Free Web NovelChapter 41: She was pushed
WILLA POV
She’s dead.
I let the words settle in my mind for a brief moment before Verah finally broke through my thoughts.
"Who died?" she asked sharply. freewebnøvel.com
Mary gasped and clutched at her chest. Her knees gave out beneath her.
Verah immediately grabbed her wrist and yanked her upright before she could collapse. She cupped her face, staring intently at her.
"Who died, Mary?" she repeated, her frown deepening.
From where we stood, we still couldn’t clearly see what was happening through the crowd of students surrounding the scene.
Only Mary seemed close enough to know.
But judging from the state she was in, I doubted we’d get a proper answer anytime soon.
While Verah tried calming her down, I slowly moved away and pushed through the crowd myself.
The moment I reached the center, my breath caught violently in my throat.
My heart lurched.
Nausea surged upward so suddenly that I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting right there.
"What..." I whispered shakily into my palm. "The hell is this?"
The girl on the floor...Her face was destroyed.
Even with her head partly turned toward the ground, the damage was horrifying.
Blood stained the ground soaking into the soil beneath her body in thick crimson streaks. Her arms and legs bent at unnatural angles that looked impossible to fix.
"She jumped."
"No, people are saying she was pushed."
"How could she even do something like that?"
Voices rose all around me. Some judgmental. Some curious. Only a few sounded genuinely horrified.
I slowly lifted my gaze upward toward the place several students were pointing at. The rooftop of the classroom building.
A four-storey building.
My stomach twisted violently as I traced the distance from the rooftop down to the ground... then back to her broken body.
There was no way anyone could survive a fall like that. Not with the amount of blood surrounding her.
And even if she somehow had, I doubted she would ever truly recover from injuries that severe.
Still, what I couldn’t understand was why anyone would willingly do this to themselves in the first place.
Questions crowded my mind endlessly, yet none of them came with answers.
Why would she do this?
What could possibly push someone to throw their life away like that?
And more importantly, was this academy truly safe anymore?
ELLIOT POV
At Lykaon Royal Academy, student deaths weren’t unusual.
In fact, that was one of the unspoken truths behind the academy’s existence.
We were sent there to survive long enough to become stronger to stand on our own in the real world after graduation or die trying.
None of the higher-ups would ever say it aloud, of course.
But everyone knew. Students died here. Regularly. And over time, death had become less of a tragedy and more of a spectacle.
Another incident. Another body. Another rumor to spread through the dormitories before classes resumed the next morning. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com
But this...felt different.
My wolf stirred uneasily inside me. A restless feeling crawled beneath my skin as our mindlink opened.
"Do you feel it?" he asked quietly in my head.
I kept my eyes fixed on the scene before me.
"Yeah," I answered through the link. "I feel it too."
The students reacted the same way they always did—whispers, curiosity, judgment—but the atmosphere itself felt wrong.
Heavy. The stench of blood and death clung thickly to the air.
I stared down at the girl sprawled across the ground, her face buried in the sand. Blood matted the back of her skull and spread darkly beneath her body.
"Oh, Janice!"
A girl’s broken cry snapped me from my thoughts.
I turned sharply toward the brunette stumbling through the crowd with Elyse and Verah following closely behind her.
Before she could reach the body, I stepped directly into her path. She staggered to a stop.
Her face was flushed red, her lower lip trembling violently as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"That’s my..." she choked out. "My best friend."
"You can’t go near her," I said firmly.
"Why not?" she whispered shakily.
"It’s a... forbidden. We wait for the headmaster and police to arrive."
"Forbidden?" she repeated incredulously.
Her eyes widened as she stared at me like I’d said something unforgivable.
"You’re calling this...forbidden?!"
"It is a crime scene and you can’t come closer to her," I answered calmly.
No matter how horrible it looked. No matter what the circumstances were. That was exactly what this was.
But nothing would come from it. Because this wasn’t just any crime scene. It was Lykaon Royal Academy. Nothing would be done.
"Janice was pushed into killing herself!" the girl cried, tears spilling uncontrollably down her cheeks now. "She was pushed!"
Maybe she had jumped. But whatever drove her to that point, only Janice truly knew.
"Janice wasn’t suicidal," the girl continued frantically, shaking her head over and over. "She loved living. She loved this world."
Her voice cracked painfully.
"There were no signs. None." She dragged in a shaky breath before angrily wiping at her tears. "She had plans for her future. So many things she wanted to do and now..."
Her breathing turned uneven as she clutched tightly at her side. The color drained rapidly from her face.
Sweat gathered across her forehead despite the cold air sharp enough to chill skin.
I watched her closely.
"Janice... this school... Headmaster Alaric..." she slurred weakly.
Her eyes rolled back suddenly as her body pitched forward. I moved instinctively, prepared to catch her but somehow she managed to steady herself again.
Barely.
Her trembling hand slowly lifted toward the crowd. Toward all of us.
"You all..." she whispered hoarsely. "Are murderers and—"
Her mouth moved again. No sound came out. A soft breeze swept through the gathered students.
Then she stumbled forward once more. This time, she didn’t recover. I caught her before she could slam into the ground.
"Mary!" Verah screamed, rushing toward us.
I carefully lowered both myself and Mary onto the ground.
"Someone call an ambulance," I muttered quickly.
"I can give first aid." A girl pushed through the crowd carrying a silver medical kit before crouching beside Mary.
"Allow me, Alpha," she said respectfully.
I nodded once and moved aside. For a moment, I simply watched as she checked Mary’s pulse and breathing.
Then she looked up at me, worry flashing across her face.
"Her pulse is weak," she said quietly.
"The ambulance is already on its way," someone else added from somewhere behind the crowd.
My gaze lifted instinctively.
Headmaster Alaric now stood within the center of the gathering, silently observing the chaos around him. Two professors I hadn’t noticed earlier—Professor Joy and Professor John—stood nearby with tense expressions.
I rose slowly to my feet and brushed the dirt from my pants.
"What happened?" he asked, turning toward me.
"No idea," I answered honestly. "I only just arrived."
Headmaster Alaric gave a brief nod.
"I see."
Then he fell silent again.
His attention returned to the corpse sprawled across the bloodstained ground while whispers spread uneasily through the surrounding students.
Headmaster Alaric crouched briefly beside the covered body. For a fleeting moment, something unreadable crossed his face.
Then he rose smoothly to his feet.
"Return to your dormitories," he ordered calmly.
His gaze shifted toward Professors Joy and John, who immediately nodded before turning toward the crowd to disperse the students.
But nobody moved.
The girl still kneeling beside the unconscious student clung tightly to her, her own face deathly pale.
I couldn’t tell whether she was more terrified by the body on the ground or by the girl she was holding. Either way, she looked seconds away from collapsing too.
"You heard the Headmaster," Professor John called sharply. "Everyone back to the dormitories."
"Dormitories?" a student repeated shakily.
He stumbled into the clearing, trembling violently. A first-year. That much was obvious.
Older students probably would’ve already left by now.
"Something this horrible happens and you expect us to just go back like nothing happened?!" he demanded, his voice cracking.
He bent forward suddenly, struggling to catch his breath before straightening again. He ran a hand through his golden curls, seconds away from tugging in frustration.
"Someone should call the police. Her parents. Anyone..." he wheezed.
Then his expression twisted with panic. "Someone did this," he said weakly. "Someone killed her."
Headmaster Alaric’s gaze shifted toward the boy. Momentarily, something cold flickered across his expression. Then it disappeared completely.
"A tragic incident, it is," he said evenly, clasping his hands behind his back. "The academy council will conduct a full investigation, Mr. Sheffield. Until then, rumors and speculation will not be tolerated."
The boy clearly wasn’t satisfied with the answer.
Honestly, neither would I have been if I were a terrified first-year student who still didn’t understand how this academy truly operated.
Still, he said nothing else.
Slowly, he turned away and followed the remaining students as they began leaving the area.
Once nearly everyone had dispersed, Headmaster Alaric turned toward Professors Joy and John.
"Contact her parents," he ordered calmly. "And I want answers."
"Yes, sir," they replied in unison.
Then Headmaster Alaric faced me. "Come with me, Ashford."
