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🌙 Rooftop
The air on the rooftop of Brighton Wisdom School at 5:30 PM was cool and sharp, a perfect contrast to the heat churning in Gabriella's chest. The sky, usually a clear, hopeful blue, had begun its dramatic descent into night, smeared with long, vivid strokes of crimson and tangerine—only the final, angry red rays of the setting sun clung to the horizon.
Gabriella, dressed in the school's impeccably tailored dark green blazer and pleated skirt, reached the edge of the roof. She looked around, her dark, intense eyes scanning the empty concrete space. No one else.
"Where is he gone?" she whispered, the wind tugging at the long, chestnut strands of her hair.
She pulled out her phone. The screen glowed with Ajax's text message: Wait for me at School Rooftop.
"Wait," she repeated to herself, a hollow sound. The place felt too exposed, too silent.
A sudden, sharp movement made her flinch.
"Gabby!"
She spun around. Ajax hadn't come through the main door. He had jumped effortlessly from a lower slab of the adjacent school building, landing with the grace of a trained athlete. The suddenness made her heart leap, and she frowned, her composure instantly hardening.
"Why are you there? Can't wait on the ground?" she asked, her voice deliberately cold.
Ajax grinned, a flash of white against his tanned skin, and swaggered toward her. "Are you afraid?"
"No," she lied instantly.
He stopped, his expression shifting to one of mild impatience. "Are you still believing him?"
Gabriella narrowed her eyes. Her jacket felt suddenly too tight. "Who?"
"Jake," he said, rolling his eyes as if the answer were obvious.
She didn't reply. Jake. The boy who had been her confidante, the one person she truly trusted after… everything. The memory was a dull, constant ache.
"Anyway," Ajax continued, waving a dismissive hand. "I don't want to interfere. I'm here to ask you... did you find any evidence?"
This was the reason she was here. This was the fire that kept the coldness in her heart alive.
Gabriella reached into the inner pocket of her blazer and pulled out a small, metallic object. It was a silver half-moon pendant attached to a thin bracelet chain. It was only the broken, severed half.
Ajax's usually easy-going face tightened. He stared at the object. "It's… the same bracelet I sent you a photo of, right?"
Gabriella nodded, her gaze fixed on the fractured silver. "Yes. Now it's clear. Raina was the last person he met before he died," she stated, the words a cold, painful truth extracted from a wound.
"And it's clear she killed him, too," Ajax finished, his voice matching her detached cruelty.
Gabriella felt a shiver of doubt mix with her conviction. But police reported he fell down from the building… but how is it her? Because… we saw in the video…
Ajax noticed her hesitation. He narrowed his eyes, the playful demeanor gone. "What video? Are you hiding anything?"
I didn't tell him yet. The thought flashed through her mind. The video on the pendrive—the horrifying footage of Raina cutting Kevin's hand with a knife. Could she trust Ajax with this final piece of evidence?
She looked into his eyes, trying to find an answer, trying to discern the truth behind his easy charm.
Ajax chuckled, a sound devoid of humor. "The video that you got from Lara. When she got into the accident. Right? Evidence against Raina… and the whole Silverstorm members."
Gabriella was stunned. Her heart skipped a beat, then began to pound furiously. The blood rushed to her ears. "How did you know?" she gasped.
Ajax held her gaze, his eyes intense and unwavering. "Why did you hide that from me?"
"How can I believe others?" she shot back, feeling a bitter confusion.
He scoffed, a look of genuine disbelief crossing his face. "You said I am your friend."
Gabriella bit her lip. "But…"
Before she could form a defense, a new, sharp voice cut through the fading light.
"What others are you hiding from us? Andria?"
Gabriella whipped around. Her eyes widened, not in fear, but in pure shock.
Lara was standing a few feet away, leaning against the metal railing. Her stance was utterly cold, devoid of the confused, hesitant emotion Gabriella was used to seeing since the accident.
"Lara?" Gabriella whispered.
Lara walked slowly toward her. Her voice was flat and steady. "Am I right that is your real name?"
Gabriella didn't flinch, but her mind raced. "Did you… get…"
Lara chuckled, the sound thin and brittle. "Yes. I have got my memory back."
"But how did you find out my name… as…" Gabriella trailed off, unable to complete her cover name.
Lara circled Gabriella slowly, like a predator assessing its prey. "Do you thought I don't have new memories after I got old one? I have both. I just connected both. I found out you are Andria."
Gabriella turned to Ajax, her eyes clouded with disbelief and pain. "Did you guys know each other?"
Ajax nodded once.
She moved closer to him, the intimacy of the past few days shattering into pieces. "You are good at acting. Every time you met Lara, you acted like you didn't know her."
"She already forgot," Ajax countered, his voice low with pain. "How could I tell her the painful past? I would lead her situation to be worse."
Lara scoffed. "Is this why you didn't say?"
"Yes," Ajax confirmed.
"So you approached me with intention and know I am Andria, aren't you?" Gabriella accused.
Ajax hesitated. "I wasn't. But I had a doubt."
Gabriella let out a sharp, self-mocking laugh, cursing her own naivety.
Lara grabbed Gabriella's shoulder, pulling her around to face her. "Wait. First, talk to me. I want my pendrive back that I gave to you."
"Raina got it back, I told you," Ajax interjected.
"I am talking to her, not you!" Lara snapped, before softening her tone slightly as she looked at Gabriella. "I know you did so much to fight back Raina…"
Lara's voice suddenly turned mocking. "I don't understand why you didn't still go and hand over that pendrive to the police."
Her voice dropped, cold as ice. "Didn't you forget in which situation I handed that to you? I had believed you, but you…"
Gabriella's eyes turned cold, then flashed red with deep, internalized pain, but she held back the reaction.
"Do you know how much we suffered to collect evidence against them? You are playing by using it against Raina!" Lara cried out.
"Enough, Lara," Ajax warned, stepping closer.
Gabriella spoke, her voice eerily calm before it swelled into a shout. "Do you think the police take action if I gave evidence to them? Not! They don't! They will destroy it!"
Lara laughed bitterly. "Whatever. Do you still wait even if I died then?"
"Lara!" Gabriella roared, then few seconds later, Lara said.."Do you even know how hard we collect evidence against them even we lost our Kevin too."
Suddenly Gabriella grabbed the collar of Lara's uniform. "How did you know him? Why should he collect evidence even though he was loving Raina? Who are you to Kevin?"
Lara met her fury with a chilling honesty. "Kevin… the person I loved."
Ajax's eyes widened in genuine shock. "What…"
Gabriella froze, releasing her grip.
"He knew I was collecting evidence against Silverstorm," Lara continued, a single tear cutting a path through the dust on her cheek. "So… he came by himself… to help me. And he asked for my camera; I gave it."
Gabriella stumbled back toward the rooftop edge. "He loves her so much. Why did he want to collect evidence against her?" she whispered in disbelief.
Lara chuckled bitterly. "What if he found out that she isn't an angel… but a devil?"
Gabriella leaned against the cold railing, shaking her head. "He can't do that. I know him well. He doesn't even know how to do anything against someone's back. How could he do against his lover?"
"I am not lying. I am saying the truth," Lara insisted, her face etched with exhaustion.
Ajax stepped in, his voice thick with pain. "We hadn't allowed him… if I was there, I definitely wouldn't. I went to the inter-school fest…" He clenched his fist. "I lost my best friend. It's all my fault."
"What best friend?" Gabriella asked, coming closer to Ajax, her eyes blazing with a new fury. "Kevin was your best friend?"
Ajax hesitated, then nodded.
Gabriella laughed, a ragged, broken sound.
"You are his best friend, too, right, Andria?" Ajax asked gently.
"What is she?" Lara demanded, confused.
"Yes, I am," Gabriella said, her voice dripping with rage. "You know all this, then why didn't you tell me? You are playing alone! I am a fool who believes you as my friend!"
"What about you, Gabriella? Didn't you hide from us? You are Kevin's childhood friend!" Lara countered, cold and accusing.
"Yes, I am," Gabriella said, tears finally streaming down her face. "But I didn't hide like you both! Even though you guys knew I am his childhood friend, you guys hid everything from me! I hid my identity because I didn't know you before you were Kevin's friend. My past experience gave me a bitter experience, so I didn't want to reveal my true identity."
Ajax worriedly turned his face away. Lara stared coldly.
Gabriella chuckled in painful realization. "I don't have to believe you both. Already my own friend stabbed my back. How could I blame you? It's my fault that I believed you."
She turned to walk away.
"Gabriella, wait!" Lara called out. "You are right. You don't have to believe me, and I was wrong to believe you, too. But I want my pendrive back. I don't know where it is, but you have to return it back."
Gabriella's last, painful chuckle was swallowed by the wind. "Don't worry. I will bring it."
She walked away, leaving Ajax and Lara standing under the darkening sky.
The Corrupted Truth
Gabriella burst through the front door of her mansion. Her mother's voice called from downstairs, but she didn't hear it, didn't pause. She moved with a desperate urgency, going straight to her room.
She reached her desk, pulled out her laptop, and opened her cloud storage—a secure place, a virtual fortress for the last remaining evidence of Kevin's murder. She located the video file and clicked to open it.
The screen flickered. The video was corrupt.
It wasn't visible.
"No way… No way…" she whispered, panic seizing her throat.
Then, before her widening eyes, the names of her saved files began to erase, one by one. The data, the images, the backups—everything was being purged from her cloud storage in real-time, right in front of her.
Someone had hacked her. Someone was destroying the last remnants of her revenge.
She was utterly helpless, watching her truth vanish into the digital void.
No…
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To be Continued....
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