Page 357 of A University of Betrayal

I wanted to scream; to shout, I wanted it to break. But it didn’t break... it only got worse.

My face was numb. I didn’t know if I was crying or if I was cold. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing had meaning anymore.

Something cold tickled my nose.

I stared upward, paralyzed.

White snowflakes trickled down on us.

“No!”Mia’s ragged sobs reached me distantly, along with a siren and a reporter’s voice, and I looked back down at him.

The snow was melting on his face, leaving drops behind.

And within a few minutes, the flakes got bigger and bigger.

It was as if the sky was crying. Crying softly.

My father had just left me and the world stood still.

And my world...shattered.

Epilogue

My Kind of Illusion

Jay Varton

They sat there for a while in silence. Three women who had known each other for twenty years, and yet they basically knew nothing about each other. Each of them had gone her own way, carried her own little secret with her, and all that remained was the memory of the bond they once shared.

“What should we do now?” the mayor finally began. She didn’t know what to do, hated drama and hated it when everything fell apart, even if she had seen it coming. Even though she should have known.

The last time drama had won over the destructive side of this town, she hadn’t just lost her sister. She had losthim.

“Gloria has declared maximum security.”

“We need to keep the kids away from each other,” the platinum-blonde woman hissed.

She had never thought she would enter this house again. When she had left back then, she had locked away all the memories. Now she sat here on the couch, which was still the same.

“How did they even find out that she...”

“Your room...” the last woman interrupted her. Her eyes were shadowed with traces of tears. “It was her room.”

“Her things are still up there?” the mayor gasped out, speechless.

She looked frightened. Not like she usually did, but like she did back then.

“Her things are still up there,” replied the woman whose world had become a little darker a week ago. “Just like she left it, back then.” No one said anything, and each of them felt that one question hanging in the air... until the one with the platinum-blonde hair voiced it.

“What if they find out what she had planned? Whatwehad planned?”

The one with the dark blonde hair looked at her. Her gaze, empty.Exhausted.

She should never have come back. She hadn’t wanted to. But how could she not have expected that the shadow of her past could ever haunt her again? That it would find her.

“I haven’t found anything that could indicate that,” she finally said, so quiet that the other women got goosebumps.

“The book,” the light blonde woman said suddenly.