have siblings? If they suddenly ended up dead, wouldn’t you want to know why?”
She thought of the brother she never had a chance to know. When Fedor had ended up dead, she’d stopped at nothing to find out why. Their biological father had killed him. Nearly killed her, too.
She was robbed of the only blood relative she had.
Sasha didn’t want to care. Shuffled around from foster home to foster home, she didn’t root in anywhere nor with anyone before her years at Richter. Her entire life had been a series of disappointments, especially when she thought she could depend on someone other than herself. Her life had taught her to depend on no one.
Ever.
She had three phone numbers memorized. Reed, Trina, and now AJ.
Sasha looked at her reflection in the mirror. Hands poised on the edges of the counter while water ran down the drain. Long sheets of black hair framed her face in a sight very few ever saw.
Dark eyes stared back at her.
She considered sending a message to Reed. AJ Hofmann. That was all she’d need to give him, and she knew, instinctively, that Reed would look up the name.
Was that depending on another human being?
Probably.
How secure was Richter? Would her message even meet its mark?
Keep your actions close and your thoughts even closer. Sasha knew she wouldn’t reach out to Reed or Trina while at Richter. As firewalls went, the school had one with a pretty deep vault.
She finished in the bathroom and returned to bed. Familiar noises, or more to the point, familiar silence offered a sense of peace in the base of her skull. She closed her eyes and attempted to push the stranger at the bar from her head.
Her breathing slowed and the steady beat of her heart followed.
It was time to unplug and recharge.
A brief sense of panic had her reaching under her pillow.
Her fingers grazed the hard edge of the knife she kept within reach. She sighed and forced her heart to slow once again.
The library housed a smattering of students, mainly those at the college level who still attended Richter. The high school kids were in class, or so it would seem. And the primary school kids almost never spent time in the library during the day.
Sasha greeted the librarian by name when she entered the stately room. “Hello, Ms. Arnold.”
The sixtysomething-year-old woman was the poster version of every librarian out there. Reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a bun, the extent of makeup was a nude gloss on her lips. Or maybe it was some kind of balm to ease the dryness.
“Ahh, Miss Budanov. I heard you were here. How are you?”
“Did the headmistress send out a memo?” The question was a joke. The silence it was met with confirmed that Lodovica had done just that.
“I don’t recall you visiting me many times while you were a student. What brings you to my domain now?”
“I find myself at a crossroads, as I’m sure the headmistress has implied. I’m not sure what direction to take and thought it might help to see where some of my classmates ended up seeking employment. I wanted to start by looking over the old yearbooks.”
“You didn’t keep yours?”
Sasha shook her head. “I didn’t see the need. Until now.”
Ms. Arnold walked around the desk and led Sasha through the library. They zigzagged through the stacks until they reached the location of Richter alumni.
“You’ll find what you’re looking for here.”
“Thank you.”
“Let me know if you need anything else.”
“How about an Internet password?”
Ms. Arnold blinked several times, smiled, and finally said, “Of course.”
She walked away and returned a few minutes later with a card that had a written password on it. “The service here hasn’t improved much over the years. All access to social media is restricted, much like when you were a student.”
“I remember.”
“Brilliant. Well, I’ll leave you to your search.”
Sasha pulled two familiar yearbooks out of the stacks, and another for the year following her last one at Richter.
The massive oak tables in the center of the library had a generous number of notepads, pens, and pencils. Sasha set her supplies aside and opened the book that marked her last year.
Pictures of familiar faces in various forms of activities stretched out before her. Cameras weren’t allowed in any of the basement activities. And cell phones simply weren’t allowed on campus. Recording the sins of your youth was not tolerated at the school. During her time at Richter, it