Chapter 389
Clementine:
I kept watching her face, and she kept staring back at me. Then I remembered.
She had told me her sister had died because of the Academy, and it all hit me at once.
My expressions must have shown her that I remembered because Miss Rue began to nod her head.
“Exactly,” she whispered, keeping her eyes locked on my face.
“You killed my sister!” she screamed.
I gasped, stepping back and away from the metal gate.
My hands opened and closed beside my body, trying to release the tension, but it did not help.
“She was innocent. She was dragged into this Academy just like the rest of you. But you,” she paused, taking such heavy breaths that I could hear the wheezing in her breathing. Then she pointed at me. “You are the reason she died p>
I stared at her in disbelief. All this time, I had been worried about the monsters.
I never thought someone in the Academy had been waiting for my fall. I never thought the danger would come from her.
“You could have saved her,” she uttered.
“I did. I tried to. I was helping her, but she wanted my flags,” I replied, trying to explain myself.
I thought that incident had been long forgotten by everyone.
Even when others blamed me for it, I never felt the need to explain it again because I knew I had not done anything wrong.
But it did not seem like that was how others perceived it. She was still holding on to it.
And the fact that I never found out she was related to her shocked me.
“Really? So she wanted your flags and you decided to kill her? For fuck’s sake, Clementine, she was scared,” she screamed.
I rubbed my face with my hands.
“So was I,” I whispered. “And I did not kill her. I tried to save her. She was attacking me. I was defending myself p>
I tried again and again, but Miss Rue kept shaking her head. I understood now.
None of these people wanted to admit that the fault was their own relatives or the Academy for putting us in situations like this.
They wanted to fight the one everyone was already against just to satisfy their own ego and convince themselves that they had taken revenge.
“Now die here. This is where you deserve to be.” Her tone changed and she stopped crying in front of me.
“What are you trying to do?” I asked as she clicked her tongue and smiled in a strange way.
“You wanted so badly to survive the transition stage that you killed my sister. You became the monster that night, Clementine. Now you stay here with the monsters because you are one of them p>
As soon as she said that, I watched her reach behind her coat and pull out a gun.
That was the last thing I expected.
I thought she would leave me behind without a key to cross the path, but the barrel glinted between the bars and I realized she was not planning to leave me alive.
Before I could react, she aimed directly and fired.
The shot slammed into me and my body flew back as if something had thrown me across the ground.
A burning pain spread through my chest and my arms hit the dust first.
My head followed after. My vision began to blur around the edges, and all I could see were trees from different angles.
I did not know how far I had fallen back, but I knew I had been shot.
My vision started to fade in and out. When I woke up again, I realized I was still on the ground.
Thankfully, no monster had come near me, or maybe it was because of the time.
I did not know how long I had passed out, or if it had only been a few minutes.
I could not tell. I only knew that there was a throbbing pain in the center of my chest.
I pushed myself up and looked around. The bullet had hit right above my ribs.
There was blood, but not enough to make me think any vital organ was damaged.
“Mint,” I whispered, calling for her.
“I need to take this out,” I told her.
When she did not respond, I realized the silver bullet embedded in my body was stopping her from speaking.
I clenched my jaw and ripped open my shirt a little until my cleavage showed.
Then I pushed my hand inside my shirt and hooked two fingers around the edge of the wound.
The bullet was close to the surface, so I pushed hard until the skin split again.
“Ah!” I screamed as I pulled the bullet out and dropped it beside me.
My fingers shook. The sting burned through my chest, and I let out a few more cries of pain.
My voice echoed through the trees.
Wings flapped above me. I snapped my head up and saw large bats circle around and then dive down toward me.
One flew straight at me with its claw open.
“AHHHH!” I swung my arm to push it away, but another scratched my entire back, making me scream even louder.
The next one passed close, its claws brushing my head before I swung my arm again.
This time I grabbed it by the throat. I pulled it down by the feet and slammed it into the dirt.
I did not know what happened to me in that moment, but I acted on instinct.
I got on top of the bat without caring about the others above me and started to tear at its wings until they came apart.
The bat screeched. Its face, even under the bat skin, looked human, and it stared at me with fear. The other bats flew away.
The body under me twitched, but I did not stop. I tore it apart limb by limb until it stopped moving.
My hands were covered in dark stains by the time I pushed myself away and screamed.
My spine cracked a little and my skin rippled. I knew Mint was pushing through.