Chapter 5 Class 1.1: Digital Sanitation

Morning at the Sanctum doesn’t begin with a gentle alarm. It starts with a sharp, electronic screech echoing from every speaker in the West Wing.

Exactly 5:00 AM. Within ten minutes, you are expected to be finished in the bathroom, dressed in the charcoal-gray training uniform, and lined up in the center of the corridor. Here, time is not a personal possession; it belongs to the system.

“Move! We don’t have all day for your vanity!” Tess barked as she paced before us, the rhythmic tap of her silver cane punctuating her steps.

I walked with the others, my face a carefully crafted mask of indifference. Beside me, Lulu was visibly trembling, her lack of sleep written in the dark circles under her eyes. Ahead of us, Dominique (Rank 1) strode as if she were on a Parisian catwalk, her head held high, pointedly ignoring the “low-rank” girls trailing in her wake.

They led us to the Neural Hub, a high-tech sanctuary filled with sleek, white workstations. At the front of the room sat a woman in an oversized hoodie and thick glasses. She looked entirely out of place in this world of lethal elegance, but the way her fingers danced across the keyboard proved she was the one truly in control here.

“I am Bambi,” she said without looking up. “And this is Class 1.1: Digital Sanitization. Today, we kill your ghosts.”

She stood, her eyes sharp behind her lenses. “To be a Mistress is to be a person without a past. If a client can Google your real name, if they can find a photo of you from ten years ago, you are a liability. You are a vulnerability. Today, you will scrub your digital footprint until nothing remains but the alias we gave you.”

We took our designated stations. As I scanned my fingerprint, a virtual screen flickered to life before me. I froze.

Bambi had already done the heavy lifting. Before me was a cloud-based folder recovered from the dark web and forgotten servers. It was the digital remains of Margo Valderama.

“Open your personal files,” Bambi commanded. “Every photo, every post, every email. Delete them all. If my system detects a single byte of your old life left in the ether after this class, you will be sent to the Cold Room for ‘manual’ reprogramming.”

I scrolled through the files. My heart began to thud against my ribs—a heavy, rhythmic drum of pain. There were photos of my graduation, emails to my mother about my debutante dress, and scanned copies of academic awards.

And then, I saw it. A video file titled: Margo’s 16th—Sweet Victory.

The noise of the Neural Hub vanished. The sterile, recirculated air was replaced by the phantom scent of chocolate cake and expensive candle wax.

On the screen of my mind, the video played. I was sixteen. I was wearing a crown of pearls, and my father stood behind me, his hands resting on my shoulders. But I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the boy holding the camera.

“Margo, smile! You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” It was Leo. His voice was vibrant, full of life as he zoomed in on my face. I saw myself in the video—laughing, blissfully unaware of the world that was about to collapse.

“Happy birthday, little sister,” Leo said in the video. “Next year, it’s my turn to host. I’ll make sure all of Vespera knows the Valderamas are unstoppable.”

He was laughing. That was the last time I saw him truly alive.

After the Scandal, when the fire tore through the East Wing of our mansion, the only thing left was the official report read to me by a cold-eyed officer: No survivors found in the East Wing. The structural collapse was absolute. I remembered that night. I had screamed Leo’s name until my throat bled. I had tried to throw myself into the flames, but Julian’s father had held me back. They told me he was ash. They told me he was gone. For three years, I had replayed his laughter in my head just to remember I wasn’t always alone.

“Eris. You’re stalling.”

Julian Thorne’s voice was a blade cutting through my memories. I turned to find him standing behind me, his shadow looming over my workstation. He had been watching.

“Is there something in that folder you’re afraid to lose?” he asked, his voice thick with suspicion.

I looked back at the screen. Leo’s pixelated smile mocked the silence of the room. This was the last piece of him. Once I clicked delete, the boy in the video would truly be dead. The memory would have no home but my decaying heart.

I felt Julian’s gaze on the back of my neck. He was hunting for a sign—a tear, a flinch, a moment of hesitation. He wanted to know if Margo still lived inside this shell.

I slowly moved the cursor to the ‘Select All’ button.

My heart felt like a graveyard—cold, silent, and crowded with the bodies of those I loved. But my eyes? They remained dry. I had cried all my tears three years ago. There was nothing left but the salt and the fire.

Goodbye, Leo, I whispered in the depths of my mind. I’ll see you in the ashes.

Click.

The screen flickered. Deleting files… 10%… 45%… 100%.

“Empty,” I said, my voice as cold as the marble floor. “Nothing left to delete, Sir.”

I turned to face him. I didn’t avoid his gaze; I challenged it. I let him see the void.

Julian’s eyes narrowed. I saw a flicker of confusion in his expression. He was disturbed—not because I was emotional, but because I wasn’t. My reaction wasn’t that of a broken girl; it was too similar to a soldier trained to kill their own emotions for the mission.

“Done, Bambi,” I said, standing up before she could even dismiss me.

Bambi checked her monitor. “System is clean. Eris is… digitally deceased. Good job, Rank 15.”

I glanced at Dominique, who was currently sobbing as she wiped away photos of her family. She was weak. She was still clutching the ghost of who she used to be. In the Sanctum, that kind of sentiment is poison.

“Class dismissed,” Bambi announced. “Except for Eris. The Conservator wants a word.”

Julian and I were left alone in the Neural Hub as the others filed out. The tension between us was suffocating. He stepped toward me, his presence a physical weight.

“You didn’t even blink,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Even the hardest Proteges to walk through these doors cry during Digital Sanitization. Even Dominique cried for an hour.”

“Maybe they had something worth crying for,” I countered.

“And you?” Julian stepped closer, his hand reaching out to grip my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Do you value nothing? Or do you simply have no heart?”

“You’ve already stripped me of my name, my clothes, and my past,” I said, my voice soft yet sharp. “Why are you still looking for my heart? Doesn’t Rule Number Six say emotion is a defect?”

Julian’s grip tightened. His eyes searched mine, desperate to find a crack in the porcelain. “You’re a fast learner, Eris. Too fast. It makes me wonder… if you were already a ghost long before I found you in the Iron Roots.”

“Maybe I was,” I whispered. “And ghosts don’t feel pain, Julian. They only feel the need to haunt.”

He let go of me suddenly, as if he had been burned. He turned his back, his posture rigid. “Get out. Tomorrow is Refinement. Don’t fail—because if you do, not even your ‘ghost’ will survive.”

I walked out of the Neural Hub, head held high. Only when I reached the corridor did I feel my knees tremble, but I didn’t let the cameras see.

Leo was gone. My father was deleted. I was now a blank slate. A beautiful, empty vessel.

But deep down, I knew Bambi was wrong. They didn’t kill my ghosts. By deleting them from the world, they simply ensured those ghosts would live inside me forever.

I entered the dorms and sat on my bed. Lulu was weeping in the corner, clutching a small locket she had managed to hide. Dominique was staring blankly at the wall.

I reached into my pocket and felt the charred scrap of my mother’s robe.

They can delete the data. They can burn the records. They can scrub the skin. But they can’t delete the memory of the blood on the lilies. They can’t delete the sound of the fire.

Julian is disturbed because he knows something is wrong. He feels the predator in the room, but he can’t see the claws because they are hidden behind my “Queen’s grace.”

Rank 15 is no longer just a number. It’s a camouflage.

“One week,” I whispered to myself, watching the massive clock on the wall. “One week to prove I’m a doll. And a lifetime to prove I’m their nightmare.”

The first part of Margo Valderama was dead. And as I fell into a dark sleep, I knew that the next time Julian looked into my eyes, he wouldn’t find a girl. He would find the graveyard he helped build.

And in a graveyard, the only thing that moves is the vengeance of the dead.