I wasn’t a saint.

I never claimed to be.

Even the devils in Hell would tell you I belonged to no god, not even the one that made me. My place in the world was self-made, carved in blood and silence, and I had no intention of changing that.

Thunder Bay Prep still smelled the same—cedarwood polish, expensive cologne, and the bitter remnants of teenage rebellion. The air was thick with the tension of return, students falling back into their places like pieces on a chessboard. Everyone had a role. The Golden Boys, the Trust Fund Brats, the Power Players. And then there was me—the thing they all feared, not because I was violent, but because I didn’t need to be.

Power isn’t loud. It isn’t desperate. It doesn’t flail or fight. It just is.

I moved through the halls without speaking, power echoes here, it’s in the polished wood of every door and in the whispers that scatter when I walk past. I don’t need to speak. They already know.

The boy who killed at eleven. The murderer. Devilish.

They were ‘nice’ out of obligation and fear. They smiled because they were scared of what could happen if they didn’t—which was nothing, nobody in this school is worth getting my hands dirty.

I passed the marble pillars and glass windows, my footsteps echoing down the long corridor, untouched by the whispers around me. The eyes followed, the curious glances that flickered toward me like flames in the night, but I didn’t care. Let them look. Let them talk.

I wasn’t concerned with them. Not anymore.

What bothered me was that feeling. The same one I always felt when she was near—distant but tangible, like a storm creeping in from the horizon, slow and relentless. She never made a sound, but I could always feel her presence.

She was the only one outside my family that saw ‘good’ in me. At the ripe age of 12, she marked her place at the bell tower. Five years later and she’s kept her word.

I’ve warned her, hurt her heart, tried to push her away but the scar only gets deeper; she mars herself deeper into my skin.