Page 5 of Breaking Isolde
This time, my prize won’t get away.
Or die.
Chapter 1: Isolde
Thisplaceisfuckedup. No two ways about it. The people. The decor. The atmosphere.
Everything here is old, cold, and done up as if they were getting ready to welcome Dracula back home.
Money. This place, these people, stink of it. The privilege drips off of them in perfumes and colognes that never made it to a Macy’s. I hate it, and yet I’m not here for me. I’m here forher.Casey.
Officer Cooper went missing last year after he’d called me and said he had a lead… vanished without a trace, and now I’m here to find out what exactly this place is about.
Believe me, I didn’t think I’d be accepted into this swanky ass Academy, and yet by some stroke of luck…‘another one of the funded students has withdrawn her application and thus, there is one welfare spot available.’
I’m taking that to mean they murdered another girl. Maybe I’ll figure that out too and blow the roof right off this shit stye.
I drag the suitcase up three cracked stone steps. The air reeks of rain and overripe roses from the defunct faculty garden next door. The front doors of the house are older than most of the students’ parents, solid oak, carved with sigils that must be inside-jokes for dead men. I don’t bother knocking. I shoulder it open and listen to the echo slam down the hall.
Inside, it’s cold and ugly and clean enough to pass the white-glove test, but only on the surface. The corridor gapes ahead of me—no art, no plaques, nothing but a hospital-grade strip of overhead fluorescents and a carpet that’s trying to hide its original color under layers of cheap dye. The first thing I notice is the silence. No music. No TV bleeding from someone’s door. Even the dorm ghosts must have called in sick.
I smell something fruity, too. Someone is here, but they’re quiet and it’s creepy as all hell.
My new home. Casey’s old one. I don’t flinch, but I do hesitate. The air is thick with memories that don’t belong to me yet.
I count the doors as I go: one, two, three, four—every single one labeled with an engraved gold plate, and every one left half-ajaras if they’re expecting a tornado or a search party at any minute. Only one is all the way closed.
I catch myself glancing over my shoulder twice in the first twenty feet, but the only thing behind me is my own reflection in the foyer glass. At least, that’s what I tell myself. On the landing of the first staircase, I pause again because I swear I see a flash of color—auburn, unmistakable—disappear around the turn. Logic says it’s the setting sun through a dirty window. Instinct says Casey.
Upstairs, the temperature increases by at least five degrees. The ancient boiler system is more suggestion than infrastructure. I’m about to make a joke about boiling to death when I remember there’s no one here to hear it.
My assigned room is at the end of the hall. Corner unit, good for hearing anyone approach. Bad for heat retention, but I’ve lived through worse. The door is painted a shade of white that’s trying to be friendly. The knob sticks and the lock jiggles, but I get it open after a second try.
First impression: smaller than I imagined, but at least I have a small hallway before I hit my bedroom, the other areas being a storage closet and a small sitting room. At least it has a couch and a small TV on an old dresser.
Second impression: the bedframe is bolted to the floor. Third: every surface, including the desk and the back of the door, is covered in a thick, clear lacquer, probably so the students can’t carve messages into the wood or bleed out and stain it.
There’s a standard issue comforter, two sheets, a built-in closet with a sliding door, and a desk facing the window. The desk is empty except for a single, blank notepad and a welcome letter. Through the bedroom closet is a modest bathroom, but at least I don’t have to share.
I ignore the letter and set my suitcase on the chair, then get to work.
I unpack slowly. Every item has its place. Clothes in the closet, books stacked by height on the shelf, toothbrush and razor set next to the sink. When I find the framed photo, I pause. It’s the only thing I packed with bubble wrap. I unwrap it slow, peeling the tape like I’m removing a scab.
The picture is from Casey’s last normal day. We’re on the beach at the north end of the lake, sunburnt and high on energy drinks and weed, her arm thrown around my shoulder. She’s got her head tilted at a weird angle, like she wants to take a bite out of the world. I prop the frame on the desk.
It feels weird. Knowing she stayed here. That I’m here now. That she’s gone forever and I need to figure out why.
I take the police reports out of the secret lining in my suitcase. The manila folder is already battered and starting to split at the corners. I flick through the pages, scanning the words I already have memorized: “Probable suicide. No evidence of foul play. Victim found in woods near hunting knife. Wounds sustained indicative of self harm. Closed case.”
Closed. That word makes me want to puke.
Casey would never commit suicide. The chance that the police were paid off to write this bullshit was high, especially when I knew my sister like the back of my hand.
Someone did this to her. I just have to figure out who.
I run my finger down the report, find the paragraph where they quote the Westpoint administration: “The Academy extends its deepest condolences to the Greenwood family. All efforts were made to support the student’s welfare.” Lies. All of it. I know what “support” looks like here. I’ve read the emails, the texts. I watched the security footage, what little they’d release after months of stonewalling. I know who was last seen with my sister, and the Academy wants to make sure no one ever asks why.
I unroll the map. Standard campus issue, but I’ve marked it up with Sharpie and rage. Every building, every tunnel, every shortcut she could’ve taken the night she died. I pin it to the wall over my desk with the two pushpins I stole from the library on the way in.
