(Olivia’s POV)

The morning sun streamed through the windows, casting long shadows across the polished floor. I stood by the window, watching as a sleek ck car pulled into the Kane Estate’s circr driveway.

My heart clenched. I would recognize that vehicle anywhere.

Theodore.

“He’s here,” I said quietly, more to myself than to Martha, who was arranging fresh flowers nearby.

Martha paused, concern etching her features. “Shall I call for Beta Tristan, Luna?”

I shook my head. “No. I need to face him alone.”

This confrontation had been inevitable. Tomorrow was Matthew’s coronation ceremony—the official recognition of his status as Alpha King.

The leader—the one with dark brown hair and piercing brown eyes—suddenly looked straight at me.

Our eyes locked.

And for a split second, I could have sworn his eyes glowed yellow—not a soft, warm glow, but a fierce, almost predatory intensity.

Then, just as quickly, he tore his gaze away and followed his crew out the door like nothing had happened.

I sat there, frozen, my mind racing.

Okay. Maybe it was just a trick of the light… right?

Maybe I was overthinking things.

Maybe I was just tired from wearing this damn disguise.

Or maybe—just maybe—I had no fucking clue what I had just walked into.

Screw the snooping for now.

I needed to look into this school’s history—and probably the whole damn town—because things were getting seriously creepy.

Gathering my stuff, I walked out, realizing I was the only one left in the ssroom.

The corridors were buzzing with students. Some were rushing to their next ss, while others were engaged in full-blown PDA in the corners—like they couldn’t wait to get a damn room.

Seriously? Right here? In the hallway?

But the weirdest part? Nobody seemed to care.

No disgusted nces. No professors telling them to knock it off. Just… like this was normal.

Yeah. Definitely weird.

Speaking of rooms, I needed to check out the ce I rented online. My stuff had already been delivered, but I hadn’t actually seen the ce yet.

Why? Because the first thing I did afternding at the airport this morning wasn’t getting settled—it wasing straight to this damn school.

The ce that destroyed my twin.

And yes, I had forged every single document to get here.

New name. New identity. Even a fake passport.

As long as I was in this town, I wasn’t ire Morgan.

I was use Matthews.

I followed the less rushed crowd, assuming they were heading toward the exit.

Because, let’s be real, if I tried to figure it out myself, I’d probably end up in another creepy-ass hallway with flickering lights and ghost boys appearing out of nowhere.

No thanks.

The students around me were chatting,ughing, acting normal—or at least, normal for them.

But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off about all of them.

The way some of them moved too smoothly, like they were floating instead of walking.

The way a few of them would turn their heads too sharply, as if they heard something the rest of us couldn’t.

And most of all, the way nobody seemed the least bit concerned about the guy who had vanished into thin air just minutes ago.

This school?

Creepy as hell.

And I had a feeling I was just scratching the surface.

So yeah, thankfully, I had followed the right crowd because after what felt like a damn maze of twists and turns, I finally found myself staring at the exit door.

Finally.

But—of course—just before I could step out, something mmed into me.

Hard.

Too fast to see. Too strong to be normal.

I hit the floor with a grunt, cursing under my breath.

“Stupid bastard—” I started, only to look up and find myself staring at yet another pale-ass bimbo ring down at me like I had personally offended her entire bloodline.

Oh, great. The ghost guy went and called his fucking sister on me.

That was my first thought when I saw the sharp, menacing look on her face.

And just like before, everyone around us froze.

No one offered to help.

No one asked if I was okay.

They just… stood there. Watching.

Fantastic.

And as much as I wanted to knock the hell out of her for literally body-mming me into the floor, I couldn’t.

Because, duh, I was disguised as a guy.

And if I so much as shoved her, it would look like I was the kind of dude who beats up weak girls.

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“You’re lucky you’re a girl,” I muttered, pushing myself up from the damn floor.

The pale bimbo justughed—not a normalugh, but a mocking, chilling one that made my skin crawl.

“You better know your ce, blood bag,” she sneered.

And then—poof.

Gone.

No, not gone—blurred.

This time, I saw it.

She didn’t just disappear.

She moved too fast—so fast my eyes couldn’t even keep up.

And suddenly, everything clicked.

The ghost guy didn’t actually vanish earlier. He was just walking at a speed my human eyes couldn’t register.

And that wasn’t even the real dilemma.

No, the real problem was what she had just called me.

Blood bag.

Someone please tell me this isn’t what I think it is.

Let’s just say this was the “prank-the-new-kid” trick, right?

Schools did stupid initiation crap like this all the time.

And blood bag? That was just some trendy insult around here.

New ce, new insults. Totally normal… right?

But what wasn’t normal was how the other students just kept going like nothing freaking happened.

Not one gasp. Not one whisper.

Just… business as usual.

Wow. Like it was an everyday urrence.

I cursed under my breath—again—because of this stupid disguise.

If I wasn’t pretending to be a guy, I would’vended a solid punch on that pale bimbo, whatever the hell she was.

That was one thing my twin and I didn’t have inmon.

rk would’ve apologized, kept his head down. But me?

Nope. I would’ve swung first, asked questionster.

But, noooo, I had to be “use the new boy” and keep my temper in check.

Fucking great.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I walked out of the stupid-ass castle of a school.

That’s when I saw them—at the corner of the building.

A guy leaning in close to a girl.

And the girl?

She looked oddly familiar.

Like… Sara?

I didn’t look too long, though.

They seemed to be making out, and I wasn’t about to getbeled some creepy voyeur on my first day.

I had enough problems already.

As I kept walking, I suddenly heard my name.

“use!”

I turned around, and—yep—Sara.

She was the only one who knew my name, after all.

Guess she had finished her little make-out session because now she was sprinting toward me like her life depended on it.

I sighed and waited up for her.

By the time she finally caught up, she was breathing so hard you’d think she just ran a damn marathon.

Good lord, this girl needed to do some cardio.

But wait—

Her neck had some weird-ass puncture marks.

At first, when I hadn’t seen them clearly, I thought it was just a hickey.

But when I really looked…

Two small, precise marks.

Like mosquito bites, except way too even, way too deep.

Sara noticed me staring and immediately frowned, adjusting her scarf to hide the marks from my sight.

Yeah.

Not suspicious at all.

Okay, she was naming people I didn’t know, but from the way she said Reed’s gang, I knew she meant the backseat group from ss.

And ze… yeah, I was highly suspecting she meant the ghost guy.

“What’s the deal with the pale dude? Did you see what I saw?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

Sara visibly tensed, looking around again like she expected someone to jump out of the shadows.

“That’s ze,” she muttered. “Don’t get on his bad side.”

I arched a brow.

“And why’s that?”

She swallowed, stepping a little closer to me, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Because bad things happen here. And it’d be a shame for a cute guy like you… to end up like that.”