Who Killed Grace

Chapter 1

Max | Before

It doesn't take long for me to stop thinking of her as Grace and start thinking of her as Grace's body. 

Grace's body is laid out on a long table in the Assembly Hall, flat on her back. She looks exactly as she had on the beach when we had found her about four hours ago. Back when she was Grace and not Grace's body. 

She had been lying half in the sea and half out. Her hair was swaying in the water as the waves lapped around her. Sand clung to her damp legs, something she would never have allowed. She was always the image of perfection, like a model in a glossy magazine. She was on her front but her head was tilted to one side, her lips tinged an unnatural blue.

It had taken me only a second to realise what had happened. She had drowned. Grace, the star swimmer who had taught me to swim when we were five, had drowned. 

Everyone else who had been there is asleep now. Only I had refused to go to sleep, not wanting the image of Grace's tangled hair and pale skin and blue lips and twisted limbs haunting my nightmares, burning an unforgettable picture into my mind. 

So I sit here, on the table with Grace's body with my head bowed. Maybe someone else would hold her hand. Carlos would. So would the twins. They would say some sort of prayer so her journey to the next life or whatever is peaceful. But having her soaked, slender body in my arms as her heart finally beat for one last time was the last time I will ever touch her. 

"Oh, Grace," I whisper. "What have we done?"

Her body is drier now, but the police hadn't wanted anyone to dry her with a towel properly. Around her was a Grace sized outline of salty water from the wild sea of Cornwall. At first, I had compared her to a saint in one of those paintings. Now I see how wrong I was. 

Those saints have torn up bodies, but perfect faces. Peaceful faces. Grace doesn't look peaceful. She looks like she's scared. 

Those saints have calm eyes. Before Kaci closed her eyes, Grace's had been wide and blue and terrified. 

Those saints weren't fifteen year old girls who died far too soon. 

I lift my head to see Grace's parents walking into the hall. 

"Max," Mr Covey breathes, walking quickly towards me. 

Mr Covey's raven black hair- so different to Grace's- is tousled like he's come straight from bed. I can see the pyjama top collar peeking out from above his black trench coat and how his trousers are pinstriped navy- abad match. The phone call must've startled him. Mrs Covey is right behind him, face already streaked with tears and her eyes bloodshot. 

"She's really gone?" Mrs Covey hiccups. "Really?"

She sounds like a small child asking their mother if the toys were really sold out at the shop. Holding onto a small shred of hope. 

"Carlos did CPR," I mumbles. "Guy passed every Red Cross course there is. But she was already nearly gone when we found her." 

I stumble towards the woman and pull her into an uneasy hug. I have known her since I was a baby, but physical contact has never been a strength of mine. Or Grace's, for that matter. Mrs Covey clings to me, sobbing uncontrollably. 

Mr Covey is worse. He sits on the table just like I had, touching Grace's cold hand. 

"Gracie?" Mr Covey's voice is hollow. "Gracie, it's Daddy. I wanted you to hang on, Gracie. Hang on until we get here and you fo up to the angels. You're my angel, Grace. My gorgeous, graceful angel." 

"Mr Covey-" I begun. 

His voice cracks. "My Gracie didn't even make it to sixteen. So much ahead of her." 

"What's that?" Mrs Covey asks suddenly, pushing Grace's damp hair back. 

Creeping over her shoulder, onto her collarbone, is a black stroke of ink. I feel my throat tighten as Mrs Covey gently turns her daughter over and pushes her shirt up. She makes a sound like a kicked puppy while Mr Covey draws in a sharp breath. I close my eyes for a second, trying to block out the memory of seeing it for the first time. 

On Grace's back is an elaborate inking of a raven, pitch black against her pale skin. The symbol of death at Rosewood Hall. 

Violet | After

I might be able to drown in all this rain. 

It taps relentlessly on the windows and the sound makes me cringe though nobody else seems to be bothered. Nobody else in this hall seems to be bothered by the thundering rain or the fact that everyone is tracking water and mud into the hall. They're used to it. But I see rain so rarely that it's shocking to see so much so fast. 

I've been sat here for about half an hour where the teacher told me to, ignored by everyone else. Younger kids are brought in by exhausted looking teachers and older kids, older students stroll in and yell to their friends. Even the youngest class have already made alliances— the girls with the shiniest shoes and the most innocent looks are trailed by several wannabes. It's the same with the boys, except they value different things in their role model. 

"Hi," a voice says suddenly to my left. "So sorry for leaving you here for so long. Vivienne just happened to lose the goddamn list."

The voice belongs to a boy with spiky black hair and dark skin. His eyes are a warm, friendly brown and his mouth is curved up in a smile. A striped yellow and black pencil is tucked behind his ear. He has that warm-hearted vibe to him— beautiful. 

"It's okay," I reply. "So you found the list?"

"Yeah we did," he says. "Come with me. Sorry about the rain. We usually have decent weather compared to most of England. Where are you from? I'm getting Cali vibes from you so I'm going to take a wild guess and say San Francisco."

"Close," I laugh. "San Diego." 

"This is the Year Eleven table. You're in Year Eleven, right?" Zeph asks. "That's sophomore year in the US."

"Yeah, I'm a sophomore," I agree. 

"Nice. I'm Zeph, by the way. Zeph Kebran. I'm in Year Eleven, I chose Spanish over French, I have a twin sister called Kaci and two best friends called Max and Carlos." Zeph's voice is fast and energetic. 

"He also has a complete collection of Mr Men books and an umbrella permanently in his bag," a voice drawls from the Year Eleven table. "What? You were telling her such random facts and I wanted to give my wise, distinguished input."

He has his feet up on the table and is leaning back in his chair with a lazy smile on his face. I'm suddenly reminded of those extremely unrealistic love interests in teen fiction novels, but more plausible I guess? Good looking, but not so good looking that it's impossible. Golden brown hair and dark eyes fringed with lashes a girl would kill for. 

"This is Carlos Salvatore," Zeph tells me. 

"Not related to the Salvatore brothers," Carlos adds. "People ask, you know. Kind of stupid considering that they are a figment of someone's imagination projected onto television screens across the world for teenage girls to obsess over."

"Carlos!" Zeph hisses. "Just give her the dorm assignment. Her name is.... what's your name? God, I feel so rude."

"It's okay. I'm Violet Radford."

Carlos lifts a sheet of paper to his eyes and scans it for my name. "That can't be right," he mutters. 

"What? Give it here." Zeph takes the paper. "But she said...."

"She lied," he says angrily. "She fucking lied to us. Nobody can sleep in Room Thirteen except Kace. It was her—" He breaks off suddenly when he remembers that I'm there. 

"Just so you know, I don't have a problem with the number thirteen," I blurt out. "I don't believe in all that bad luck stuff or those superstitions. The world's not going to end just 'cause I look into a cracked mirror." 

It's lies. All lies. I was born on Friday the thirteenth which— obviously— makes me weird. I can see things that others can't. Hear things nobody else can. And I can feel death. Like now. This school reeks of death, violent death of people taken far too soon by unspeakable means. 

"We can't make her sleep in the hall!" Zeph protests. 

"Who's sleeping in the hall?" someone asks behind us. "Can't be very comfortable." 

She's the spitting image of Zeph with the same dark skin and soft brown eyes. Like her brother, she has a ready smile but it's hesitant as of now. 

"No one," Zeph says hurriedly. "This is Violet. They've put her in Thirteen with you, Kaci." 

"They did what now?" Kaci almost shrieks. She turns to me. "No offence. I'm sure you're great. It's just that I was promised no roommate this term." 

"It's fine," I tell her. "If someone promised you, they shouldn't just bail on it." 

"Mr G!" Carlos calls, taking his feet off the table and straightening his tie. 

"Salvatore!" a man with honey gold hair calls back, making his way over. "Everything alright over here?" 

"They've put Violet in Room Thirteen with Kaci," Zeph explains. "But we aren't sure what—"

"She goes to the room she was assigned to," the teacher replies quickly. "It's the only place to put her. End of discussion." 

He walks off before Carlos, Zeph and Kaci even have a chance to protest. Zeph and Kaci stare at each other, eyes wide and mouths gaping while Carlos begins to furiously mutter in what I think is Italian. 

"We should shun him," Zeph mumbles. "He deserves to be shunned." 

"You know what? No," Kaci answers. "We're gonna do what The Man wants and light the school on fire when a Benefactor visits."

"We've resorted to arson," Carlos says slowly, amused. "I like it." 

I freeze upon hearing the word. It's an ugly word— easy enough to spell, but poison to my ears. That word reminds me of whispered conversations behind closed doors. Of doctors and white corridors. Of Sandwell House. 

But they can't know. They can't know about Sandwell. Nobody back home knows. So how could they know? But the way their gazes flit to me and then each other is making my skin crawl. 

"I'll take you to our room," Kaci says. "Come on." 

She leads me from the rabble of the hall to where the dorms are. I haven't seen much of the school yet, but the parts I have seen have been beautiful. Modern glass entwined with ancient painting and stone walls make it perfectly aesthetic. Aesthetic and cold. It's even colder outside and pouring with rain too as Kaci takes me to a building behind the main school. 

"The Girl Wing is the upstairs of House and it's not really a ring," Kaci explains as we walk. "There's a door connecting to it at the top of the stairs that you have to punch a code into to get in as well as the code to the front door. Don't let any boys or strangers in, okay?" She smirks as she says the last sentence. 

"Let me guess, scandalous hookups are common in dorms," I say drily. "What are the codes?"

""Course they are," she chuckles. "We don't obey these rules when teachers aren't around all the time." She pauses for breath. Eighteen ninety-nine for the front door one and nineteen thirty-seven for the girls' wing one," she replies. "They're dates. One for when Mr Rosewood- the founder- was born and the second for when the school was created. And you can let the boys in on the last day of term to get their suitcases from the attics."

"Very patriotic." 

Her chatter is basically meaningless and I drag my suitcase into the Girls' Wing. Telling me who was dating who, what to eat at breakfast, what teachers would give you detention for talking and which won't. But considering that the last person who talked to me for this long was my therapist, I'm looking at this as a win. 

"What's so wrong with Room Thirteen?" I ask timidly as we arrive in front of the room. "Is it haunted or something?" 

Kaci pales. "Sometimes I forget that not everyone knows what happened. Hell, we don't even know what happened. Not really."

"Kaci?" 

Her head is bowed and through the gaps of her thick hair, I can see her lips moving quickly. 

"Kaci, you okay?" I touch her arm lightly. 

Kaci pulls away from me immediately, almost shuddering from my touch. She lifts her head, fighting back tears. "The last girl who shared this room with me, the last girl who slept in the bed that's going to be yours? She died. She drowned."