No Second Chances for the Wicked Chapter 2

By early the next morning, our class group chat was blowing up with non-stop notifications.

“Did you guys hear? Kendall Price spent the whole night trapped in the campus pond!”

“What? How is that even possible? Nobody pulled her out?”

“Apparently she slipped and fell in. The rain was pounding so hard last night that nobody heard her shouting.”

I stared at the glowing screen of my phone, a cold smirk touching the corner of my mouth.

It was almost a shame she hadn't drowned.

A moment later, Marcus, our class representative, tagged everyone:

“A group of us are heading over to St. Jude’s Hospital this afternoon to visit Kendall. If anyone has free time, feel free to join.”

My first instinct was to ignore it completely. But on second thought, skipping out without an excuse would look overly conspicuous and give people unnecessary room to speculate.

When we walked into the hospital ward that afternoon, the air was thick with the sterile bite of antiseptic mixed with the faint, metallic stench of dried blood.

Kendall had just come out of facial debridement surgery.

Because of the blinding rain the night before, she had landed face-first against the jagged riprap stones lining the basin. Her face was an unrecognizable mess.

Lying in the bed, thick gauze wraps covered her entire head, stained with fresh pink seepage, leaving only a pair of venomous, bloodshot eyes exposed to the room.

Several classmates stepped forward, placing fruit baskets and bouquets on the nightstand, offering quiet words of sympathy.

"Kendall... how are you holding up?"

Her voice came out through cracked, swollen lips, terrifyingly dark: "I'm fine. Except my face is completely destroyed."

The entire room froze. The awkward silence was suffocating; nobody knew how to respond to that raw hostility.

Suddenly, Kendall’s eyes locked onto me, standing near the back of the group.

"Nora Hayes! Why didn't you pull me out?!"

Her voice rose into an ear-splitting shriek. "You were right behind me! You saw me fall into the water! Why the hell did you just leave me to die?!"

The sudden outburst made everyone in the room jump back in alarm.

I took half a step forward, my face completely smooth, gazing at the bandage-swathed wreck in front of me.

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't see you."

"You're lying!" she screamed, thrashing against her pillows. "You were standing three feet behind me! You saw me go under! You did it on purpose—you wanted me dead!"

She grew more hysterical by the second, her chest heaving violently. The students who had been gathered near the bed backed away in genuine fright, unnerved by her unhinged demeanor.

"Kendall, I genuinely didn't see you," I said calmly, my tone measured. "When the rain started, Hailey was right next to me. We ran back to the dorm together. If you don't believe me, ask her."

Hailey, standing beside me, nodded immediately. "Yeah, she's right. The storm hit out of nowhere. Nora and I bolted back together—we were both completely drenched by the time we hit the lobby."

Hearing someone provide an airtight alibi for me, the murderous rage in Kendall’s exposed eyes burned even hotter.

Too bad for her. I had already died once; her little demonic glares didn't scare me in the slightest.

Afraid that her screaming would tear open her surgical stitches, Marcus quickly stepped in, muttering a few polite parting words before ushering our group out of the ward.

As we passed the nurses’ station near the elevators, we saw several attending physicians and charge nurses walking briskly toward Kendall’s room with specialized PPE.

"Honestly, you'd never guess just by looking at her... someone so young contracting that kind of disease."

"Is that the girl in Room 402?"

"Yeah. No wonder they ordered a strict private isolation room immediately. What a disaster."

Our classmates halted in their tracks, exchanging glances of sheer bewilderment and whispered shock.

I stood in the center of the hallway, quietly curling my lips upward.

This time around, the vile secret she had guarded so desperately was going to be exposed to the broad daylight.

The very next morning, right after our lecture let out, a middle-aged woman charged into the lecture hall like a hurricane of fury.

"Which one of you is Nora Hayes?!"

Marcus looked up from his notebook and pointed hesitantly toward my desk. "Excuse me, ma'am, can I help you?"

Brenda Price didn't bother answering. She marched straight up to my desk, drew back her arm, and slammed a vicious slap across my cheek.

Crack!

The sharp sting exploded across my skin, and the left side of my face instantly flushed red and swollen.

The entire lecture hall erupted into chaos. Several of my classmates quickly stepped between us, shielding me.

"Who the hell are you?! You can't just come in here and hit people!"

Brenda didn't show a speck of shame. She planted her feet, glaring at me like a feral dog.

"Who am I? I'm Kendall Price’s mother!"

"That still doesn't give you the right to put your hands on a student!" another classmate yelled back, disgusted by her behavior.

"If it wasn't for this little monster, would my daughter's face be mutilated?!" Brenda shrieked. "Kendall told me everything! Nora saw her drowning and deliberately left her to rot! She's the reason my Kendall is ruined!"

I held my hand against my throbbing cheek, staring at her with cold, steady eyes.

"Mrs. Price, do you have any actual proof to back up that slander?"

She glared at me, her chest puffing out. "Proof? My daughter's word is my proof!"

She lunged forward, clawing her acrylic nails toward my hair.

"You jealous little bitch! You couldn't stand how pretty my Kendall was! She told me how you've been bullying her in the dorm, making her life miserable every single day! And then you took your chance to shove her into that pond so she’d be permanently disfigured!"

The moment those words left her mouth, the classmates who had been shielding me hesitated, their expressions shifting into uncomfortable doubt.

Right at that moment, Marcus returned, leading our department advisor, Mr. Fletcher, into the room.

Mr. Fletcher squeezed through the crowd, putting his hands up. "Ma'am, please calm down. I’m the academic advisor for this cohort."

Seeing a faculty member arrive, Brenda turned the theatrics up to maximum volume.

"Mr. Fletcher, you got here just in time! Your university needs to expel this sociopath immediately! She shoved her own roommate into deep water out of pure jealousy! She's a public menace!"

Mr. Fletcher adjusted his glasses, turning toward me with a heavy frown.

"Nora... what on earth happened? Did you really push Kendall into the pond?"