Chapter 10: Playing the victim

Roxanne barely slept.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the photograph again, felt her stomach drop the same way it had the moment the message arrived. Choose carefully. Midnight had come and gone, and nothing had happened.

That should have made her feel better. It didn’t.

She checked her phone first thing, scrolling through an empty inbox, no new messages, no explanation. Maybe Arabella had been bluffing after all.

Then she walked into the main hall and felt it immediately.

A group of students went quiet as she passed. Someone glanced up from their phone, looked at her, then looked away too fast. Another student whispered something behind their hand to a friend beside them.

Her stomach twisted into a knot. She didn’t know if the photos were already out there, spreading through phones and group chats she’d never see.

Isla found her outside the lecture hall, her expression tight with worry. "Have you heard anything from her?"

"No new messages. But people are staring at me."

"That could be about anything," Isla said, though she didn’t sound convinced. "Roxanne, we need to report this. Today."

"I want to talk to her first."

"Absolutely not."

"If I can’t face her alone, then she wins," Roxanne said. "I need her to admit what she’s doing. To my face."

Isla argued for a long moment, but eventually relented, gripping Roxanne’s arm hard enough to hurt. "You come straight back after. If you’re not back in thirty minutes, I’m getting a professor."

Roxanne agreed.

The message from Arabella arrived an hour later. A meeting place, the third floor of one of the older academic buildings, quiet and mostly empty during class hours. She said she wanted to end everything. Delete the photographs. No more threats.

Roxanne didn’t believe a word of it. She went anyway.

The building was eerily quiet compared to the rest of campus, sunlight slanting through tall windows onto empty hallways. Her footsteps echoed on the stairs as she climbed, and with every step her suspicion deepened.

Why here. Why somewhere this isolated.

She almost turned around twice.

Then she reached the top floor and saw Arabella standing at the far end of the corridor, near an open balcony overlooking the courtyard below.

"You came," Arabella said, her voice deceptively calm.

"You threatened me," Roxanne said. "I’m here to hear you say it out loud."

"I wasn’t trying to be cruel."

"Then what were you doing?"

Arabella’s expression flickered. "Protecting myself."

"From what?"

"From you."

Roxanne almost laughed at the absurdity of it. "From me?"

Arabella’s composure cracked, something raw bleeding through. "You’ve always had everything. Dorian. Attention. People caring what happens to you. And now the Moonstones actually notice you, and I’m supposed to just watch that too?"

"You slept with my boyfriend," Roxanne said, disbelief sharpening her voice. "And somehow I’m still the one you’re jealous of?"

Arabella’s face twisted.

"Stay away from them," she snapped. "Dorian. The Moonstones. All of it."

"No."

"I’ll release the photos."

"Do it."

Arabella blinked, thrown.

"I’ve already lost the person I loved," Roxanne said. "My best friend. The life I thought I wanted. You don’t have anything left that can scare me. You don’t get to destroy me twice."

Something in Arabella’s expression shattered completely. "You think you’re so strong now. Playing the victim while everyone falls over themselves to feel sorry for you."

Roxanne turned to leave. "This conversation is over."

Arabella grabbed her wrist, nails digging in hard.

Roxanne wrenched free. "Let go of me."

"Move," Roxanne said, when Arabella stepped into the doorway, blocking her exit.

"No."

Roxanne pushed past her. Arabella caught her arm again, yanking her back, and the confrontation turned physical fast, both of them shoving, gripping, Roxanne’s back hitting the railing before she even registered how close she’d drifted to the edge.

"This ends today," Roxanne said, breathing hard.

"No," Arabella said, eyes wild. "It ends when I say it does."

Roxanne felt the cold metal against her spine and understood, too late, exactly how dangerous her position had become. Three stories down, the courtyard stretched out below, students crossing it obliviously.

"Nobody’s going to choose you," Arabella said, stepping closer. "Dorian chose me. The Moonstones will get bored of you eventually. Everyone always leaves you, Roxanne. That’s just who you are."

Roxanne’s chest ached, but she refused to let the words land.

"You don’t know anything about me anymore," she said quietly.

Arabella’s face contorted, and for one terrifying second, Roxanne saw something in her expression that wasn’t jealousy or hurt.

It was hatred. Pure and undisguised.

Arabella lunged.

Roxanne tried to twist away, but there was nowhere left to go. Arabella’s hands slammed into her shoulders, and the world tilted violently as her balance gave out.

For one suspended second, her fingers caught the railing, knuckles white, her body dangling over open air, legs kicking against nothing.

"Arabella," she gasped, staring up at her.

Arabella stood above her, close enough to help, close enough to pull her back up.

She didn’t move to help.

She looked down at Roxanne with something cold glinting in her eyes.

Then she reached down and pried Roxanne’s fingers off the railing, one by one.

Roxanne’s grip broke.

Her body tipped backward into empty air, and for a moment everything slowed to something unbearable, stretched thin and endless.

She saw the sky, blue and indifferent. She saw the edge of the railing sliding away above her. She saw Arabella’s face, already growing smaller, already disappearing from view.

Her mind flooded with everything at once. Dorian’s bedroom door. The letter crumpling in her fist. Her first morning at the academy, alone with her suitcase. Isla’s laugh. The supermarket, and a hand closing over a bottle at the exact same moment as hers. Four brothers who somehow kept finding her. The promise she’d made to herself the night everything fell apart.

I don’t want to die.

The thought tore through her as her life flashed before her very eyes.

Then gravity took her completely, and the ground rushed up to meet her.