Marked by the Alpha Team (Luna Merrick) novel Chapter 196

A Warning

Luna’s POV

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I woke up to a note from Ivy on my desk that simply read, ‘Be careful today.’

The moment I read those three words, my stomach dropped. I stared at the note for several seconds, wondering what exactly Ivy had meant by it. I had told her everything that happened with Jace the night before, including how he had driven me to the dorm, held my hand all the way to the entrance, hugged me in front of the building, and kissed me before leaving. I had also told her that our little relationship ruse was officially beginning, which meant there was no longer any hiding from the attention that would come with it. Ivy had laughed, teased me, and warned me that things were probably going to get crazy, but I had not expected to wake up to a message like this.

Maybe she had left it because she knew today was going to be difficult and simply wanted to wish me luck, or maybe something had already started happening while I slept, and she knew about it before I did. The second thought made my stomach twist even more. I picked up my phone from beside my pillow and stared at the screen, wondering if I should check my messages immediately or go to the bathroom first and deal with whatever was waiting for me afterward. My thumb hovered over the screen for several seconds before I finally decided that I did not want to ruin my mood before I even got out of bed. If something had happened, it would still be there after I took my bath. I could give myself at least a few minutes of peace before dealing with the outside world.

I grabbed my towel, some clean clothes, and everything else I needed before leaving the room and heading toward one of the shared bathrooms on the third floor. The hallway was quiet, and that immediately made me feel a little better. I had been worried that I would walk straight into someone who had already heard about Jace and me, forcing me to deal with harassment before I had even brushed my teeth. Thankfully, nobody was around, and when I stepped into the bathroom, I found it completely empty.

I let out a quiet sigh of relief before placing my things down and getting ready. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and took my bath as quickly as possible because I wanted to get back to the room and finally check my phone. My mind kept returning to Ivy’s note, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. There was something about the simple words that bothered me more than a long warning would have. If Ivy had written a whole paragraph telling me to prepare myself for the chaos, I could have laughed it off as her being dramatic, but those three words felt different. They made me wonder if she knew something I didn’t.

By the time I finished getting ready and returned to the hallway, I was already trying to decide what I was going to do with the wild curls on my head. They had decided to do whatever they wanted overnight, and I knew I was going to spend the next twenty minutes trying to convince them to behave.

I opened the door to my room without thinking and stepped inside, already reaching toward my hair with one hand as I mentally planned how I was going to fix it. Then I froze.

My entire body stopped moving as my eyes took in the room in front of me. At first, my brain refused to understand what I was seeing. I stared at my bed, then at the floor, then at my desk, slowly realizing that the mess was not the result of someone being careless and that my side of the room had been completely destroyed.

Something red had been poured across my bed, soaking into the sheets and spreading over the blanket. 1 could not immediately tell whether it was paint or blood, and that uncertainty made my stomach turn. My clothes were scattered across the floor, some of them twisted together as though someone had grabbed them

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12:23 Thu, Aug 13

Marked by the Alpha Team

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and thrown them around without caring where they landed. Worse, they were covered in the same red substance. My eyes moved toward my desk, where the few books I owned had been ripped apart. Pages were scattered everywhere, some torn into pieces and others crushed beneath shoes.

My gym bag had been slashed repeatedly, the fabric hanging apart in several places, and the training clothes 1 kept inside had been torn to shreds. For several seconds, I simply stood there, unable to move or speak. I looked toward Ivy’s side of the room and immediately noticed the difference. Her bed was untouched, and her belongings were exactly where they had been when I left. Only my things had been attacked, only my side of the room had been destroyed, and there was no way this was an accident. Someone had deliberately come into our room and targeted me.

My heart began beating harder as the reality settled in. I had expected attention once the rumor about Jace and me started spreading, but I had not expected something like this. Jace had practically warned me himself that there might be jealousy and harassment once people realized he was supposedly dating me, and I had accepted that possibility when I agreed to the plan, but somehow, hearing about it and actually standing inside a room that had been destroyed because of it were two completely different things.

This was not a dirty look in the cafeteria or whispering behind my back. It was not some girl making a nasty comment while walking past me. Someone had taken the time to enter my room, destroy my belongings, and leave behind a message.

My eyes moved slowly across the damage again, and I felt my throat tighten. I had not brought much with me to Blackridge in the first place. I was a scholarship student. I did not have an endless supply of clothes or money to replace things whenever someone decided to ruin them. The clothes scattered across the floor were almost everything I owned. The gym bag was the only proper training bag I had. My books were not easy to replace either, especially because some of them had notes and work inside that I actually needed.

Looking at everything lying around me made my chest ache, and I felt completely helpless.

I hated crying. I especially hated crying when I was angry because it made me feel like I was giving whoever had hurt me exactly what they wanted. I blinked several times, trying to force the tears back, but my eyes had already started burning. I looked at my clothes again, then at my ruined gym bag, and something inside me cracked. My fingers curled into fists at my sides as anger slowly replaced the shock. Whoever had done this had wanted to scare me. They wanted me to know that they could reach me even inside my dorm room. They wanted me to regret getting involved with Jace.

The worst part was that they had succeeded in scaring me. I could feel fear sitting underneath my anger, making my hands shake slightly as I stood there. I had been so focused on proving that I could handle the attention that I had forgotten there were people who might actually take their jealousy too far.

I took a shaky breath and forced myself to look around again, this time more carefully. There had to be some clue about who had done this. I could not just stand there and assume it was one of Jace’s fans without knowing for certain. Maybe it was someone who hated me for another reason. Maybe someone had been watching me for longer than I realized. The thought made another chill run down my spine.

My mind immediately returned to the strange man I had seen at my race, the unfamiliar voice that had suddenly appeared inside my head and said they had found me. I had tried to push that memory away after waking up in the hospital, but it had never completely disappeared.

For a brief moment, I wondered if there could possibly be a connection between that man and what had happened to my room, but I quickly shook the thought away. There was no reason to assume that, and the situation with Jace made the obvious answer much more likely.

2/3

12:23 Thu, Aug 13

Marked by the Alpha Team

91

20 vouchers

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