Let's Kill Her (Book #1)

(ﾒ￣▽￣)︻┳═一(10)

My eyes snap out at the sound of my bedroom door creaking. I sit up so fast that Sohee looks startled as she enters my room. Her hair is tucked under her bonnet and she carries pressed clothes on hangers.

"Good morning," she says cheerfully.

"Hi," I say with a voice so rough from crying that it makes that simple word feel wrong and foreign. I'm sweating event hough it's chilly and I'm not sure that I slept for more than a few disturbed minutes at a time.

Sejeong bustles into my room and when she sees me she laughs. "Trouble sleeping again? You look terrible. Don't worry; you'll adjust just to the bed soon enough."

I blink at her. Who is this friendly creature who took over Sejeong's body?

"You can put the clothes anywhere you like, Sohee," Sejeong says with an implied "and then you can leave" after it.

Sohee lays the fresh outfit over the trunk and looks at me like I'm puzzle that needs solving. She barely takes notice of Sejeong. "Breakfast is laid out in your sitting room. The word is that they're cleaning the dining hall. But if you ask me -"

"Lovely. Thank you," Sejeong says before she can continue.

Disappointment shows on Sohee's face when Sejeong doesn't ask any follow-up questions. Normally I would give her a big "Thank you" and tell her how much I appreciate everything, but I have no enthusiasm to offer this morning. All I can think about is Taehyung's cold neck below my fingers and his blood-covered chest. Sohee does a quick curtsy and leaves.

The moment our suite door closes, the friendly expression drops from Sejeong's face. "You might as well walk around with a guilty sign on your back if you're going to act this emotional. Did you imagine that they weren't going to question our maids about our behavior?" Disgust flashes in her eyes and she walks out fo my bedroom.

I throw back my covers and follow her to the table near the window in the living room, which is laid out with cloth napkins and fragile-looking china. "I wasn't expecting -"

"I don't care what you were expecting," she says, and sits down, placing a napkin on her lap. "There is already a bull's eye on both our backs."

I sit down, too, trying to reconcile the horrifying reality that I found a dead body last night with Sejeong's expectation that I act like nothing happened. "If we're supposed to be acting normal, then why did you say I look terrible in front of Sohee?"

Sejeong looks up from her eggs and frowns. "Because by calling it out, I instantly normalized it. I made her read your demeanor as nothing more than a bad night's sleep on a lumpy mattress. And by smiling, I sent the impression that I approve of you. Sohee knows that I'm discerning, that I wouldn't accept you if you weren't trustworthy." She pauses and levels a look at me. "Seriously, what's wrong with you? This is first-year deception." Her upset and anger from last night have been replaced with her usual cool demeanor.

I poke at the rice on my plate, trying to muster an appetite. I have no idea how to process the events of the past few days. Saying I'm freaked out doesn't even begin to cover it.

All night long I've been replaying the moment when Sehun told me to take that hallway. And I can't ignore the fact that Taehyung's had a knife sticking out of his chest when Rose and Sehun had just talked about a missing knife at lunch. She even accused him of stealing it. Not that I would put it past Rose to lie about the knife for exactly this reason.

"The dining room is being cleaned -" I say.

"They don't want to give us an opportunity to talk in a group. They're probably trying to see who searches out who," Sejeong says, and takes a bite of rice and egg.