Four

Sally's POV

However, without a doubt, I know for sure that it will give everyone who has had a bad night, a little bit of hope. And when the sun came out a little, shining brightly on the horizon, it pushed the darkness away, albeit temporarily.

The gate to the campus is still locked and I know a way to get in. Walk a little further from the main gate, near the beginning of the forest, right at the corner of the entrance. I threw my bag to the other side of the wall and climbed over it. I landed perfectly on my feet, smirking proudly to myself. I keep going to the destination in mind.

The gentle cold morning breeze is the fresh air I need. It may sound strange, but I find the quiet and the small stream of light in the forest very soothing.

What makes me a psychopath? I laughed at my unfunny joke.

Glance around this place. I love the way the leaves fill the branches as they sway back and forth in the wind current. The rustling sound of fallen leaves on the ground crunched beneath my feet. This was one of the few things that kept me sane growing up under my grandfather's tyranny.

I yawned as soon as I saw the small white gazebo. I don't know why, but every time I was in the comfortable space of the gazebo, I would easily fall asleep, no nightmares, no nothing, just a dreamless sleep, and that was why this was my favorite place.

"I guess I can sleep another hour or two." I placed my bag on the wooden chair that had been attached to the gazebo and was about to take a nap when suddenly I heard the crunching of leaves coming from my right side.

It's not near or far, just in the area. My head immediately flashed in said direction, I don't know what I saw, but I caught a quick movement of purple-pink orbs before it disappeared into the darker part of the forest.

Like I said, I don't know what I saw. Maybe I was just hallucinating because honestly, I was sleep-deprived.

Leaning my head against my bag, I grumbled to myself. "It's all that damn old man's fault. If only my sleep wasn't disturbed, I wouldn't be so irritable and tired. He should have stayed in Paris."

I gasped one last time before my mind drifted off to a peaceful sleep.

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Unsurprisingly, there was at least one burly man leaning against the wall of the compound, mainly to prevent me from leaving the house. I was looking forward to it.

Who ordered this house to be locked? The answer is very clear, my grandfather.

Why did he do so? Simply, because I disobeyed him and disappeared yesterday, I was punished by non-stop training. By 'relentless' I mean it was over 16 hours of boredom and torture. I can't even go to school because of this.

I informed Athena in advance that something came up and I couldn't attend class today. She didn't question me for something I warned her not to. I need to get someone's notes from my IT class when I get back, but who? I'm not friends with any of them. But that's another issue I'll worry about later.

What I need to do now is, go out. That grandfather doubled his men to watch over me. For a grown 22-year-old girl to be followed by countless bodyguards in Donne's house was unheard of, it just showed how dangerous that girl could be if they were careless with her.

There was no way they could catch me sneaking out, nor was it out of the question to escape the wrath of any member of the Donne family. Mine in particular.

Since I was 17 years old, I have been training against my will. With all the brutal forces and my own gullibility chained to the past, I had no say in anything. And I have become a hard shell of a person, sometimes very cold and cruel.

When my parents were alive, they forbade my grandfather from training me to become a killing machine. I remember how the old man forced my father to start preparing me, for something that he said was very confusing. I may not have been trained earlier in my youth, however, I can say that I have always been a pretty good observer and listener.

I visit my paternal grandparents in Paris every summer while I visit my maternal grandparents, on my mother's side, in the winter and spring.

As children, everyone expected them to know nothing or gave them something to play with and they would get distracted until they got tired. No, I'm very different from the rest of my cousins. My grandmother used to tell me that I was too sharp at the age of 8 because I remember being in my grandfather's office with him and two middle-aged men talking about a deal, weapons, and war. And then I knew who they were.

At 8 years old, I found their 'we are one' code terrifying (which I later thought was stupid and unreasonable as an adult), the code being that they would die together rather than die alone. And the infamous symbol of the Donne family is the Raven, a terrifying blackbird.

When I was young and naive, I admired them and I thought it was cool to have a terrible family. But, as I grew over the years and matured - spiritually - I finally saw their true colors.

They are what you call monsters. They have a heart of stone - it's uncertain whether they have a heart or not - but even if they do, they are darker than the night, colder than a December winter.

Appearance-wise, yes, they do seem to look normally sweet, including my aunts and uncles. However, underneath all their neighbors' friendly exteriors, they are evil and, above all, unkind. And all together, they are the legendary and indestructible Donne clan, and unfortunately, I am part of them.