Zein's POV
The grand dining hall of Hell University was a cathedral of cold marble and bitter memories. We sat there—Ace, Vanessa, Mia, Dave, Cin, Edrix, Percy, Jay, Keifer, and I—like a jury of the damned.
The silence wasn't empty; it was pressurized, vibrating with the secret we had buried in the dark.
The heavy oak doors groaned open. Madam Violet swept in, her purple silk robes hissing against the floor like a viper in the grass. She looked around the room, her eyes narrowing as she noted the heavy atmosphere and, more importantly, the empty chair at the head of the table.
"Where is Franchise?" she demanded. Her voice was a whip, meant to draw blood. "He was supposed to give the opening address for the gala preparations. Why is he not at his post?"
I leaned back, my fingers interlaced behind my head. I let a slow, jagged smirk crawl across my lips, the kind of smile that didn't reach my eyes.
"Oh, Madam," I said, my voice dripping with mock concern. "You know how Franchise is. He's such a dedicated administrator. Perhaps he's just... tied up with something. Or maybe he finally realized that some appointments are better kept in the afterlife."
Violet's face turned a mottled shade of red. "Watch your tone, Zein. You may be the 'Queen' of the student body, but remember who holds the keys to your cage. I can have you back in the containment wings before you finish your next breath."
Beside me, Ace let out a dry, hollow chuckle. He didn't even look at her; he was busy cleaning the edge of a silver butter knife with a white linen napkin.
"It's fascinating, really," Ace mused, his voice smooth and dangerous. "How people in power always talk about cages. It's like they haven't noticed the bars have been rusted through for years. You're threatening a girl who has outlived every 'accident' you've thrown at her. You aren't holding the keys anymore, Violet. You're just holding onto a sinking ship."
Violet's gaze snapped to Jay and Keifer. They were the center of the storm. Jay was leaning against Keifer, her predatory eyes glowing with a terrifying, unnatural calm.
"You," Violet hissed, pointing a trembling finger. "You two did something, didn't you? Where is my Administrator?"
Jay and Keifer didn't flinch. Slowly, with a synchronized grace that made the hair on my neck stand up, they looked up. Their expressions were identical—a mask of dark, beautiful malice. They interlocked their hands, fingers weaving together like a pact of death, and picked up their glasses of dark red wine.
"What if it was really our doing?" Jay whispered, her voice a jagged shard of ice.
"And what if," Keifer added, his voice a low, vibrating rumble that shook the table, "it is the just the beginning of your nightmare .The only thing keeping you alive for another hour?"
They took a slow, deliberate sip of their drinks, their eyes locked onto hers over the rims of the crystal.
"Seize them!" Violet shrieked, gesturing to the guards stationed by the doors. "Take them to the hall ! I want them stripped of their ranks and put under maximum sedation!"
The room erupted. But before the guards could even draw their batons, a wall of the school's elite moved. Vanessa, Freya, Ion, Angelo, Percy, and Dave stepped forward in a seamless line, blocking the path to the table.
One guard, a brute who had spent too many years bullying younger students, lunged toward me. He thought the "I" was a soft target.
He was dead wrong.
In a blur of movement, Keifer was off his seat. There was a silver flash—a simple dining fork from the table—and a wet, sickening thwack.
The guard froze, his eyes bulging as the silver tines disappeared into the soft tissue of his throat. He collapsed to his knees, gurgling, a crimson map spreading across his uniform
Jay stood up, her aura radiating the pure, unadulterated cold of the 'Bloody Night.' She leaned over the dying man and looked directly at Violet.
"Did you forget what I said, Violet?" Jay's voice was a hiss that silenced the entire hall. "I told you the dismantling had begun. You've spent years playing God with our lives, treating us like blueprints instead of people. This?" She pointed to the dying guard. "This is just the table setting.This is just the appetizer. You have to wait for your turn, Madam. I want you to feel the anticipation. I want you to smell the fear before the blade touches you. I want you to watch as everything you built turns to ash."
Keifer stood over the body, his face splattered with a few drops of blood. He looked like a god of war. "You thought we were your pets," he growled, his voice dropping into a register that felt like a death knell. "You thought we would be your ultimate weapons. You thought the serum made us obedient. Well, you were wrong. We are the one who are gonna burn this university down."
He scanned the room, his eyes landing on the other students who were watching in terror. "We won't hurt the students. They are victims of this factory. but every single staff member, every scientist, every guard who breathes the air of Hell University is a target. If you come between us and our justice, you will die where you stand."
"Let's go," I said, standing up and smoothing my skirt.
We walked out of the hall in a single, terrifying phalanx. Violet was left standing in the center of the room, her screams of "Treason!" falling on deaf ears as even her own loyalists began to back away from the carnage.
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The night air hit us, but it offered no relief. We gathered near the stone archways.
"Where is he?" I asked, looking at Jay.
Matt, his face pale, looked at Keifer. "How did you even pull this off? Franchise is never alone."
Keifer wiped a stray drop of blood from his cheek. "We didn't do it tonight. We did it last night, while the Council was distracted by the shipment of the new serum. We used the service tunnels Ion mapped out. He never even saw us coming."
"Take me to him," I said. "I have a debt to settle for my sisters."
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We descended into the sub-basement of the old library—a place forgotten by time and light. The air was thick with the scent of mildew and copper. In the center of the damp room, strapped to a heavy wooden chair, was Franchise.
The "Administrator" was a pathetic sight. His expensive suit was torn, and his face was a swollen mask of bruises. When the light of our lanterns hit him, he began to thrash, his muffled screams dying behind the thick duct tape on his mouth.
Jay walked up and ripped the tape off.
"I'll tell you everything!" Franchise shrieked, spit flying from his lips. "The names of the donors, the twins' information, the passcodes to Andrew's private server! Just let me go! I was just following orders!"
Jay leaned in, her eyes reflecting the flickering lantern light, her nose inches from his. She didn't look like a girl; she looked like an ancient, hungry thing "We don't need your answers, Franchise. We've already seen the truth in our own blood. We don't want information." She ran a cold finger down the side of his neck. "We just want to show you the hell you've been selling to the world."
I stepped forward first. My heart was a drum of rage. "This is for my sister's I never got to know," I whispered. I swung my fist with the weight of twenty years of grief behind it. His jaw shattered with a sickening crac.
One by one, we took our turn. It wasn't a fight; it was an execution.
Ace delivered a clinical, heavy blow to his ribs, breaking the bones that housed his black heart, his strike clinical and precise. "That's for making for my fathers dad ".
Then Raze came front and threw a solid punch at his jaw forcing him turning his face in other direction and splitting blood,"That's for my love",he hissed.
Vanessa and Mia, the girls who had seen too many friends "disappear" into the labs, delivered a flurry of strikes that turned his chest into a pulp.
Dave and Edrix pounded him with the strength of men who were tired of being pawns. Cin and Felix delivering a rhythmic, brutal beating that turned Franchise's face into raw meat. Angelo handed blows to his gut, Ion landed a strike so hard making him fell down.Even Freya and Percy, the ones who usually stayed in the back, landed hits that carried the fury of a thousand betrayed students.
Franchise was a ruin, a bloody heap barely hanging onto life.
"Now for the finale," Jay whispered.
Keifer produced a jagged piece of glass from a broken vial. "You liked to watch us, didn't you, Franchise? Through the one-way glass? Through the cameras?"
Jay looked at Keifer. They moved with a terrifying, silent understanding. Jay grabbed a pair of surgical shears from a nearby table—tools Franchise had likely used on others.
"Please! No!!" Franchise wailed.
"You've seen enough," Jay said. With a swift, brutal motion, she took his sight. His screams echoed through the stone walls, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony.
But they weren't done.Two swift, agonizing punctures. The screams that ripped from Franchise's throat were inhuman as his world went dark forever.
"And these hands," I said, my voice cold as the grave. "These hands signed the death warrants of Samnath and Allison. These hands touched the children you broke."
Keifer didn't hesitate. He used a heavy industrial blade, the sound of metal meeting bone echoing like a butcher's shop. Thump. Slice. Thump.
When the silence finally returned to the basement, Franchise was no longer a man. He was a blind, handless torso, a living testament to the cruelty he had helped foster. He was still breathing, his body kept alive by the very serum they had forced into us—the ultimate irony.
Jay stood back, her face splattered with the red proof of our vengeance. She looked at Angelo and Ion, who were standing by the door, their faces set in grim stone.
"Kuya," Jay said, her voice steady. "Ate Wrap the 'gift.' Send the hands to Andrew's office. I want them on his desk before his morning coffee. And the eyes? Put them in a jewelry box for Madam Violet. Let her see what happens when the 'monsters' finally look back."
Angelo nodded, his face hardened into a mask of resolve. He didn't look away from the gore. He didn't flinch. He picked up a crate.His eyes dark with a new, terrible purpose. "I'll make sure they're delivered with a bow."
Ion stepped forward, her fingers already dancing over a tablet he'd brought.
"Consider it delivered," Ion said, a dark, technical grin playing on her lips, "I'll loop the security feed in the administrative wing. They won't know anyone was there until they open the boxes. It'll be the last thing they see before I shut down the school's grid."
We walked out of the basement, leaving the thing that used to be Franchise in the dark. The war hadn't just started; it had found its rhythm.
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A/N:
Hey everyone! Here is the new chapter! 🩸
The "Queens" and "Kings" have finally stopped playing by the Council's rules. How do you like the transition from students to executioners? It's about to get much darker from here.
Can you guess who is next on the list? 📝
Target: 25+ comments to unlock the next update! 🎯 Let me know your theories below!