Fallen Raine {Completed}

Chapter Twenty-Three - Princess of the Shadows Has a Dark Secret

“What?” I whispered again, blinking at Jason in shock. This was certainly not the answer I had been expecting, and it sent my head reeling.

  

   River’s lips parted in surprise, and he seemed to be struggling to form a coherent sentence or understand what exactly it was Jason was implying. “Yeah, what?” he finally settled on, rather intelligently, if you ask me.

   Jason looked between us, gauging our reaction at his confession. His eyes burned a darker green than I’d ever seen them, almost feverish; more of an emerald green than a light one. His cheeks were dashed in high color, and his hands were fisted at his sides, the knuckles pale.

   “She’s the killer,” he whispered, casting a wary eye toward the bathrooms down the long plastered corridor, as if Drella would suddenly appear and kill us all. “It has to be her.”

   I thought back, and realized—well, as good to my memory as I could think—that he was right. She had been mysteriously missing during some of the murders. “Oh, wait, but we found the murdered girl. You know, the first one we found when this whole thing started. And she was with me.”

   Jason shrugged. “We don’t know when the girl was killed. Maybe before we even came across Drella. Maybe before we even met.”

   “But what about some of the other ones? She couldn’t have gotten away,” I pointed out.

   “Maybe she has an accomplice with her,” Jason said, shrugging. His eyes glanced around as his mind smoothed out the kinks. “No one could do all of this alone, anyway.”

   “I’m just finding it hard to believe,” River said, running a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I mean, I know she’s dark and twisted, but… murder? Really? It doesn’t seem like Drella’s style. She seems innocent.”

   “It’s always the ones we don’t expect,” Jason replied. He paced back and forth nervously and restlessly, his hands twisting in front of him and playing with the hem of his cotton tee.

   I looked down the way Drella had left, and imagined her curling black hair, dark, fathomless eyes and quirky remarks about doom and the ending of the world. The quiet demeanor and seemingly airy way about her. The way nothing seemed to ever really affect her, and she had never seemed too affected by the gruesome deaths we had been subjected to throughout the night.

   Could it really be her?

   I looked between River and Jason, gauging their expressions. Jason seemed resolute on his conclusion, and River seemed indecisive, as if he couldn’t decide whether he could believe Drella would be capable of doing such a thing and killing all  of those people.

   I couldn’t decide, either. I mean, she had the dark outlook on life that would accompany that of a true killer, but was she really so cold that she would blatantly take away someone’s life without a second thought? So cold and emotionless as the skillful killer had been?

   “I guess it kinda makes sense,” River said finally, after sharing a look with me. “The way she always acts, there’s always been something kinda… creepy about her. Maybe… maybe it really is her.” He ran another hand through his hair. “I don’t know.”