Chapter 2 2- The Ghost Of Blackwood High
The air was cold when I walked inside the iron gates of my high school. Even though the last six months had been lost to me, I remembered Blackwood High clearly. But the school I remembered was never this silent. It used to be chaotic, dramatic, and noisy.
Black ribbons were tied around the pillars. The main entrance had a huge wooden box covered with withered and fresh roses, candles, and some cards. And in the middle rested my best friend's smiling picture.
Rachel looked beautiful as ever. Smiling at the picture, I remembered clicking on her birthday last year. Who knew she'd leave us all at the mere age of seventeen?
"May you rest in peace, Rachel," I whispered, placing a white rose under her photo, a tear slipping down my eye.
"Chloe!"
Familiar voices of my friends, Sarah and Tracy, echoed in the almost silent courtyard. Before I could turn around to greet them, I was attacked by their hugs. Stumbling back, I winced as the wounds were still fresh and pained whenever touched.
"Thank God, you're awake, Chloe! How have you been?" Sarah asked me, pulling away, and I swallowed the burning anxiety inside me, nodding my head as I faked a smile.
"I am doing fine now, Sarah. How have you both been?" I tried making the conversation normal, but when Tracy shook her head, her voice trembling, my pretense broke too.
"We are not fine, Chloe. No one is fine. We were so scared, you know? First, losing Rachel, and then hearing the news of your car crash. I thought— I thought I'd lose you too." She spoke, her eyes tearing up, and I bit my lips, shaking my head.
"It's alright, Tracy. I am here now. But— but what happened to Rachel?" I asked them, and both of them exchanged looks before Sarah leaned closer to me.
"She was murdered in cold blood. Stabbed five times." She answered my question, making my breath hitch.
Julian is the prime suspect in Rachel's murder.
"Did— did police find out who did it?" I asked them, and Tracy shook her head in answer.
"Though everyone knows who killed her, there has been no official arrest made yet. Though the police had interrogated him thrice now, he's still roaming outside freely." Tracy said, her voice barely a whisper.
The way her voice trembled every time she spoke about 'him ' told a lot about the terror caused among the students by Rachel's murderer.
"Is Julian the prime suspect in Rachel's murder?" I asked them, and Sarah's eyes widened as she immediately shushed me.
"Don't say his name out loud like that, Chloe! He's a psychopath!" She said, looking around frantically, as if checking if anyone heard us or not. When she didn't find anyone looking at us suspiciously, she focused her gaze back on us.
"Do I— do I know him?" I asked them, and they looked at me, confused, before shaking their heads.
"Nobody knows him, Chloe. He's a loner at our school. We didn't even know he existed before he killed our best friend." Sarah answered for me, making me bite my lips as I looked at them hesitantly.
"Then why do I keep hearing his name inside my head, Sarah? There has to be something about Julian that I know but can't remember. I don't even know what he looks like, and yet I only know of his name." I said, holding my head, frustration seeping into my voice.
They both looked at me sympathetically. Sarah pressed my shoulders in assurance. I saw Tracy looking behind us before she turned around as if she had seen a ghost.
"God, he's here! He's here!" The panic behind Tracy's voice told me the boy she was talking about was him.
Julian.
"Where?" I asked her, curiously. My heart was beating against my ribcage with speed that made me breathless.
But I had to see the boy whose name had conjured my mind.
For my sanity, at least.
"Chloe, no—"
"Tell me, Tracy." I ordered her, and she let out a defeated sigh before answering me.
"Don't make it obvious, but he is the one who's standing under the oak tree there." She pointed with her eyes, and I turned around slowly.
And then I saw him. Leaning against a brick wall, away from the crowd of students, smoking. He was wearing a worn-out leather jacket over his dark sweatshirt. His hands shoved in the pockets of his faded jeans. Even from a distance, he exuded an aura of dominance and danger that made my heart beat faster.
"Chloe, stop staring at him." Sarah chided me, but I couldn't stop myself.
As if sensing my gaze, he suddenly looked up. His dark eyes locked with mine, and I felt the breath knocking out of me.
I had seen him.
Those dark eyes looked familiar.
"Shit, Chloe! He saw you looking at him." Tracy's voice held the urgency that made my blood run cold. But the intensity his eyes held promised me answers that no one had.
"He's coming this way!" Sarah said, taking a couple of steps back. Their hands no longer dragged me.
The fear that followed him made every single one in the courtyard disappear. I knew I should've run faster than them. After all, they knew something of him. But I, on the other hand, only knew his name. But I couldn't run.
Not when he was walking towards me with his eyes locked with mine.
I forgot to breathe when he stopped in front of me.
Up so close, I realized how tall he was; tall enough to make me tilt my head upwards to look at him. A fading bruise littered his chin. He smelled of rain, cigarettes and leather.
And then, he leaned closer. His dark eyes still holding mine, he moved his hand to my neck, sending shivers down my spine. I flinched back when his hot fingers touched my cold neck, hooking around the silver chain I didn't realize I was wearing.
Pulling it out, he looked down the chain with a ring I didn't remember wearing, and a dark smile carved his face.
"Tell me, Chloe, are you wearing the ring I got you because you remember what we did in the dark, or are you wearing it, unknown to the fact that it is the only evidence of our dark secrets?"
