"Couldn't have happened at a worse time, could it? And all I hear is how worried Mama is about me. How Daddy's employed a tutor to help me catch up in the holidays. They've been on the phone since half past five this morning but they don't seem to care about Elena. It's all about me. Am I OK. When poor Elena . . ." Meredith put her hand over her mouth. Elsa scrutinized Anaiis, but she was all sympathy for Meredith. "Well. It can't have sunk it yet. And they'll be do worried about you." "God, yes. Mama had to book herself into a spa for a week. To help with her nerves, you know?"
Anaiis glanced dryly at Elsa as she shepherded Meredith into Herr Bunnymund's classroom. "You need a week in one yourself. Come and sit down, Meredith." She wasn't kidding, thought Elsa as she sat down by Rapunzel. Meredith still looked terrible - gaunt, pale and tired - though not nearly as fragile as the day before; Elena's death must have begun to restore her straight away. Elsa could understand why she needed to get back to normality, why she needed to get out her room. She probably understood Meredith's motives better than Meredith did. Glandular fever and the supposed suicide of a roommate weren't all she needed to escape.
Herr Bunnymund coughed, silencing the subdued murmur of the students, and got straight to the point. "You are all aware by now of the terrible tragedy that occurred last night." He was pale too, quite drained and shocked. "You won't be surprised to learn that classes are cancelled for today and tomorrow."They all listened in silence, even the Few. Elsa had already noticed Jack was missing. Again? This time, Caroline was too. She stared out of the window, Herr Bunnymund's voice fading to a murmur. She couldn't concentrate; there were too many questions, too many half-remembered conversations starting to fit together.
Why, for example, was Jack such a special case? He seemed to treat the school as his personal fiefdom, even more than the rest of the Few, to act as if classes were for lesser mortals. Somehow it didn't fit that Jess had been his girlfriend. If Jess was anything like Flynn, Elsa couldn't imagine her and Jack together. It would be as weird as picturing herself and Jack . . . Her spine chilled. She looked like Jess: everyone said so. The way you make you fell . . . I can't accept it, Elizabeth. What did that mean? He couldn't accept it, because he'd been in love with Jess? Or because he'd killed her?
Jack had warned Elsa off. Jack didn't want her in the Few, when even the bitchy Caroline was willing to accept her. What made him dislike her so much? Guilty conscience? Jess had gone in the night to Angkor Wat, and she'd never been seen alive again. What must it have been like for her, alone and scared in the jungle darkness? Hearing the soft approach, a killer drawing closer in the night . . .
He found Jess's body.
YOU ARE READING
Black Academy
Fanfiction'TRUE GRADUATES OF THE BLACK ACADEMY TAKE LIFE BY THE THROAT, ELSA. REMEMBER THAT!' The Black Academy is a school like no other. An élite establishment that moves to a new exotic city every term, its students are possibly beautiful, sophisticated...
