CHAPTER 6: The Silent Game Begins

She wasn't supposed to be here.

Not after the van.Not after the officers.Not after that awful, echoing silence in the cafeteria.

Not after that day in the corridor; I thought she was clearing her locker.

But there she was.

Julia.

Sitting just two rows ahead in chemistry like nothing had ever happened. Laughing. Casual. Calm. That same perfect laugh—soft and slow like honey dripping onto glass.

Her hair was still a nice, combed Afro, like it had been since she started attending this school. Her nails, freshly done. Her presence? Untouched. Unbothered.

Untouchable.

I watched her from the corner of my eye, jaw clenched, heart loud.

How?

No one was talking about it.

Not the teacher.Not the students.Not the girls who clung to her like constellations orbiting a dying star.

It was like the arrest never happened.Like Julia never vanished for two whole weeks.Like they had all rehearsed a new version of the truth and decided to live in it.

I tried to ask Ayanda. "Did she—"

"Shhhh," Ayanda whispered, glancing around. "Let it go, Mak."

When I asked Tanatswa, the girl just smiled like she was hiding a joke. "You saw wrong," she said. "Nobody took Julia."

By lunchtime, it was clear.

I was the only one seeing the cracks.

That's when it started.

It wasn't loud.It wasn't obvious.

It was quiet.

A flicker.A shiver down my spine.A feeling that someone had been watching long enough to know exactly when to strike.

First, something inside her locker.Then, something between her books.Later, one slipped into her hoodie pocket without her even noticing.

They weren't just notes.

They were warnings.Commands.And something else, too—something darker I couldn't yet name.

I stopped telling people.They stopped caring anyway.

By Thursday, the girls were back.

The gang. The pack. The pretty wolves.

And they came with a new game.

A prank. A laugh. A dare.The usual—except now, they didn't do it themselves.

They handed it to me.

Just like before.

"Mak", Tawana said sweetly, "you know that thing you used to do with the fire alarm?"

They giggled.

Tawana was the closest friend of Bridget; she was the only person who could get her to laugh or share her stuff with her. Only her. She was sweet, actually, very sweet for my liking.

"Come on, Miss Good Grades," Tendai added, tossing me a hall pass like it was a toy. "Go shake things up. Like old times."

Old times.

Before the police.Before the whispers.Before the truth got buried so deep,, even I started doubting I'd ever seen it.

I hesitated.

But when I looked back… Bridget was watching.

Not smiling.Not blinking.Just watching.

And somewhere deep in my bag, another message waited to be found.

They handed me the screwdriver at break.

A small, silver thing. Light in the hand. Harmless, almost.

"Just loosen the back bolts," Carol whispered."Enough to make her panic, not enough to hurt her," Tendai added, grinning.

They were talking about Miss Mangwiro, the substitute chemistry teacher with a spine straighter than a ruler and no sense of humour.

"A harmless prank", they said.A little revenge for yesterday's humiliation of Praise, one of the girls in the group.It would get laughs. That's all.

"You used to be fun, Mak," Tendai teased."You're acting like we're going to kill her."

I didn't want to do it. But the other girls were watching.Bridget was watching.

And my fingers were already brushing against the note in my pocket—one I'd found folded inside my English textbook:

"There are rules to staying safe. Follow them. Or fall."

My hands trembled slightly as I slipped into the classroom during lunch.

Four screws. One chair.I only loosened two.

Not enough to break it, I told myself. Just enough for a scare.I double-checked. Even tested it lightly.

Everything would be fine.

Except… it wasn't.

Because by third period, Miss Mangwiro didn't just wobble—She fell.

And not gracefully.

The chair collapsed beneath her with a horrible snap, metal crashing to the floor, her head hitting the edge of the desk on the way down.

Gasps.A scream.Blood.

The entire class went silent.

She didn't move for three full seconds.

They called the nurse.They cleared the room.An ambulance came.

And just like that—The joke was over.

Except nobody was laughing.

That night, I found the second message.

Not paper this time.A disappearing note—sent to my school email from an untraceable address. It vanished after I read it.

It had no subject.No greeting.

Just this:

"You only turned two screws. Someone else turned the rest. "Welcome to the board, pawn."

I stared at it, heart hammering. The screen flickered once.Then the message vanished.

Gone.Just like that.

And on the other side, Julia wasn't saying anything, not even a hello or asking why I did what I did.

No one did.

When I tried to ask Tendai, "Don't."When I cornered Tawana, she said, Tawana—"We're not supposed to talk about it."

Not "can't".Not supposed to.

Something was going on.Some kind of investigation.But no one told me.

I was on the outside of a secret everyone else already knew.

Everyone except me.