SERA
Brad Morrison died with my fingerprints on his chest.
Not because I wanted him to.
If anything, I'd spent months honing the art of pretending not to care. Chin held high, shoulders straight, and jaw set firmly in what I hoped resembled confidence. Pretend not to care for long enough and people would get bored of you. Brad Morrison just didn't seem to.
He had a gift for cruelty. He'd call me a scholarship freak, charity case with a grin, like they were jokes, I was supposed to laugh at.I usually gave him what he hated: a blank stare and a walk away. Acting tough was easier than admitting it hurt.
I still didn't know how it happened.
One second, he was blocking my way down the hallway, arms crossed, his devious smirk firmly in place. His friends standing behind him like some pairs of backup dancers for a very bad music video. I remember thinking, Really? This again? I also remember adjusting my backpack strap and telling myself I could handle it. I always did.
Then my shoulder brushed his.
And everything turned a 360.
Brad gasped harshly like he'd swallowed water instead of air and he staggered back. For half a second, I almost laughed. I really thought he was messing around. Brad Morrison never loses control. He took it.
Then his knees folded under him and he fell to the floor. His palms flailed against the tiles futilely, his mouth opening and closing like his body had forgotten how to breathe.
Someone screamed.
Another voice called out my name.
And just like that, every eye in the hallway snapped toward me with accusations.
Of course it was me. Funny how life works. There's always a crowd when I'm being humiliated, but nobody ever stopped Brad. Nobody ever told him to back off. But now—now they were all paying attention.
"Oh my God, he's not breathing—"
"What did she do to him?"
"Call an ambulance!"
My hands started shaking, which annoyed me more than anything. I hated when my body betrayed my emotions.
"I didn't—"
I swallowed and forced my voice steady. "I didn't do anything."
The lie burned. Because I had felt it.
That buzz beneath my skin. The pressure, like static electricity trapped in my bones, like something inside me had leaned forward without asking for permission.
I dropped to my knees beside him.
"Brad," I said, sharper than I meant to. "Hey. This isn't funny."
There was neither pulse nor heartbeat from Brad. My chest tightened so hard it hurt, and suddenly I couldn't breathe either.
This wasn't a joke.
It wasn't some kind of prank.
By the time the paramedics muscled their way through the crowd, my vision was blurred and I didn't remember starting to cry.
"Clear!"
Brad's body sputtered when they electrocuted him. Once.
Twice.
The pause thereafter was like an eternity.
Then there was finally a weak irregular beat.
"He's alive," someone whispered.
Relief was what I ought to have felt. Instead, fear clung to my spine and burrowed in.
Because no one was looking at Brad.
They were all staring at me.
Teachers tried to herd students away, but what was the point? Phones were already out. Videos already recording. I caught flashes of myself reflected in glowing screens—pale, shaking, mascara smudged, looking exactly like what they call me.
A freak.
☆☆☆☆☆
I stared at my hands—still tingling, everything that happened in the past few minutes still felt like a dream.
Principal Carver's voice was droning on about how much horror and disturbance I've caused to the school, how I almost killed their star quarterback. Outside his office window, an ambulance sat in the parking lot, lights flashing red and blue against the grey October sky.
I could still hear the voices of students hovering in the background.
"That girl is jinxed. I am telling you."
"She always breaks things."
"She almost killed him."
"She's a freak with those creepy eyes of hers."
"Ms. Night." Carver leaned forward, coffee breath and all, snapping back my attention. "This is the third incident in two weeks." He flipped through his notes like I was a problem he could file away. "First, every light bulb in the SAT testing room explodes when you walk in. Then Victoria Collins' phone bursts into flames after she—" He paused. "—'bumped into you' in the hallway. And now this."
"I didn't do anything," I said, raising my chin. Playing tough again. It was either that or fall apart.
Even to me, it sounded thin.
"Witnesses say you brushed past him—just his shoulder." He adjusted his glasses, eyes sharp and cold. "What exactly are you, Sera?"
Normal. Just a girl trying to graduate and make a name for myself in this harsh world.
The answers remained stuck in my throat.
Because deep down inside, I knew something was wrong with me.
The lights above us flickered.
Carver stiffened. "Don't—"
"I'm not doing anything," I snapped loudly. .The lights steadied, but I could feel it—the buzzing under my skin, like static electricity looking for somewhere to go. It had been getting worse since my eighteenth birthday three weeks ago—stronger and harder to control.
The phone rang. Carver jumped as if bitten by a snake.
"Make sure those videos are deleted," he barked into the receiver. "We don't need bad press."
When he hung up, his decision was already made.
"We're expelling you."
I waited to feel devastated. Instead, I felt relieved. At least at home, wherever that was now, I could be alone, and alone meant safe.
"I understand," I said.
"No," a sharp, unfamiliar voice said. "You don't."
I turned. The woman hadn't been there two seconds ago, I would have noticed. You couldn't miss someone like her.
I couldn't look away from her eyes—a jarring, impossible violet that seemed to pin me to the wall which is ironic because I don't have very common eyes either.
Her hair was pale, silver white and shimmering under the lights. She had on a blue suit that screamed luxury, the price my mum can't afford in years. But it was her face that got me; she had this look of certainty as if the world were a series of problems she'd already solved.
Who—" Carver started with a surprise expression showing he was visibly shaking.
"They call me the Treader but you can refer to me as Headmistress Valore Grey." She didn't look at him. Her eyes stayed locked on mine. "I'm here for the girl."
And for the first time since Brad Morrison stopped breathing—my tough act finally failed.
Because somehow, impossibly—
I felt completely exposed.