After one of the most embarrassing experiences of her life, Viola Hawkins is left feeling hopeless and demoralised. So when she's told that she's able to work as an undercover agent in a boarding school, she's given a new chance to change her life...
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Fear. I've felt it before.
The time I broke my ankle at age four, thinking that it was going to stay like that forever, I felt fear.
The time I was made to speak a speech in front of my class.
The time I had to go to my sister's funeral, knowing that I'd have to speak to people, have to smile through the pain.
The time I saw every eye of my class stare at me, laughing and taunting my embarrassment on the last day at my old school.
The time I first went to Winsor Dalton, as a new person.
But I've never felt fear like this.
No, this fear is different. This fear clenches your heart, squeezing out all the air of your lungs as though it's a sponge ridding of liquid. This fear breaks you, leaves you fragmented, tormented. Abuses you, manipulates you, takes away any sense of sanity. It overrides your brain and controls your body. The very essence of it is embodied in your veins, buried in your blood.
Opening my eyes, my heart is already thudding abnormally. I'm attached to some kind of rope, my arms numb from being held up at shoulder height. My head has lulled downwards, facing the floor, throbbing when I lift it up, allowing myself to focus on my surroundings.
I'm in a dim lit room, although at some point the night turned to day, due to the tiny stretch of light that peeks out through a thin, strip of window near the ceiling. I'm alone, the only sounds that I can hear being my own, sad breath, getting thicker and thicker as I'm yet again reminded of how terrified I am.
The door opens abruptly, footsteps sounding and stopping as it shuts behind whoever has just walked in. "Good. You're awake." The voice says, filling the room.
But it's not the presence of another person that startles me, it's the sound of the voice.
Because I recognise it.
In fact, I know it as soon as it's uttered out of his mouth.
Yates sneers at me when he walks into view, a smug look painted on his face as he leans against the wall. "Didn't guess it, did you?"
I'm too drained to reply.
"I didn't think you would." He spins the gun in his hand round his fingers, whistling as though he has all the time in the world. He probably does, with me locked up in this place. "Man, it was fun to watch you try and get to the bottom of this shit. You were so oblivious. I even dropped some hints a few times."
I choke with anger, watching the man who I trusted so deeply break everything I've tried to do these past few months. "Where the fuck is Will?
He turns to me, tilting his head as he sighs, tutting. "Now, now. That isn't a way to treat your agent, is it Hawkins?" His eyes glint as he steps closer, stroking his cold, bony fingers against my face. "Especially when he has the power to kill you whenever he wants."
