School of the Crown Assassins

22

My entire body was sore. Injury Training, where they injured us on purpose and threw us into fights to make us get used to it, was even worse when you were an Alpha. The teachers spun a Wheel of Injuries which contained anything between a dislocated arm to the injured torso.

Naturally, I got stabbed in the stomach and was thrown into a match with Arielle who received a broken knee cap. Her injury paled in comparison to mine and her main area expertise was with her hands and blades, but she didn't seem quite as used to fighting with an injury. I, who had been defeated by all kinds of people before becoming an Alpha only four months ago, was accustomed to fighting through severe injuries. It had taken some time, effort, and more injuries, but I finally pinned Arielle down.

The loss caused her to be distant than she already was after the things she slipped about her father. The breakfast took place two months ago and I still couldn't piece together any of it. All I knew was that the Crown Fortier was an ass and he was part of the reason my mother tried to kill me.

Not to mention there was only a month left of school. The clock was winding down and I still had no idea why the Crown's killed her and how to get my revenge. So I spent hours pouring through the library files trying to find anything Echo might've found, but a creeping suspicion told me the answer was closer than I thought.

What if whatever Echo had found was related to my mother's murder attempt? It was a long shot, but Echo knew that what she found was dangerous information—it said that much in the note—so she why would she risk telling me? There has to be some connection, and even if there wasn't, whatever happened between my mother and the Crown Fortier has to be enough to at least diminish his rule.

I tried sending letters to her in prison, ones that I had coded to the best of my ability, but I got no response. I wasn't expecting anything more, but I had a small hope she would prove me wrong. I guess not.

To make matters worse, the school killer had been making process. They killed nearly five other students, each with higher status and power than the last. The most recent one was the most devastating. Just two weeks ago, Trinity Vega, who had taken rank seven in Axe and my's wake, was found dead with a slit throat in the middle of the training field. The murder took place at night and her body was found in the morning. The message painted near her body in her own blood was the same as the rest: The hierarchy will fall.

The killer's next target would be one of the Alphas, there was no doubt about it. The question is, which one? I knew the Crowns probably deserved to die and I wouldn't stop the killer if he went for them, but I was an Alpha too. If our predictions were correct, then the killer would kill a regular Alpha member first before taking on a Royal or Crown. That meant Axe, Nydia, and I. I didn't like any of those options.

And I wanted to make sure justice for Echo was served before the Crowns died. I couldn't do that if I was dead before then as well. And, in trying to get revenge against the Crowns, I had made myself a prime target since the killer didn't know that I was working against the Crowns behind their backs. I was royally screwed.

Groaning, I stood from the bench and stretched. I had been in the library for hours already today, wasting away my post-mission free day. Yesterday's mission was a school-administered one and was pretty easy, which meant I wasn't too exhausted and I could get some work done. Unfortunately, the work I had done seemed pointless. I felt no closer to finding out what Echo had or my mother's motives.

Deciding to take a quick break, I shoved all of the files I had been looking at into a hiding spot and walked out. I had no idea where Axe and Xavier were, though I found Nydia brewing up a desert in the kitchen and I knew Arielle was in the suite's training room. Wanting to get some fresh air, I made my way to the balcony to find Damien standing against the railing.