Page 65 of Bound By Fury

This close, maybe I could finally see what Gigi was always going on about. I listened for them. Speak to me, I tried to project in their direction, but the only thing I got in return was an annoyed huff whispering at the back of my mind.

When I finally tore myself away from the stars, I saw her again, in the distance, watching me.

A ghostly white blur among the forest trees.

I’ve chewed the skin around my thumbnail raw by the time I sense Missy walk through the doors, the other students sitting a little straighter, their heads on a swivel in her direction. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad—the way other students’ eyebrows pinch together in confusion when she heads straight for my table and takes a seat.

I flick the book in front of me closed and shove it to the end of the table.

“Nice of you to finally make it,” I mumble beneath my breath, but it’s no use, she hears me anyway.

“You’re welcome,” she sneers, pulling her laptop out of her bag and turning the screen toward me. On it, in baby pink and red and white, are bolded words in bubble letters that twinkle on the edges. She’s made a Canva presentation.

MISSING: FIONA BEAUMONT

“Oh!” I say, my voice pitching higher in surprise. “This is new.”

She clicks the right arrow button.

“Would you prefer that I bring in a bulletin board and red string? This is a lot easier to carry.”

“No!” I say, holding out my hands and taking out a pen for notes. “Go on.”

“Fiona Amelia Beaumont was a junior-year transfer from some podunk South Carolina town about an hour south of Charlotte. She was a foster child most of her life, moving from house to house with nothing more than a half-full trash bag and a high school class picture of her piece-of-shit addict mom, and no idea who her daddy was.”

My eyes widen with every detail. I don’t know what kind of picture I’d painted in my mind of this girl since I first saw the missing-person flyer outside Dawson’s, but this certainly wasn’t it.

“So how did she end up here?” I interrupt.

Missy levels me with a glare before turning to the next slide. “Please save all questions for the end of the presentation.”

I seal my lips shut and tuck my hands beneath my thighs.

“Her sophomore year of high school, she came home to her newest placement only to find a letter with her name on it sitting on the front porch. Now, this wasn’t the first time she’d heard of Black Mountain Academy—no, she was well acquainted.”

Missy clicks over to the next slide, and it’s like someone has doused me in ice-cold water.

On the screen, against an aggressively pink background, is a cell phone photo of a wallet-sized photograph. In it, the girl has brown hair that falls to her shoulders in soft curls and raven-lined, smoky eyes so dark, they almost look black.

Her brown skin is sallow, and the circles under her eyes drag down her whole face. She looks sick. Black clips hold her hair back on either side. And on the lapel at her chest, a crest I’ve come to know very well. At the bottom of the photo, blue ink in block lettering: Black Mountain Academy Class of ’90.

“I—she—”

“Yes, Fiona was a legacy student,” Missy says, pressing a button that triggers a picture of Fiona to pop up next to the one of her mom. It’s amazing to see them side by side. Two completely different aesthetics but remarkably similar faces.

I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach. How is it possible that this girl’s story seems to mirror so much of my own? And where the hell did she go?

“Do you know what was in the letter?”

“As far as I know, it was an invitation for her to attend the school. They wanted to recruit her for the girl’s field hockey team and were willing to give her a full ride.”

“Did she not think it was weird? This school from her mom’s past reaching out randomly like that? Or did she apply?”

Missy shakes her head. “She didn’t apply, so of course she thought it was weird. But they said they always follow up with the descendants of alumni, and they felt a particular responsibility toward Fiona after everything that happened with her mom…”

Oh god.

“W—what is that supposed to mean?”