My Charlotte Hates Me

Chapter 12: My Fault

The blood trail seemed to end off in the middle of the hall with nowhere to go.

If they were injured and had someone chasing after them, they would want to hide their tracks and hide somewhere safe first.

They could try to throw Noel off by going backwards to cover up their tracks, or were these trails of blood purposely placed so that it would make anyone think that they had gone backwards?

I continued going forward and checking the rooms one by one.

I was about to go to the infirmary but thought that might be a room that was too obvious to hide in.

I then brought myself to the Science Room. The main door was locked as usual. I then went into the adjacent classroom and found the connecting side door. I ran my hands on the top rim of the door frame and found a small key that I then used to unlock the door.

"...Grace? Jane?" I said quietly.

"...Lady Charlotte?" Grace said as her head popped out from one of the tables.

"Grace!" I said as I rushed to hug her.

"Lady Charlotte, what are you doing here?" Grace asked as I released her.

She had cuts all over her uniform and body. More than anything, her profusely bleeding arm bothered me much more. Jane had been sitting upright with a bloody handkerchief wrapped around her thigh.

I quickly ran to get the first-aid kit and came back to help wrap their injuries up starting with Jane's leg and then Grace's arm.

"I came here to help...What happened in the Art Room?" I asked.

"...We were attacked," Jane answered.

"By who?" I asked.

"...I was working on one of my paintings with Jane. We were the last two and were about to lock up and leave until three unknown men came into the classroom. For unknown reasons, they tried to attack us. We fought them off with some paint we had on hand, but you can see how miserable we look right now," Grace explained.

"...No, you did well in protecting yourselves," I said.

"Do you mind me asking how you found us?" Grace asked.

"When I asked around, the girls in our dorm said that you two had not yet returned even after spending such a long time in the classroom. I thought it was strange, and found the Art Room covered in a red mess and all of the desks turned over," I said.

"...That was because the bucket of red paint next to us," Grace said with an awkward smile.

"Right! It was amazing when Grace threw the bucket at them and splattered paint at them," Jane said cheerfully. She soon grunted in pain after laughing heartily. "I think I laughed...a bit too hard."

"...It is my fault. They were holding weapons. If only I had dodged in time, Jane would not have had gotten in the way and got injured," Grace said regretfully.

"It is only a scratch, Dummy," Jane said.

"Jane..."

"I am surprised that you found us, Lady Charlotte," Jane said.

"I assumed that there was a confrontation, so I went to get help from the Teacher's Lounge, but found no one there," I said.

"Even if there was a holiday coming up, I found it a bit strange for no one to be left in the school. I thought that maybe at least one or two teachers, or maybe even the janitor, to be left in school," Grace said. "For better or worse...Lady Charlotte ended up being stuck with us."

It is all my fault...

"We cannot stay here forever. The two of you are going to bleed out before someone finds us," I said.

"...How do we get out of this situation?" Grace asked.

"We escape with either all of us, two of us, or only one..."

Grace grabbed me by my sleeve.

"You are intending to sacrifice yourself so that we can escape, aren't you? Lady Charlotte?" Grace asked with a frantic tone.

Her arm was already bleeding through her bandages.

"We will have a better chance apart," I said as I tried to get her to release her grip before she invigorated her wound even more. "Just worry for yourselves for now."

"...Of course I will worry for you. You are our friend after all," Grace said.

"I am...your friend?" I asked in surprise.

"I would like to think so," Grace said with a bright smile.

I just feel more guilty when she gives me a look like that...

I shook her off.

"Will you continue to think that even...if I was the one who put you in this predicament in the first place?" I asked with a forced smile on my face.

"What do you mean?" Grace asked.

"...Had you not wondered why I came looking for you two today of all days? It was because I knew that something bad was going to happen to you two. It is all my fault," I said.

"How is it your fault?" Grace asked.

"All of this is happening because I chose to spend time after school with you two the other day...It upset the girl always accompanying me, Noel Lowell. Just before she had those men attack you two, she locked me in a classroom and told me what she was planning to do to you two," I explained.

"I take back what I said about Lady Charlotte," Jane said.

"...As you should," I said acceptingly.

"Hoping that one day I become nearly as pretty as Lady Charlotte sounds like it will accompany trouble later on," Jane said.

"Lady Charlotte has to experience difficult things because of the people she subconsciously draws to herself...Extremely beautiful people have their own set of difficulties," Grace said.

"I just explained to you two about how everything happening is my fault!" I said.

"...It isn't...none of this is your fault. If we should blame anyone, it is Lady Lowell's obsession towards Lady Charlotte. You are not at fault at all," Grace said.

"...If you wanted to hurt us, it would be more effective if you would have just said that you hated us," Jane said.

"It is already too late since we now declare Lady Charlotte as our good friend," Grace said boldly.

"...You two...are such stubborn people," I said as my eyes started to tear up.

"It turns out that Lady Charlotte is a softy at heart as well," Grace said as she patted my eyes with her handkerchief. "Let's get out of this nonsense together."

I nodded my head in agreement.

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