I stared at Lila's final message like it had teeth.
"Don't trust anyone. Not even him."
Two weeks ago, I would've assumed she meant a professor. Maybe Dean Soren. Maybe someone from the administration.
But now?
Now there was only one him who mattered.
Killian Vale.
My hands shook as I closed the journal. The air in my room suddenly felt thinner, too quiet, like the silence was trying to listen in.
I wanted to scream.
Because how the hell was I supposed to figure this out now?
He'd helped me. Protected me. Brought me to the file room. Led me straight into every dark secret this school was trying to hide.
But maybe that's the point.
What if he was leading me in circles? What if he'd been assigned to me? What if this was all just part of Project PRAXIS?
What if… he wasn't the one person I could trust?
I didn't go to class the next morning.
I wandered the quad instead, hoodie pulled low, headphones in but no music playing — a trick Lila used to use when she wanted to overhear conversations without being noticed.
It worked.
I caught fragments.
"Camille's gone. Again?"
"Thought she graduated already."
"No, she was… wait, you're right."
"Do they really erase people here?"
I kept walking.
Toward the back fence. The edge of campus. The place where the official paths stopped and the unofficial ones began.
Killian was already there.
Leaning against the stone wall, arms crossed, hoodie dark as his mood.
"You ghosted me," he said quietly.
"I had things to think about."
He pushed off the wall. "Like what?"
I didn't answer.
He studied me for a second. His eyes were calm, unreadable, but I could feel the tension in his stance.
"What's going on?"
"I found another page in Lila's journal."
His jaw twitched. "What did it say?"
"That I shouldn't trust anyone."
Pause.
Then:
"Not even him."
His expression didn't change.
He just nodded once.
And said, "So you think it's me."
I stayed quiet.
He exhaled sharply. "You really think I'd go through all this just to set you up?"
"You knew too much too fast. You had answers no one else did. You showed up before the danger and disappeared after."
"I've been trying to protect you."
"Or monitor me."
His eyes flared for the first time. "I buried your sister."
The words hit me like a slap.
"What?"
"After she fell. They covered it up. Said it was suicide. They told students to stay away. But I was there."
He looked away.
"She was still breathing when I got to her."
My knees almost gave out.
"She wasn't dead?" I whispered.
"She died before the ambulance came," he said. "But not right away."
I could barely breathe. "Why didn't you ever tell me that?"
"Because the school threatened to expel me if I said anything. They deleted my witness statement. Told me if I talked, they'd revoke my scholarship and blacklist my name from every law school on the east coast."
My heart thudded painfully.
"She was scared," he said. "And I didn't do enough. That's what I live with."
The wind howled over the back fence. Neither of us moved.
"I don't know what you want from me, Zara," he said finally. "But if you think I'm part of this—part of them—then walk away. Now. While you still can."
I didn't walk away.
But I didn't speak either.
Not until he was gone.
And even then, the words didn't come.
That night, I sat in the dorm lobby, surrounded by the quiet shuffle of students pretending their lives weren't unraveling.
Jules sat beside me, legs crossed, textbook open, but not really reading.
"Hey," she said after a long pause. "You okay?"
I didn't answer.
She closed the book. "You don't have to talk to me. But just so you know… you're not crazy."
I looked at her.
She leaned in, voice low.
"I was friends with Lila," she said. "We weren't close-close, but she used to come to me when stuff got weird. Said she was being watched. Said her room was searched. Said someone hacked her emails."
"Why didn't you say anything?" I asked, my voice shaking.
"Because after she died, no one wanted to hear it. The school spun the story, and everyone else just… followed along."
I bit the inside of my cheek.
"I don't think she jumped," Jules whispered.
I looked at her.
"She was scared," she continued. "But she was angry too. She wanted to expose them. She said if anything happened to her, it wouldn't be an accident."
I swallowed hard. "And now they're watching me."
Jules nodded. "They already were."
Back in my room, I found the folder from Professor Halvers.
I flipped through it again, scanning the documents on Project PRAXIS.
Most of it was academic — risk profiles, evaluation metrics, reports on "target response variance."
But one page was different.
A list.
Project PRAXIS – Active Monitors
Five names.
The fourth one stopped my heart.
Killian Vale – Level 2 Embedded Observer.
I read it three times.
I wanted it to be fake. Forged. Mislabeled.
But it was real.
He was one of them.
The knock came at 2:11 a.m.
Soft. Measured.
I didn't answer.
Then the voice came through the door.
"Zara. Please. Open the door."
Killian.
I stood still.
Frozen.
"I know what you found," he said. "And I can explain."
I opened the door slowly, the chain still locked.
"You lied to me," I said.
"I didn't lie," he said. "I left things out."
I held up the page. "Embedded observer."
He didn't flinch.
"I joined Project PRAXIS two years ago. But not the way you think."
I narrowed my eyes.
"They recruited me after Lila died. Told me they needed someone on the inside. Someone who could track behavior. Report anomalies."
"And you agreed."
"I agreed," he said, "because I thought I could protect the next Lila."
Silence.
"And what about me?" I asked. "Have you been reporting on me this whole time?"
"No."
"Then why is my file full of timestamps that match when we were together?"
His expression cracked.
Because the answer was there.
Hanging between us.
He had watched me.
He had written it down.
Even if he'd cared.
"I wanted to stop," he said. "But once you're in, there's no out."
I looked at him like I was seeing him for the first time.
Because maybe I was.
"Then help me take them down," I whispered.
His eyes met mine.
And this time, I saw it.
Fear.
Real. Human. Desperate.
"I'll help you," he said.
"But we won't both survive it."
[Creator's Note – betrayal? trust? revenge?? 🥀]
WHEW. That chapter was a whole storm of pain.
Zara finally finds out Killian was part of Project PRAXIS all along — but does that mean he's guilty? Or just another broken piece of a bigger, darker system?
We're diving deeper into the psychological warfare of Blackmere — and no one's safe.
What do YOU think?
Should Zara trust him? Should she walk away?
Or is it too late for either of them?
See you in Chapter 9, besties — where things start falling apart faster than they can hold it together 💔
xoxo
–Smith_10