Starry Eyed

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Eight

The moonlight swallows everything but her. She is everything in the room, a cascade of shattering glass and fireworks and stars and I am dying. The world has fallen into place. Still I wish it never had.

"You've done something," I whisper, and she smiles crimson and clover.  

"Of course."

I close my eyes tight, feeling the room start to spin. Even staring at nothing, I know she's still smiling. Standing there in her party dress like she's finally won the title of queen. 

"Well? Did you want me to explain at all, or would you rather wait for the end? I know surprises might sound more fun, but I kind of had my heart set on that big dramatic reveal. Makes things more fun for me."

I open my eyes and force myself to look right at her. Those big, innocent eyes of her have lost their spark. There is no innocence in those pools of green any more.

"Tell me," I whisper. She smirks at me, stepping backwards, slumping down onto a chair beside the balcony. A secret room. A stupid one. Nobody will ever find me here, because this school is a stupid maze underneath it all. She has every part of me perfectly cornered.

"It's been a master plan from the very beginning," she says, and streaks of silver fall in slashes across her face. They make her eyes spark up. Danger perches on the end of her nose. "You could never have known, Luca. I had you captured from day one. Remember? You were lost in the school grounds, staring at the wall like you'd be someday staring at me. So naive, so unaware. I can forgive you for that; it started something far bigger than you and me. I needed that stupid innocence if things were going to work."

"Innocence?" I interrupt, suddenly cold from head to toe. "I was lost. I was never some kind of pet to you, Star."

"Weren't you?" She flicks her hair over her shoulder. Merely hours earlier, I would have seen that movement as something so beautiful, so wondrous. Now it terrifies me. "You've followed me like a little dog ever since then, Luca. You were blind. I'm only doing what's best for you. Opening your eyes tonight. Shall I continue?"

I say nothing. Frozen.

"I've never been sane in any way," Star announces casually. She stares at her painted nails as she talks, like nothing she says is going to be very important. "I've known that all my life. I threw the kitchen knife at my cat once. Stupid thing thought it'd be funny to start up meowing when I was cooking dinner. I missed, which was a right shame. Tore a hole in a cushion sitting on the couch. Which I blamed on the cat in the end, so he got his comeuppance."

"Anyway, that's not important. What's important is that I've hated so many people for all of my life. I told myself one day, I'd give them the fate they deserved. Pay back. And I was too late in the end. Students that used to go to this shit hole upped and left after Finn pulled his string of pranks on the other idiots back then. Half the kids I was ready to get my revenge on escaped before I could catch them." She looks up from her nails to me, wearing a smile laced with death and destruction. "Not this year." 

"Finn got all those assholes before I could. He damn near killed a few of them. Sure, he came close, but close wasn't good enough. Close will never be good enough. I had to up the anti. And I couldn't do it alone."

Everything falls together. Pieces click into place, horrors spilling over my head and seeping into my mind. Blood and bullets explode in front of my eyes. And I can't say a word. Star sees me floundering, catches onto that little thread of weakness and pulls.

"You never should have trusted Finn. Not me, either. Neither of us ever thought one good thing. He was one of my best friends, with a temper as short as the fuse to a bomb. After those pranks he pulled- if you call them pranks as opposed to attempts- I knew he was my biggest ally. We started formulating a plan."