A lump formed in my throat as I turned around to look at Jasper. He was still standing by the door, hands in his pockets and looking at me questioningly.

“Something’s happened,” I said. It wasn’t a suspicion or an idea; it was a feeling of knowing that something wasn’t right that had overcome me the second I had found the door unlocked.

Noelle, paranoid and on edge as she was, always turned the key twice in the lock to make sure it was locked and often walked over to the door just to double-check that no one would get in.

She wouldn’t have left it open without a good reason, especially not now, after reporters had circled the castle like vultures for several days and could return at any moment.

Now that I looked around, I also got the terrible sense that someone had been rummaging through the room; some of her drawers were pulled open, items of clothing scattered around where they hadn’t been when I had left the room this morning.

The duffel bag she always took to basketball practice lay at the foot of the bed.

Behind me, Jasper asked, “What are you talking about?”

“I . . . I think Noelle is gone.”

“What? Where would she go?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, slowly spinning around. “But something’s not right.”

Jasper frowned. “What makes you think that? She probably just went to the gym, or back to the common room or something.”

“No,” I firmly said. “She always makes sure that the door is locked, you know that. It was open. Did she text you anything?”

While Jasper obediently pulled out his phone and checked for any texts, I walked over to my desk where mine was charging.

Not a single message. When I tried to phone her, there were a few bone-chilling seconds of the phone dialing before it went straight to voicemail.

I was just about to turn around again when my eyes landed on the history essay that I had only started writing yesterday.

My heart skipped a beat. Something had been added beneath the few sentences that I had written last night; it was Noelle’s writing, hasty and hard to read.

I had to leave. I had no choice. His name is Kyle Turner.

“Jasper,” I said.

Something in my voice must’ve sounded strange, seeing as he was by my side in a matter of seconds, leaning over my shoulder to see.

“Who’s Kyle Turner?” I whispered.

Jasper shook his head; in his eyes, I saw the same helpless confusion that I felt. “I don’t know.”

“Oh God,” I choked out, taking a step back from the desk, as if that would make the note and its sinister meaning vanish.

“What if he’s the reason why she’s here? Why she took on an alias and seemed so scared when The Chitter Chatter revealed her real name?”

“But how would that guy, presuming he . . . took her or something, even get in here? Teachers are patrolling the entrance hall to make sure no other reporters come in here. Someone would’ve noticed a stranger roaming around school,” Jasper said.