would last.
Then one day, Siri brought news.
Her mother was divorcing her father. They would move to another country to live with her grandparents. Siri would go with her, in five or six months.
Just as I could not bear to see my mother cry, Siri could not abandon hers. I knew she would stay by her mother's side when she was needed most.
We did not talk about it openly, but the separation terrified us both.
We finished school without realizing how fast time passed. During the break, we met every alternate day.
High school began. Siri had not joined yet since she would be leaving the country in a month or two. Still, she met me every day after school.
One day, she heard about the student committee in our high school and told me to participate.
For me, it felt unnecessary. My reason for school elections had been validation and fear. High school was different. I had settled in easily. I did not need validation anymore. And sharing the title with anyone other than Siri made my skin crawl.
But Siri disagreed.
"Ajin," she said, "we always need to be at the top."
So I agreed.
I enrolled.
Just like before, I became president easily. Days passed smoothly.
Then came the day we had to say goodbye.
The day before her flight, we met for lunch.
As soon as I took my first bite, Siri asked, "When can you move out?"
"In two years," I answered.
"Are you coming to my country for college?"
I nodded.
"So two years it is. I will wait for you."
She looked sad, but determined. I said nothing after that.
Then my instincts roared.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
It was Raj. Our senior. The former vice president. It was the first time I had seen him since his graduation. He greeted me casually, pulled a chair, and sat beside Siri, his shoulder brushing hers. He greeted her too.
We all worked together for two years so his behavior seemed almost natural. The conversation went normal. He cracked Jokes and I timed my laughs, he asked questions about my high school, and he told stories about his.
But something felt wrong.
Every question was directed at me. None at Siri.
So I asked why he was there.
He said casually that Siri had called him to say goodbye. Siri nodded and added that she planned to meet him after lunch.
Their answers did not match. Raj's words felt like wordplay, evasive. Siri felt like she was covering for him.
I planned to ask her after he left.
She seemed to sense it and rushed him.
Raj refused to move. Siri dragged him out.
Minutes passed.
My instincts screamed.
I stepped outside.
I did not see them at first. Then I heard Raj's voice.
I followed it.
What I saw broke me.
Siri held Raj's face and kissed him.
It was not a brief peck like Lily's. It was deep and rough. Saliva spilled. Raj struggled to breathe. Siri enjoyed it.
My heart tightened until my body went numb. My lungs felt crushed. My vision blurred.
I thought I would collapse.
With the last fragment of consciousness I had, I turned around and walked away.
Somehow, I reached home.
Maa hugged me tightly, saying she had been worried because I had not spoken on the call. I do not even remember calling her. Her warmth erased everything for a moment.
That night, I dreamt for the first time.