🖤 Chapter 8 – Dexter
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I wasn't avoiding her.
I shouldnt be afraid of a fresher.
I told myself I just needed space. Air.
A moment to sort my head out. But hours later, I still hadn't figured out what I was even trying to sort.
She'd kissed someone. Big deal, right?
Except it wasn't just someone.
It was someone no one could name.
And something about that made my whole body itch.
I sat at the corner desk in the empty study hall, my laptop open, the academy's internal roster glowing on the screen. I'd been scrolling for ten minutes now. First-year girls. Upper-year girls. Staff. Visitors.
Nothing.
No one named drizella
No one even looked like her.
But she hadn't felt out of place. Not even a little. She wore the school uniform. She moved like she belonged here. Like she'd walked the halls a thousand times.
So why couldn't I find her?
I leaned back in the chair, rubbing my face with both hands. Maybe I was losing it. Maybe she was real and she used some masking charm or cloak ID. But those were banned, especially on school grounds. Especially inside the Quadrant.
I checked the dorm registry next. Still nothing.
Class rosters? Nope.
Even the security cam feed from the hallway outside that classroom? Blurry. Too blurry. Like it had glitched out the moment I walked by.
I closed the tab slowly.
My palms were sweating. Not from panic. From something else. Something darker. Like every answer I wanted was just out of reach, and if I stretched too far, I'd fall off a cliff I didn't know I was standing on.
I thought about her again.
Scarlet.
The girl in red.
Her hair. Her skin. Her eyes. They hadn't changed since this morning, but I had. Something in me had.
Ever since I saw her.
More like — ever since our eyes met.
It wasn't attraction. Not just that. It was like pressure. Like air being pulled out of a room. Like my brain rewired itself in a second flat and said: remember this. This matters.
And then there was that other girl. The one whose name didn't exist.
Drizella.
Her voice, her hands, the way she looked at Scarlet — like they'd known each other forever.
Except… that wasn't possible. Scarlet was new. A nobody, up until this week. No friends. No group. She didn't even sit with anyone at meals.
So how did she end up in an empty classroom like that?
Why did her uniform burn red like fire?
Why did I see her differently than everyone else?
I clenched my jaw, staring at my reflection in the black screen.
Something's off. With her. With me.
With all of it.
I'd never had visions before. But now they came in flashes. Like static in my head. Sometimes it was her — crying, burning, whispering names I didn't recognize. Sometimes it was things I couldn't explain. Blood. Shadows. Dragons?
No. That was insane.
This was a school. Magic was studied here, not born.
But the way I felt…
The way the shadows in the room shifted whenever I got too close to her name…
It wasn't studied. It was happening.
I closed my eyes and focused.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Feel the shift.
It started as a buzz. Right behind my eyes. A warmth that crawled into my chest. I didn't know what I was doing, but somehow, I knew how to reach it. Like something inside me had always known — and now it was waking up.
And then I saw her.
Not her face. Just her outline.
Sitting on the edge of her bed, arms around her knees.
She looked… small. Nothing like the girl in red who arched beneath someone's touch. She looked like she didn't know what world she was in anymore.
I snapped my eyes open.
Gone.
My fingers trembled.
What was that?
Where was that?
Was I seeing the future? The past?
I stood up too fast, chair legs scraping against the floor. I needed answers. I needed someone who'd believe me. But no one would. No one could. The other Alphas would laugh. The mentors would pull me in for mental health tests.
Only one person had looked at me like she recognized something too.
Her.
Scarlet.
And that scared me more than the visions.
Because if she really was connected to this — if she made me see things — then she had more power than anyone realized.
And I had no idea what she'd do with it.