The Last Guardian | Darkling Academy

chapter two | the message

"Alexis, can you stop going on about that thing already? It's just one app, you aren't going to die if you don't find out what it is," Ronnie says as she lays on the wooden floorboards beside my bed.

I grumble under my breath as I repetitively tap on the mysterious app, trying to open the damn thing up. But no, it just wants to be a pain in my ass and stay closed forever.

Ever since Ronnie and I got home from the hospital, I haven't done anything apart from try to open this stupid app. I've researched the name, Darkling Academy, but nothing came up. I even tried deleting the thing, but after fifty or so times I realized that it wasn't going to budge anytime soon. I couldn't even find it on the app store.

And the most annoying thing about this is I can't just touch it and figure out what the emotion the person who made this app was feeling because it's in my phone.

Irritation crawls underneath my skin as I chuck my phone on my bed beside me.

I'm half tempted to just chuck my whole phone away.

I've never been great with things I know nothing about, especially since I can understand someone's emotions with just a tap of my finger. I never had to wonder if someone disliked me or was pretending to be my friend, and that's something I've always had to watch out for because when you wear leather gloves constantly and freak out when someone goes to touch you, people tend to see you as a bit weird.

If it wasn't for Ronnie and Jason, I probably wouldn't have had friends growing up.

I slide up towards the end of the bed and stare down at Ronnie as she shovels through Jason's files. I plop my arms on top of my bed stand and lean over slightly.

"But don't you think it's weird that this app suddenly popped up on my phone though?"

Ronnie arches a brow as she sits cross-legged on the floor. "There's a lot weirder things going on right now than just some app, don't you think?"

Well, she isn't wrong.

"Now, hurry up and help me sort through these files." Ronnie passes me a thin piece of paper as she goes to pick up another one for herself.

I slip it out of her grip and skim over the contexts on the page, but nothing we need comes up. Just some details about the case that give us no lead or anything of importance to help us find Jason. About forty minutes later, I've gone through five different files and yet I still have nothing.

I huff out an irritated sigh as I drop the stack of paper onto the floor.

"Well, that's the last one," Ronnie says, tossing the case file into her lap. "There were twelve different files in that case and not one of them have anything useful."

A thud echoes from down below me as Ronnie flops onto her back. Long purple hair flows around her as she stares up at my white ceiling. Her brows perk up as interest swirls around in her eyes and a moment later she pushes herself up onto her elbows.

"Hey, did you find anything in that morgue? I remember reading about Jason's shoulder pad that they found. Did you see that in there?"

My muscles tense as I rub a hand over my thick curls, feeling the soft stands of my light brown hair.

Breathing in a heavy breath, I say. "No, I never found anything like that in there." the lie flows past my lips with ease.

I can't tell her about the shoulder pad that was in there or most importantly, the condition I found it in. The image of slashes all over the white plastic seeps into my mind. It honestly looked like it had been mulled at by a savage animal. And it's not like I can tell her what I felt from the object because nobody but me knows I have this ability.