This is power. This is living. I regard my prey slowly. His fear stinks like skunk piss. His aura is black and cowardly. Was that how I smelled back when I thought fear was useful? "Lady. Lady? I get what I did wrong, okay? Je tres desole!" Hmm..now that's fear. The one that slips the mind into a native state of beg to live. Pathetic and ineffective. My next actions were avoidable but necessary. All those supernatural books lied. Blood is warm, but more greasy and bitter like almost expired milk rather than metallic. There was the fire i I loved. The kind that comes when a chunk of your palm is being spat to the floor by someone you tried to control. "Raphael, for your life guess who said this, and I won't kill you. On my honor. Ladies know what to guard against because they read novels to warn them against these tricks."
"Tess of the d'urbervilles, Hardy."
"You cheated."
"No, on my honor!"
"You have no honor."
*
"Sorry. But a Lady always knows when to leave." I coo to the corpse.
When Jane Madarang's neighbor Natalie kills herself and leaves behind cryptic instructions, it's up to Jane and her classmates to unearth deadly secrets.
*****
Natalie Driscoll is dead.
She threw herself out a window and left her neighbor Jane to unravel their town's darkest secrets. Following Natalie's instructions leads Jane to three other high school students who all have something to hide. The four of them must carry out Natalie's final errand while solving the mysteries written in her diary. But the secrets they unearth may be far more dangerous than what they ever imagined.
Content and/or trigger warning: This story contains scenes of suicide, violence and murder that may be triggering for some readers.
[[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]