Chapter 143 An Actual Angel
Chapter 143 An Actual Angel
TESSA
“She’s the one, right? The Fen’s daughter.”
“She’s finally here.”
Zaria isn’t with her, though?”
“So, she really is alive, huh?”
The whispers carried just enough for me to hear as I walked past. A girl in a green sweater was leaning toward her friend, both of them pretending they weren’t looking at me when it was painfully obvious they
were.
I pursed my lips. Goodness… they weren’t over it yet?
I was the one, yes. The one who’d survived when others didn’t. The one who apparently carried a neon sign over my head that screamed “Ask me about the car crash.” Did they want me to plaster it across my forehead just to make it easier for everyone?
I kept walking, ignoring the way their eyes followed me.
A sigh slipped past my lips as I adjusted the strap of my bag and made my way to the far back of the cafeteria. I had known that transferring to our faction’s private school after being homeschooled for so long was a bad idea. Every instinct had told me so. But still… some stubborn part of me wanted to try. To at least pretend I could live like a normal sixteen–year–old.
And besides, staying at home has become unbearable.
We lived with Aunt Myrna and Uncle David now–David, the current Beta. They weren’t cruel, exactly. Still, they had a way of making me feel as if I were nothing more than a burden they’d been saddled with.
They had one child, my cousin Cameron Morgan. Same age as me, same grade, but that was where the similarities ended. Cameron was… well, let’s just say he didn’t like me. Which was an understatement of the size of the moon.
Truthfully, none of them liked me.
Aunt Myrna was my mom’s sister, and even now, I could see the shadows in her eyes whenever she looked at me–shadows that said she remembered exactly whose child I was. Whose survival had come at the cost of others. She never said it outright, but she didn’t have to. I knew I always looked like my mom, and she didn’t like that.
Zaria, on the other hand, lived a different tale. She was favored by our relatives ever since, but I didn’t think too much about it now.
Even at family reunions, the feeling lingered. People smiled sometimes, but they never looked too long. It was like they feared the misfortune might be contagious if they stayed near me.
I slid into an empty seat at the far end of the cafeteria, grateful for the distance from the louder, brighter tables. Pulling my lunch tray toward me, I set out the small sandwich I’d packed. Myrna never made my
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lunch-“You’re old enough to do it yourself, Tessa” but truthfully, I preferred it that way. Her cooking came with a side of passive–aggressive commentary I didn’t have the energy for.
I was halfway through unwrapping the sandwich when a shadow fell over the table.
“Aw, look at the little charity case,” Cameron’s voice drawled.
I didn’t bother looking up. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” His tone was falsely innocent. “I just came to say hi to my favorite cousin.”
I finally glanced up, meeting his smirk. He was flanked by two of his friends–both wearing the same brand of smugness.
Cameron’s eyes flicked to my sandwich, and before I could react, he reached across the table, grabbed the carton of juice from his tray, and tipped it.
Bright red liquid cascaded over the bread, soaking through in an instant. It pooled onto my table, dripping onto my lap.
“Oops,” Cameron said, his grin widening. “Clumsy me.”
His friends laughed, loud and ugly.
I stared at the ruined sandwich, my fingers tightening around the edges of it. My first instinct was to grab napkins, to clean it before it spread, but there was no saving it. The bread was already collapsing into mush.
“Wow,” one of his friends said between chuckles, “guess lunch is ruined. Oh well, maybe the Beta’s daughter can afford another one. Oh, wait-” He broke off, grinning at Cameron.
The laughter started again.
My chest tightened. I didn’t give them the satisfaction of looking at them again. I walked to the nearest trash bin and dumped the mess without a word.
As I walked back to my seat, the sound of their laughter followed me. It always did.
They thought it was just harmless fun. That I could shrug it off like everyone else did. But they didn’t understand–every small humiliation, every “accident,” was just another reminder. Another tally mark on a list that never seemed to end.
And the worst part was I knew they weren’t the only ones.
The laughter didn’t stop. If anything, it grew bolder now that they’d gotten a reaction–silence was, apparently, the perfect invitation for them to push further.
“Hey, careful,” one of Cameron’s friends said mockingly, leaning toward me. “Don’t make her angry. She might crash into another car.”
The table behind me snickered. I grabbed my bag, my fists clutching the straps.
“Or maybe,” another voice chimed in, “she’ll just sit there and watch someone else die.”
Chapter 143 An Actual Angel
A sudden tug on my scalp made me gasp. One of the girls–short brown hair, heavy eyeliner had stepped behind me and yanked a fistful of my hair.
“You murdered your parents?” she asked, her tone dripping with mockery.
A collective gasp rippled through the nearby tables. Some leaned closer, hungry for the drama. Others just stared, wide–eyed.
“Stop,” I managed, but it came out too soft, too weak.
The girl didn’t. She twisted my hair tighter, leaning down so her breath was hot against my car. “How’s it feel, huh?”
I jerked my head away, wrenching free from her grip, but the damage was done. The snickers and whispers spread like wildfire. I could hear fragments of my name tangled with words like accident and killer.
This… was a really, really bad time for me.
Homeschooling had been safe.
But I’d wanted more. I’d wanted to experience new things, per se, as I’d told myself when I’d begged to enroll here.
And they’d made me feel stupid for even wanting that.
“What are you doing?”
The voice cut through the noise, making a few people turn their heads.
I followed their gazes toward the entrance of the cafeteria.
Zaria walked in, her dark hair pulled back in its usual sleek style. For a moment, a tiny part of me wondered–hoped–if she was going to defend me.
But her face was unreadable. Stoic.
Instead, it was the girl walking beside her who spoke again.
She had blonde hair that was so pale that it was almost white, catching the overhead lights like frost in sunlight. Tall and slim, she carried herself with elegance.
Something in my chest lurched. I couldn’t help it. The snowy color of her hair reminded me of that day, of the endless white falling around twisted metal and broken glass.
She moved forward, parting the crowd without a single raised word.
“We don’t tolerate that here,” she muttered–not loudly, but with enough authority to make the brown- haired girl behind me falter.
Then she crouched down to my level, the noise around us fading into a dull hum.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
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Chapter 143 An Actual Angel
Up close, her eyes were the color of a clear winter sky.
That was the day I met an actual angel.
Ellana Claude.
