Chapter Fifteen

Alex thought she heard something. Nothing, she thought. It was probably nothing. She did not open her eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

She had not been able to sleep for the past few days. She had no idea how many days had passed since it was always day outside her window. She sometimes wondered if it was an illusion. It was something, she decided, she would ask Rezef.

Every time Alex closed her eyes, Nes with a knife came into view right before her eyes. She slashed a man's neck with a smile on her face. Alex woke up gasping every time. She was not good with blood. In fact, she hated blood. When she got her menstruation at 12, she was so scared that she cried for a long time in the bathroom. Theo found her and told Nes about it, who came and explained everything to her even though Nes had not gotten her period by then.

Nes was always okay with blood. She was fine when she let Jin wrap her finger with a bandage after cutting her finger while chopping tomatoes. She barely twitched when Alex poured antiseptic on the cut.

A lot of people are like that. It doesn't make her a killer.

Someone knocked on her door. Alex wished she could cover her ear and go to sleep. But the knocker was persistent.

She sighed and got up. Her back hurt a little from lying down all the time. She rarely got up to do anything even if she could not sleep. There was nothing to do. Not until the Base decided what would happen to Nes. After that, they would be trained, with or without Nes.

"Will Nes be a demon at least?" Alex asked Casta, a little desperately. She could not imagine something bad happening to his sister, regardless of what she did.

"An angel cannot be a demon," Casta said. Her tone suggested she would not talk about it anymore. However, Alex kept pestering her with questions, even though she got no answer that could reassure her.

Alex opened the door. It was Daisy. Her straight golden hair was in a high ponytail.

"You need to eat something," she said. Her tone was gentler than it ever was before.

"I'm not hungry," Alex said.

"You need food, at least, until you are trained. After that, you can go without eating and drinking water," she said. "For now, you must eat."

Alex found out Daisy was not a persistent knocker only; she was persistent about everything.

Alex had to go to the dining hall with her where Rezef and Ruman were waiting. Theo refused to come out of his room, Rezef told her. The day Nes was taken, she said something to Theo that broke him. Alex thought Nes admitted everything, but perhaps it was more personal than that.

Rezef buttered a toast for her which she ate gratefully. She was indeed hungry. Daisy started talking about Nes suddenly. Alex was uncomfortable. She did not want to talk about Nes.

"I don't really feel like talking," Alex said.

"Come on, you must know, right? Who did she kill? Two people, Mistress said. But which two people? Just two random people? I don't think so. She is an angel, after all. She could not just kill two people. There must have been a reason," Daisy said.

She had a point. What if it was self-defense? Why did Alex not think about it that way?

"It could have been that she was attacked," Ruman said.

"We could know for sure if we knew the name of those two people," Rezef said.

They all looked at Alex. "Can you guess who it can be?" Daisy asked.

Alex shook her head. It was impossible to guess who your sister killed.

"Can't it all be a mistake?" Alex murmured. She wanted to cry and yell at everyone to shut up. She wanted to believe it was all a lie or avoid it altogether for her whole life.

"I don't think so." Rezef's voice was soft and comforting.

Does my sister look like a murderer?

Later that day, Alex knocked on Theo's door. He opened quickly enough, much to her surprise.

"Can I come in?" she asked.

"Yeah," Theo said and stood aside to let her get into his room.

He closed the door and sat on the bed. Alex stood beside him with a hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" she asked. The question had an obvious answer, but she could not help asking.

"I don't know," Theo said in a murmur. His voice broke her heart. Her brother was not like this usually. He sounded the same way he did when he woke up in the hospital. He sounded broken as if he had given up on something.

"Maybe it was self-defense," she said.

Theo shook his head. "Self-defense from-?"

"You know who-?"

Theo did not say anything. He knew, she thought. But he would not tell her. At least, not yet.

"How well did we even know Nes?" Theo said. It was more like he was talking to himself, than ask Alex. "I mean, she knew everything about us. Some guy hit on you and you liked him, she knew. My girlfriend and I broke up, she knew."

"We told her," Alex pointed out.

"Exactly. But what did she tell us? Did she tell us anything? Have you heard if she had her first kiss? Do you know if she slept with anyone? Yeah, siblings might not share such things, but we are triplets. We are of the same age. We are more like friends. Then why didn't she say anything to us?"

"You think Jin knew?"

"Would he accept such thing if he knew?"

"I don't know," Alex whispered.

Alex had no idea what to think of whom anymore. The Nes they knew was not who Nes truly was. Or, maybe she never pretended; Theo and Alex merely could not see her for who she was.

Then who was Jin? They were always together and if not, they texted each other. They knew everything about each other, unless Nes never told Jin about what she did.

Maybe that was what happened. Maybe Jin did not know. Or, how did you remain silent when your best friend killed two people?