+8 Pearls
Third Person’s POV
Carmen <b>had </b>lived through Riley’s ruin. She had watched the light fade from her sister’s <b>eyes </b>after Alpha ric and his family tore her apart piece by piece. Carmen wasn’t the same girl she had been in <b>junior </b>high.
She had be something new–something sharp, vengeful, and ready to strike.
Carmen stood against the hallway’s icy concrete wall, <b>arms </b>folded, waiting.
She didn’t need to hear what they were doing inside.
She already knew.
Ten minutes passed.
Long enough.
Her toothbrush had been jammed deep into the dorm toilet, its bristles scraping the rim as one of the girlsughed. Her towel had been dragged across the bathroom floor and used to mop up grimy water. Her shampoo <b>and </b>body wash had been tainted with toilet water–again<b>. </b>
“Almost done. Let’s clean up and head to the dining hall,” one of the girls chirped.
Then came the sound that froze every muscle in the room.
Click.
The dorm door opened slowly, and a sudden, deathly silence nketed the air inside.
Carmen stood in the doorway, one hand still on the knob, a crooked <b>smile </b>ying on her lips. She leaned casually against the frame, eyes scanning the wreckage of her belongings.
“Well,” she said smoothly, voice like velvet over a de. “You three seem to be having a great time.”
The <b>three </b>girls inside stood frozen. Their perfect makeup seemed to crack along with their courage. The blood drained from
their <b>faces</b>.
Carmen stepped into the room.
And locked the door behind her with a slow, deliberate click.
Panic shed in their eyes like lightning in <b>a </b>storm.
“Y–you’re back early?” one of them stammered, lips trembling underyers of glossy lip <b>stain</b>. “We–we were just tidying up a bit for you-
Carmen chuckled.
The sound was brittle, sharp, <b>and </b>bone–chilling. It cut through the silence like the snap of a frozen branch in the dead of
Winter
Her peach–blossom <b>eyes </b>shimmered with a <b>kind </b>of quiet <b>madness</b>.
“Oh If <b>you </b>liked my toiletries that much, you only had to ask.” Her voice was light, almost <b>kind</b>–but beneath it thrummed a power that made the walls seem to press in “They’re yours now.”
The girls shifted uneasily. They couldn’t read her. They <b>didn’t </b>know what came next. <b>And </b>that terrified them more than any
oven threat
Then Carmen raised her hand and pointed directly at the bathroom door
“Inside All of you
Her voice dropped to ice.
“I want to see you use everything Toothbrush. Shampoo. Body wash. Towel. Everything. While I watch.”
Their lip quivered, “N–no, we can use our own, really-
The smile vanished from Carmen’s face.
What reced it was pure frost.
“I wasn’t asking”
From her coat pocket, Carmen pulled out a butterfly knife.
+8 Pearls
With <b>a </b><b>flick </b>of her wrist, the de danced through the air in a deadly bloom of metal. She twirled it with practiced grace, the sharpened edges catching the dim overhead light with every motion.
The girls backed into the corner like trapped prey.
They whimpered, “P–please don’t do anything crazy… we were wrong, okay? We’re sorry-
Carmen didn’t blink.
“Sorry?” she said sweetly. “One sorry to erase everything? I must look very easy to fool.”
She advanced one step.
“You remember what I told you two months ago?”
The girls shuddered in unison.
Of course they remembered.
Carmen had once cornered them in the hallway, her knife cold against the small of their backs, whispering in a voice that <b>haunted </b>their nightmares:
“You can bully me, but I can kill you. One life for three. That’s a trade I’m happy to make.”
Tears welled up in their eyes now. They clung to each other, their pride shattered, their bravado long gone.
And Carmen just watched.
Smiling.
Eventually, under hermand–and her <b>knife</b>–they filed into the bathroom. They scrubbed their teeth <b>with </b>the tainted <b>brush</b>, <b>washed </b>their <b>hair </b>with the contaminated <b>shampoo</b>, rubbed their bodies clean with the towel they had desecrated.
Carmen remained in the doorway, arms folded, <b>watching </b>in serene silence.
Her
r smile was still there, but it had no warmth. No life.
Only control
“Good girls,” she said atst. “Now we understand each other,”
Because that’s the <b>truth</b>, wasn’t it?
Snakes needed <b>fangs</b>.
Not to strike, but to survive
Because
And Car
– matter how much <b>you </b>covered, begged, or hid—there would <b>always </b>be someone waiting to strike first.
350 PM p p.
Chatter 167
48 Pearls
She’d rather be the first to bite.
As the girls sobbed and scrambled to their beds. Carmen turned toward the door, her expression unreadable. She ran a <b>hand </b>through her dark hair and exhaled slowly.
Her thoughts shifted back to the Maybach
The man who <b>had </b>promised her a return
<b>Duke </b>
He had driven past like she didn’t <b>exist</b>.
<b>But </b>she wouldn’t let <b>that </b>be the end.
Her fingers flexed slightly, as if already imagining grabbing his cor.
Looks like I’ll be heading to <b>the </b>Silveng Den tonight, she <b>thought </b>coldly.
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