Lyra’s POV
“LYRA! LYRA!!” My mother banged on my door while screaming my name. I could hear her sobs mid bang and that only fueled the determination I had.
I looked at the scissors in my hand, looked back at the mirror and the girl staring back at me looked like a mess. With mascara stained cheeks and puffy eyes but I didn’t care she needed to be buried and was going to be.
I watched my hair fall to the ground snip after snip. My mother had worn off herself and left sobbing and my father was nowhere to be seen but I know he wasn’t having it either.
I violently applied the black dye over my bright ginger hair and as I did memories started flooding me making my vision go blurry.
“You do have really lovely hair.” Maya said as she brushed my hair to style them into pigtails.
“Your hair is the loveliest Maya!” I would clap back immediately.
“It’s boring and black. Yours is a beautiful shade of ginger…” she paused and spun me to face her.
“Promise me something firehead.” I nodded
“Never dye your hair black ever and never let anyone except me bully or tease you about it. It’s just as beautiful as you are.”
As the memory faded, my cheeks were wet and my hair…my hair was black.
I washed out the dye, watching all the color go down the drain.
Walking back to the mirror, I rummaged through my makeup bag and found the darkest shade of burgundy lipstick I owned. I applied it with a soulless smile on my face. Everything I trained myself for is finally coming together.
“If there’s one thing I learned after my sister died, it’s that the law doesn’t touch the rich. But if you plan carefully enough, you don’t need the law. You become it.” I smile one last time before I leave the bathroom.
My father had returned from wherever he went to and the look they both gave me tore me to my core but I couldn’t show that.
“Where are her things?” my words sliced through the silence.
“What did you do to yourself Lyra?” his voice was low but steady.
“I dyed it. Where are her things?” I proceeded to look for it myself and my mother just walked out shaking her head.
“I don’t know what you plan on doing but you aren’t going to that school.” I just smiled at his words.
“Sure, we’ll see about that. Father.”
I understood that they were still grieving a child and they don’t want to lose another but I have to do this.
We made eye contact but I feigned ignorance to the silent pleas he was giving me and made my way to my room.
The book in my hand felt really heavy, adjusting on my bed to be a bit more comfortable because holding it alone made me very uncomfortable but I needed to read it.
Dear Diary
01.09.25
There’s blood on my shirt and I think my nose is broken. *laughs*
The Crown Clique had their fun again. I’ve never had a diary, I’ve never been the type to keep diaries, but they’ve taken every social right I own. No one talks to me anymore. I walk down the marble halls of King’s Crest like an absolute ghost, and the worst part is watching everyone look away because they're too terrified of becoming the next target.
But to top it all off… I’m in love with someone who doesn't love me back.
He pinned me against the brick wall behind the gym today while his friends laughed. He looked down at me with those piercing, beautiful, frozen eyes, and he told me I was nothing. He told me that girls like me don't get to breathe the same air as them. It hurts so bad. It hurts because when he’s staring at me with all that hatred, a part of me still remembers the boy who held me in the dark last month and whispered that he would protect me.
Why does he play these sick games? How can he be so tender when we are alone, and so utterly monstrous when the lights come on?
Christian Steel.
You are a devil himself. You keep tearing my soul out day by day, and you always smile while you do it but I don't know how much longer I can keep playing your twisted game.
I now had a trigger to my gun, whoever the hell Christian was he was my first target.
Rummaging through the pile of stuff on my bed that I had taken from her things, my hands landed on the year book…exactly what I was looking for.
I flipped through reading each page carefully for details of anything that would help me
As I saw it my face scrunched up in disgust…they had an entire page dedicated to them and even worse Christian looked smug like he was an innocent boy that had every right to walk around a free man.
A bright idea popped up, so I grabbed a scissors, a razor, made cut outs of their face and pasted it on the back of Maya’s journal. I read through the year book to understand what the physical appearance demands just so you can fit in.
I’ll be leaving for school soon and I needed to make sure that everything was in order from the forged birth certificate to the financial records that painted me as an heiress.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. The screen lit up with a single name: Uncle Kenneth.
I picked it up on the first ring, pressing the phone to my ear. "Is everything ready?"
"It’s done." his voice came through, heavy with a mixture of grief and anxiety.
Uncle Kenneth was my mother’s brother, a high-end corporate lawyer who had spent his entire career cleaning up the messes of wealthy families. When Maya died, it broke him just as much as it broke me. He knew the law wouldn’t touch the Clique. He was the only one who didn't call me crazy when I suggested the plan.
"The academy accepted the wire transfer from the offshore account this morning. On their servers, your name is Elena Cruz. Your backstory is airtight, the orphaned daughter of a deceased Spanish oil tycoon, raised by a reclusive guardian abroad. They won't look twice."
"Thank you, Uncle Kenneth," I whispered, staring at the yearbook cutout of Christian Steel's smug face.
"Lyra..." he sighed, his voice cracking slightly. "You are walking into a den of vipers. If they find out who you really are, they will ruin what’s left of us. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?"
"They took Maya," I said, my voice dropping to a flat, dangerous whisper. "I’m going to take everything they have. I’ll see you at the academy gates."
I hung up before he could argue. I picked up the razor blade, slicing cleanly through Christian Steel’s face on the yearbook page, he was the last one left. I pasted his cutout right in the center of the inside cover of Maya's diary. He was the king of the Crown Clique and my main target.
I packed the diary neatly into the bottom of my brand-new, designer leather tote bag. I stood up, smoothing down the edges of the dark, sophisticated tailored blazer I had bought for this exact day.
The girl who used to wear oversized hoodies and laugh with her sister was officially dead.
Elena Cruz was alive.
~
An hour later, a sleek, black luxury vehicle pulled up to the towering iron gates of King’s Crest Academy. Uncle Kenneth had arranged the car and a private chauffeur to ensure my entrance screamed old-money privilege.
As the car rolled down the driveway, the campus came into view. Gothic-modern architecture loomed overhead, surrounded by manicured lawns and marble fountains. Hundreds of students walked the grounds, every single one of them dressed in clean, tailor-made uniforms that cost more than my entire savings.
The chauffeur opened my door. I took a deep breath, suppressing every ounce of Lyra Vance, and stepped out onto the marble walkway. The sharp click of my designer heels echoed against the stone.
Instantly, whispers rippled through the courtyard as students turned their heads to stare at the new girl. I kept my face entirely flat, walking slow and looking really unbothered.
"Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in," a sharp, condescending voice cut through the murmurs.
I stopped.
Standing in front of me was a girl with perfectly curled blonde hair, diamond earrings, and a cruel, practiced smile.
I could spot that face from anywhere.
Chloe Montgomery.
The female lead of the Crown Clique. The girl who had stood by, laughed and participated in Maya’s bullying and death.
Chloe crossed her arms, looking me up and down with obvious disgust.
"I don't remember the administration saying anything about accepting charity cases mid-semester. Who even are you?"
The circle of students around us went quiet, watching the scene unfold.
Instead, I tilted my head a little to the side letting a cold, incredibly amused smile play on my burgundy lips. I stepped directly into Chloe's personal space, looking down at her.
"Elena Cruz. And if I were you, sweetheart, I’d check my tone. I don't give my attention to people who dress like they bought their style off a bargain rack."
Gasps erupted from the surrounding crowd. Chloe’s face instantly contorted into absolute, raging fury. She opened her mouth to scream at me, but before a single word could leave her lips, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the entire courtyard.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
A sleek, roaring sports car screeched to a halt right at the edge of the walkway. The door swung open, and a guy stepped out, practically radiating power. He wore his uniform loosely, a silver signet ring flashing on his hand, and his aura was completely suffocating.
His eyes swept over the crowd, ignoring Chloe entirely, and locked directly onto my face.
It was him.
Christian Steel.
My heart hammered violently against my ribs not out of fear, and definitely not out of attraction, but because the devil himself had finally stepped into my court. The game had officially begun.