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8.73% Letters to Romeo. / Chapter 29: Burning flame

Capítulo 29: Burning flame

Julie had written only one line when she decided to strike it out. Using a new page, she wrote—

'How can I trust you, when I know nothing about you. If you will keep it to yourself as a secret or if you will tell it to the other students for your own advantage? I don't know anything about you, and you still hold the leverage by keeping my letter in your possession.'

As easy as it was to share the story with a stranger, at the same time, she didn't know much about the letter thief. There was the worry where it might be shared.

When she received the response, the letter read—

'Good to know that you aren't dumb like other students in Veteris. Your concern is fair and in light of it, I am returning half a page of the letter that has been in my possession until now. Along with it, here is my response to one of your questions. The dorm that you live in, I have lived there.'

"It used to be a boy's Dormitorium before?" Julie asked herself and noticed the torn letter that was left along with the letter.

Picking it up, she noticed her handwriting in there, and it was indeed her letter that she had hoped to reach Uncle Thomas, or it would be more right to say it was the lower half of her letter. How cunning, thought Julie in her mind. All the important information was in the first half!

But at the same time, she was more than intrigued by the thought of this person who said he lived in this very room that she now occupied. Weighing the matter, she finally decided to pen down what he wanted to know—

'If you would have met me a year ago, you would have found a different me. I used to speak less and not as much as I do now. Like many other places, the students there were of different kinds. Some nice, a lot of them worse. I used to have good grades, some decent friends, at least that is what I thought until they turned their backs. I don't know what triggered it, but soon I turned into one of their favourite targets to be bullied.

If I think about it, Eleanor, the girl who lives in my Dormitorium, is nothing compared to those students. Or maybe it is because I didn't let Eleanor take a hit at me.

It first started with girls comparing with each other, and then friends secretly comparing with the other person until it turned into a rivalry. My friend Natalie one day turned popular, and she soon cut ties with me before turning some of our lives into Hell. I never knew she could turn into a completely different person…'

Julie looked up from her book, staring at the wall in front of her while remembering how she felt turned into her once friend's target.

It was one of those days after the class was over where Julie placed her books in her locker. Suddenly, out of nowhere, someone pushed her head right against the next locker. Flinching in pain, she had turned and saw Natalie standing in front of her, looking at her with rage-filled eyes.

"You little slut, I knew you would do this to me," Natalie harshly pushed Julie against the locker. "You couldn't resist, could you?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Julie, confused. She touched her forehead with her fingers and noticed spots of blood.

"Korbyn said he won't go out with me, because he has plans with you. Since when did you start talking to him?"

"Korbyn? I don't even know him, Natalie. It is a misunderstanding," Julie closed her locker. She wanted to get back home and wasn't looking forward to fighting. She started to walk away from there, but someone tripped her, making her fall to the ground.

"What is wrong with you?" Julie had never raised her voice before that. She stood up while Natalie's friends laughed at her. Natalie, who was used to Julie's demure nature, had not expected her to talk back.

"You. You are the eyesore of this place and the more I see you, the more I hate you," said Natalie. She looked at her friends and said, "Drag her to the projector's room."

Before Julie could escape, something hard hit her head, knocking her unconscious for a few minutes. When she regained consciousness, she found her hands bound to the chair and in a dark room with just the projector running.

Natalie walked to stand in front of her vision with a relaxed expression on her face.

It was the first time Julie realized how messed up her friend had turned over a couple of months. Opening her mouth, she screamed to get the attention of the students or teachers.

Quickly one of the girls pushed a cloth into her mouth, and another tied a handkerchief around her mouth before tying it behind her head. To Julie's luck, someone had heard her scream and knocked on the door.

"What is going on in there?" came a male's voice from outside the room.

Natalie glared at Julie and said, "Let me talk to him." She walked towards the door, opening it. Julie felt her heart beating loudly and tried to make noise.

"What is going on here? This is no place to be practicing for plays and making noise," said the teacher.

"We apologize, Mr. Seymour. We didn't find any other empty rooms. Please let us use this room for a while and we will be sure to be good," Natalie smiled brightly at the teacher who stood outside the room.

"Okay," agreed the teacher and walked away from there. Julie's eyes widened, not knowing why the teacher had left without questioning or entering the room to see what was going on.

"Always trying to be the smartest person in the room, aren't you, Jules?" questioned Natalie, walking back to the backside of the room where Julie was. Julie glared. "Even when we were small you were like this, behaving you were better than me. Trying to make it look like you were prettier than me, but you know what the truth is? You are nothing but weak. Look at you now."

Julie tried to relieve her hands from the ropes, but they were rightly tied to the armrest. She didn't understand how one knock on her head could turn her unconscious.

Natalie then smiled and said, "You are right. Korbyn didn't say anything and I just made that up. If you didn't bring your ugly face in front of me, I would have not done anything to you. Unbind her left hand," she said to one of her companions. "You should have listened to me. I will give you a gift today, Jules." Turning to the other girls, she asked, "Did you get the blade?"

Julie's eyes widened, and she shook her head while making incoherent voices.

"It won't hurt much and I will be careful to not cut too deep," promised Natalie with a continued smile on her face. It was like the person Julie once knew as her friend was long gone, and now all Natalie wanted to do was hurt her.

Coming back to the present, in her dorm, Julie, who sat on her bed writing the details, continued—

'I didn't bleed too much, but I do remember the pain when Natalie ran the sharp blade over my wrist. My mouth muffled, and she stood there smiling at me. I passed out, and when I woke up, I was alone in the room. That week, my parents had gone to visit my relative's house, and by the time they returned home, the little mark on my head had healed, and I hid my scar from their sight.

It wasn't like I hadn't tried to speak about it to the teachers, but that only put me into further trouble. I would suddenly be pushed into small spaced rooms and locked by students who didn't even know me, people I didn't speak to. Thrown things at, made to trip. They listened and did what Natalie said, and it was like the whole place had turned against me. She didn't pull another stunt like that again because I tried to be more careful after that incident.

It was when I decided to wear glasses hoping it would change the way others looked at me. It helped very little, but sometimes even little is enough to be able to breathe.

That's all. Now it is your turn to answer my questions.'

And Julie added a period at the end of her sentence. Now that she had written it down, it felt like some of the demons had escaped from her mind.

Getting out of her bed, she started to get ready for her classes.

When Julie was walking with Melanie outside the building in the afternoon, she noticed Roman looking at her from where he stood. Even though their eyes met, he didn't look away. It was strange how he seemed more familiar when teaching her while he looked aloof right now. When Melanie asked her something, she finally looked away from him.

Simon, who was usually with Roman, noticed him staring at the human girl.

"You are going to scare her, if you keep looking at her like that," remarked Simon, looking back at Roman, who hadn't bothered to shift his gaze even after being pointed.

Roman played with the broken toothpick in his mouth and said, "How fast are the rogues multiplying?"

Simon gave a thoughtful look before answering, "Not much in recent years. Most of them have been eliminated so that they don't cause any threat in exposing us." He then asked, "You seem to have been spending quite some time with her."

Roman pulled out the recent letter he had received from Julie, and he turned it into a thin roll, "Have I?" It was because so far, they had spent time in the library only twice. "I don't think it registered."

"You never had a pupil before, and it has made some of them curious. Not that you don't lend a hand, but because you don't like involving yourself in other's matters,'' hummed Simon, a mischievous smile on his lips.

Pulling out the lighter from his pocket, Roman lit up the letter that he had rolled that started to end from one end to the other. He watched the secret that was written to him catch flame, removing the evidence.

"I thought you already analyzed it," Roman's gaze turned to look at Simon with a lazy expression on his face.

"Mm," Simon nodded his head, "Sometimes burning curiosity can engulf someone. Careful, Rome." When Roman started to walk, he looked perplexed and asked, "Where are you going?"

"To see Dante," replied Roman.

He walked towards the main office where the headmistress' office was located.

Reaching the front of the room, Roman pushed it open and saw Dante sitting behind the desk.

"What brings you here, Rome?" questioned Ms. Dante, her eyes curiously looking at him.

"When was the last time the filtering was done?" Roman questioned her, and he came to stand right in front of her desk.

Filtering was the one way to wipe out the vampires who weren't in the records and did things that didn't follow the ethical code. Rogue vampires were often the ones who were created to cause destruction.

"Probably five years ago," replied Ms. Dante. "Did you find something?"

"There's a rogue who has possibly turned one of the humans into a vampire. A student," responded Roman, and Ms. Dante's eyes narrowed at this information.

The woman then said, "I cannot let any of you go after the rogue because of the protocols, not to mention the arrival of the Elders here and I would prefer all of you unharmed. If you know where this person might be, relay the information to Enoch and he will take care of it."

"I heard about it," said Roman, his gaze turning dark over the mention of the Elders while his face looked calm.

Dante nodded her head. She said, "The blood transfusion process was quicker than we first assumed it to be and it is only a matter of time until it completes. Also, I am glad to hear that you haven't bothered Mrs. Hill to switch the human from your room to the one that turned recently empty," she looked impressed with him.

The corner of Roman's lips pulled up, "What can I say. I didn't want to waste my time on unnecessary things and decided to put my time to better use."

"Donovan will be proud when he meets you," stated Ms. Dante, mentioning one of the Elders' names. She picked up the glass of water that was on the table and took a sip. She said, "Thankfully, there have been no other deaths after the last one. One of the girl's relatives had come here, and Evans got everything covered. Every death causes heavy damage, which is a ripple outside Veteris."

Away from the headmistress' room, Julie and Melanie walked around and outside their Dormitorium. Julie walked to the window of her dorm. She pressed the window, trying to open it.

"What are you doing?" questioned Melanie, wondering what Julie was up to.

"I was wondering if there was a way to open the window," murmured Julie, trying every angle but the window stayed locked.

Usually, by this hour, she often received a response from her letter thief, but today it seemed like he was running late. Or maybe it was because she stood right outside her dorm's window.


Capítulo 30: Gravitating around trouble

Hours passed, and in the evening, when Julie returned to her dorm, she noticed the space next to the window. It felt strange to return to the room and find no response to her letter from the letter thief.

Was he not able to unlock the window anymore?

She wondered whether he read it or if he had decided to not write to her anymore after hearing her story.

During dinner, Julie went to the lunchroom with her friends. While standing in the queue and waiting for their turn, Conner noticed a few people looking in their way, and he whispered, "Is there something we did that we don't know about?"

"Why, what happened?" asked Julie, and their eyes moved to notice some who looked at them before they looked away.

Melanie said, "It must be because you have been singing too loudly," and Conner gave her a stare.

"With the number of people who are in here and talking, there is no way my song would bother them," said Conner, and he continued, "I think they were looking at you, Julie. There have been whispers about you in the boy's Dormitorium in a hush manner. Especially with Roman," when the line where they were standing moved, they took one step forward.

"I thought girls often come and go there. Is it that surprising?" she asked Conner, and he shook his head.

"It isn't, but I think he has often been seen with… certain types of girls," said Conner.

Julie could tell that Conner was careful with his words, and she asked, "You mean someone who isn't wearing a sweater and glasses like me?" She had seen the girls Roman had met behind the racks of the library, and they were beautiful.

Melanie, who was staring at Julie's face, stopped her, "I think you are prettier."

"Only a true friend will say that. Thank you, Mel and you are beautiful and if I may add kind," said Julie, and she pushed her glasses up on her nose.

"No, I am serious. Even with the glasses, you still look good," stated Melanie, and Julie nodded her head with a smile so that Melanie would not continue.

"So you both never went out with each other?" Julie switched the subject, and Melanie vigorously shook her head.

"Thank God, I have nothing in my mouth," Conner laughed at Julie's question. "I guess it never crossed our minds. She's like family."

"It would be super awkward to think about him like that," replied Melanie, shivering at the thought.

While waiting in the queue, Julie's eyes leisurely moved to look at the people sitting at the tables and having their dinner. She wondered if her letter thief was somewhere in here. She caught sight of Roman and his friends at the table, sitting and having their meal. When she continued to look around, her eyes met a boy's eyes who called her with his hand, the table not too far.

The boy's face seemed familiar. He had a thick chain around his neck, and he waved his hand.

"Is that person waving at me, or do I need to get brand new glasses?" Julie questioned her friends, who stopped speaking and turned to see who she was speaking about.

She realized he was the same person who had been sent to the headmistress' room after Roman had gotten into a fight. He had a sneer on his face and looked like another arrogant brat like Mateo, she thought in her mind.

"That's Griffin. Why is he even calling you?" asked Conner. The boy named Griffin even pointed at Melanie, indicating to them to come over where he was. "He's another piece of bad news."

"What if we don't want to go there?" Julie quickly looked away from Griffin.

Conner and Melanie were quick to look at the line they stood in, whispering to each other. "I think he's still looking here," said Melanie in a low voice while making it look like they were busy with their things.

"Shh," Conner hushed her. "He lives on the same floor as me and it is going to be troublesome if he identifies me later."

"Sometimes I feel this is a place for only delinquents then I realize you guys are here," Julie whispered back, and Melanie smiled at her words.

When it was her turn, Julie bought her meal and turned around with the plate when Griffin came to stand in front of her. "Good evening, I waved at you," said the boy, who was taller than her.

"Is that so?" Julie put on a polite smile on her face and noticed Conner looking slightly nervous. "I think it is time to change my glasses," she replied.

"I am Holden Griffin. It is nice to meet you, Julianne Winters," Griffin offered her his hand to shake, but Julie didn't let go of her plate and held it tight with both her hands.

"I have weak wrists," she replied but offered him a small nod. Griffin smiled and brought his hand back to his side while his lips twisted.

He nodded his head and then looked at Melanie and greeted her, "Hello there." When his eyes fell on Conner, he used it to pat on Conner's back, who turned tense. "Conner, it seems like we have never had meals together."

"I barely eat anything," chuckled Conner, the smile faltering on his lips.

Julie asked, "Was there something you needed?"

"Actually, yes," answered Griffin, and he turned behind to look at the table he had been sitting at. "I am inviting the three of you to have dinner."

Julie felt his gaze back on her. She replied, "Maybe next time. We have already bought what we wanted for you to treat us. Thank you for your kind thought," and this time, it wasn't just Conner whose smile faltered.

Melanie tugged Julie's sleeve to start walking, and the three of them walked away and towards the table that they had saved for them. Griffin's jaws clenched. He was a vampire, who had heard their conversation and right now, he noticed some of the juniors who were of his kind, had overheard their conversation.

He decided to speak to the new girl, who everyone had their eyes on and wanted to sink their fangs. The night creatures often found it exciting to hunt the new prey before anyone else could get their claws and take a bite into it.

In the lunchroom, where the students were either carrying their empty or filled trays, Griffin started to walk in Julie's direction, moving like a snake. But apart from him, there was someone else in the lunchroom who had been quietly eavesdropping at the exchange of conversation.

Few steps away, one of the fellow students carried his meal-filled tray. He walked in the opposite direction of Griffin when someone decided to stick the leg out and push when the boy walked past the table.

The boy with the tray lost his balance, and his tray flew with the food and fell right in front of Griffin and spilling on him.

Retracting his leg back, Roman swiped his finger on the ketchup and licked it clean, unbothered about the brawl that was going to break between the other two guys. Not that he cared, because he had scores to settle with the boy who had tripped.

Pushing his chair, he said to his friends with a passive look on his face, "I will be outside."

Julie had only taken her seat when she noticed Griffin catch hold of the boy's collar and shook him back and forth before raising the boy above the ground and dropping him after a punch.

"And that is why we are careful," whispered Conner even though Griffin wouldn't be able to hear them from where they sat.

"Well noted," replied Julie.

Julie decided to drop the idea of looking for the letter thief as it might only invite her more troubles, where she would be outshining the name he had given her as 'Troublemaker'.

Returning to her dorm, she caught sight of the letter waiting for her, sitting undisturbed. Locking her door from inside, she removed her shoes and climbed on her bed to reach for the folded note.

Leaning back against the wall, she unfolded it and read—

'I am sorry to hear that the unwitted people tried to harm and make your life miserable. Some people thrive on people's fears to make them feel important. It is a childish thought, very similar to when a student wishes for the other person to score fewer grades instead of improving themselves.

If the wound has left scars, don't cover it and let it heal when you are comfortable with it. There's nothing to be ashamed of. About what you said, about the wallflower, I think you are doing pretty good. Of course, apart from gravitating around trouble, I am not sure if you are following it or the other way around.'

Julie paused to say, "I wish I could say it was wrong, but…" speaking about her gravitating around trouble.

She was glad that he had acknowledged what she had written, instead of teasing or calling her names like her ex-friend had done, on how weak and pitiful she was. She then continued to read what he had written—

'I am sure if the people who hurt you were to know where you study right now, they would burn much better here than in Hell. But it would be wise not to see them again, some people don't change. Was she always like this? The girl who tried to inflict pain on you?

I will give you an insider's known information. Some of the people here are similar to the ones you have already come across. Some worse.'

Julie reread the words from the beginning to the end. Bringing her book and wrote back to him—

'I have sensed that, which is why I said some students need to visit the counsellor's office.

Natalie wasn't like this before. She was kinder. She was alright, but after school break, she changed into a different person. I don't know if it was because of how she wore her clothes or if it was her hairstyle that made her feel that way.

About what you said in the last line… Where do you stand? Definitely not good because even though you are willing to give my uncle's letter back to me, you tried to threaten me with it. Is it bad or evil?'

Back then, though Julie had been demure, she had tried to stand against Natalie. It was also the reason that had irked Natalie to go far as to scar her wrist. When some boys and girls listened to the bully, cornering Julie at every possibility, fighting back wasn't exactly on the cards. In the end, even the few people who used to speak to her had stopped speaking.

Tearing the page from the book, she folded it thrice before placing it next to the window. Lying on the bed, Julie stared at the ceiling of the dorm. How strange to think that the letter thief of hers might have stared at the same ceiling.

.

Add the book 'Behind the glasses' as that is where I will be making announcements. It also explains basic questions about the books and W e b n o v e l by ash_knight17


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