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❝THE WINDOWS WERE BLEEDING CRIMSON, MAN-EATER RUBY, LADY DANGER
September was mischievous Saint Jude girls prowling like lionesses in such a bewitched hour, wretched glass panes smeared by bloodrose kisses before aurora, and lethargic Rosenthal boys slamming expensive car doors on opening day.
September was also Imogen Seung celebrating her seventeenth birthday outside of the Head Mistress' office, newly-formed blisters hissing with every impatient tap of her foot, cursing her pristine, opening day loafers as well as the wicked Kerani Rai under her breath. She was down to what she thought was her eighteenth swear word before the ridiculously heavy oak door's obnoxious groaning resounded throughout Agatha Hall, Imogen flinched but Kerani stood perfectly unbothered in all her towering sungod-blessed glory, smiling like a wildcat.
"We have exactly four minutes and forty-three seconds before Rosenthal opening day," Kerani declared ebulliently as if she was not just being mercilessly chastised moments ago by the bitter middle-aged woman seething from the other side of the lumbered doorway. Already tugging Imogen by the extended sleeve of her scratchy polo shirt, Kerani proceeded to drag Imogen through the mortar-carved hallways, her lighthearted chatter bouncing off of every solid wall of ancient cement isolating the corridors.
Kerani was ethereal with silver linings basking the gold of her face, the laughter in her eyes—youth in its most mischievous form. Imogen's too-dark hair slipped from its neat ponytail at some point during their sprint to the front gardens—most of it had completely snaked down the sides of her face like silky spiderwebs by the time they joined the giddy throng of schoolgirls at the academe's main entrance, she tried to pry the annoying dark pieces off her itching cheeks but Kerani had already decided to drag her through to the front lines of the crowd.
Vehicles cruised by endlessly from the other side of the road upfront, it would only take a few minutes before the nuns came to shoo the girls away to their morning classes, yet everyone held their breaths, anticipating—waiting for that particularly striking blue Bentley. Imogen caught herself delaying her breathing too when it finally did. Windows down and ruffled as ever was Ambrose Sinclair, one hand on the wheel as he passed the neighbouring gates of Saint Jude. He glanced the girls' way once. Imogen sucked in the air around her. Shockingly paler than he had been when she saw him last, yet the red still bit at his cheeks and the green of his eyes still stung. She was halfway through processing that he may have have been looking straight at her but to her left, Geraldine Parrish was already squealing about how she had caught Ambrose Sinclair's eye.
The Bentley reached the expanding driveway of Rosenthal and the moment was lost. The girls eventually dispersed, running off to suffer through their daily errands. Imogen unbound her wretched ponytail and retied it neatly as she walked Kerani to her 7 AM lecture in the old building located at the far west side of the campus. The girl had yet to utter a single word since they retreated from the main gates, which was more than unusual for someone like Kerani.
"Do you . . ." Imogen was about to start when her phone's shrill ringing tore through the leather of her sling bag, she grabbed ahold of her phone almost immediately. Mara. Thanking the lord that she reorganized the contents of her satchel last night and didn't have to waste a second of her older sister's time if she'd have to fish for her phone, she answered the call. Kerani looked to her in curiousity and Imogen shrugged in response. "Eonni?"
"Imogen, listen to me." Mara's voice filtered through, panic pitching each syllable a tone higher. Imogen's heartbeat picked up at the sound of it, this was far too foreign from the usual calm in her older sister's voice. She hadn't seen her all summer, Mara had insisted on staying with their father in Indiana until the second semester of her university began. "Do not step out of the campus until the next few months. Are you listening?" Imogen's eyebrows knotted in confusion, her voice failed to reciprocate. "A boy in Rosenthal—hailing from the Sinclairs, do you know him?" Her stomach turned.
"Ye . . yes, I think so?" The sweat at back of her neck was cold, Kerani pressed her ear against the back of Imogen's phone, trying to listen in.
"Find a way to contact him, tell him it is time to pay back what he owes father, but do not step out of the school's boundaries."
"Eonni, wait, what are you going on about?"
"I know none of this is making sense but you need to do exactly as I say, we do not have the luxury of asking questions right now." There's a pause in the other end, a muffled voice in the background said something but she was barely able to pull apart the words before Mara's voice filled her reddening ear once more."I'll call again in a few days. I promise we'll come for you soon."
