Chapter 6: Sugar, Spice and I've Almost Died Twice

•National Science Academy, 1st Ward•

Ambrose

The night blew an eerie breeze that night. Ambrose shuddered as he looked at the ground 40 ft below him. "What did I get myself into?" he whispered as he clung onto the tree's trunk for his dear life.

Ambrose looked at the balcony 1 meter away from him. 'I'll probably make it if I jump,' he assured himself as he slowly let go of the tree, taking careful steps towards the fragile branch extending to the balcony. His heart started racing as he gulped. 'I can do this. I can do this. I can do this...."

And with eyes closed he took a leap of faith. Only to wrench in pain as his body hit the hard concrete balcony railings. 'AHHHH' he whispered as one of his hands tried desperately to hold on and keep him from falling while the other was nursing the growing blue bruise across his chest.

'I'm going to die, hahahhahaha' He thought decidedly.

Suddenly his sister's cold face and mocking voice appeared on the back of his head. "I can't die here"

With all the strength in him (and with the help of his newfound willpower fueled by hatred) he managed to sloppily pull himself up the balcony and safely rolled across its marble floor.

He chuckled in victory as he stood up and brushed the dust off his blazer. He leaned over the balcony and looked at the ground forty feet below. "HAHAHAHAHA you thought I would die tonight!?! Well, you were wrong-"

Suddenly a brutal force shoved his neck down from behind. He found both his hands and wrists held together in place with one hand while his assailant's other hand pushed the juncture between his neck and shoulder blades over the balcony with impressive force.

"Who are you?" A female's voice asked with enough bloodlust in her voice to make Ambrose feel goosebumps.

"Talk." She threatened, pushing him further over the balcony.

"A-Ambrose Riese. 17 years old. I like music and art. I have a pet iguana named Spider. My favorite food is salmon-or any seafood for that matter hehe. When I was 5, I--"

"I didn't ask for a backstory!" she seethed with annoyance.

"Well you asked me to talk-'' Ambrose didn't manage to finish his sentence when the woman pushed half his body off the balcony. "WAIT WAIT WAIT" he screamed as he looked at the ground beckoning him to fall and pulling him towards it.

"Emily Stuart." Ambrose finally said.

"Who?"

"I came here looking for Emily Stuart. I was told this was her room."

"It's not" she replied coldly

Ambrose heard a vrrrrr-ing sound from afar. 'Oh no! The security drones!' he thought. "Pull me up! Pull me up and we can talk this out! It's all just a big misunderstanding"

"I'm not sure I want to believe a pervert who goes around at night trespassing into women's room"

"I'm not a pervert! please, I can explain!" Ambrose begged as the sound grew frighteningly louder.

With a surprising amount of force, he was pulled up into the balcony.

He turned around and saw a girl with pitch-black hair and milk white skin glaring at him. Her doe-like eyes and soft features were a stark contrast to her terrifying, bone-chilling, goose-bumps-inducing aura.

"Talk" she ordered.

"Yes, but shouldn't we go into your room? the drones will see me here and if they do, I'll be so dead"

The girl furrowed her brows at him in disgust as if saying 'Why would I let a stranger into my room'

"You'd be in trouble too if they caught us," he added.

"Fine." She sighed, opening the sliding doors leading into her bedroom.

Ambrose let out a breath he didn't know he was holding the moment they entered the room.

Suddenly a knife flew past him, grazing the tip of his right ear before terrifyingly impaling itself on the wall behind him with a violent thud.

"Try anything and..." She didn't finish her sentence but he knew what it implied. He was dead if he didn't choose his words carefully. He gulped.

'If she didn't try to attack me with a knife, I would've found her pretty. Now, I'm just outright terrified of her' he thought.

"As I said, I'm looking for Emily Stuart. This should be her room."

"Ah, so a lover's tryst?" she said, the aura of bloodlust finally leaving her. She urged him to sit and offered a cup of what Ambrose assumed to be poisoned tea. "This isn't poisoned is it?" He asked.

The girl laughed. "Of course not, If I wanted to kill you I would have stabbed you with that knife or pushed you down the balcony."

"ha ha ha ha" Ambrose tried to laugh but he was sure he could feel a shiver run up his spine.

"I'm afraid you must be mistaken. I don't know anyone named Emily Stuart. This is my room" The girl said, taking a sip from her own cup.

"Really?. Room 413? This should be her room"

"Room 413? This is room 307."

"What, that's impossible! I must have entered the wrong room. So where is room 413? the room beside this? two rooms beside this?"

The girl looked at him with a combination of sympathy and confusion. "Uhm, you're not even on the right floor"

"WHAT!"

"Or the right wing. This is the east wing. Rooms 410-415 are on the south wing of the 4th floor" she explained

Ambrose stared at her in shock. "The wrong floor?! The wrong wing?!" he knew he was bad at directions but surely he was not THIS bad. He could have sworn he studied the map of the dorm rooms for at least 30 minutes. Memorizing every nook and cranny, every staircase and stair wall, every possible exit...JUST HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!

"I'm so sorry!"

"It's alright. I admit, I must apologize as well...I almost killed you...twice." she laughed awkwardly, avoiding eye contact.

Ambrose felt a chill run up his spine. 'This girl was dangerous' he thought to himself.

"As an apology, I'll help you sneak into your girlfriend's room" she added enthusiastically.

"Oh, she's not my girlfriend" Suddenly her enthusiasm turned sour, her face conforming into one of undeniable disgust.

"No I mean, it's not like I'll be trespassing! Well, technically I would but it would be for the greater good...Wait no no..." the girl tried to stand up and reached for the butter knife on the table while looking at him as if he was a degenerate man.

"Emily Stuart is missing and I need to find clues in her room to find her!" Ambrose confessed.

"Missing? A student is missing?" She cocked her eyebrows at him. "Nice try, if such was the case the school would be in turmoil by now," she added.

"That's the problem! There's a news blackout! No one even knows she's missing! I've been asking around and all her friends think she's simply on a vacation to take a break from the stress."

"Then, how do YOU know about it?

"My family owns a law firm and her parents recently put up a request for a private detective to find her!" He wasn't lying. After his run-in with his sister, he managed to hack into Spes' Law Firm's file and found a missing person request that was marked "TOP SECRET".

"Hm…." She said out loud while tapping the table with the tip of the knife. " I get the feeling this should be confidential."

"It is!" Ambrose all but yelled. " But I get the feeling you wouldn't think twice about killing me if I told you anything but the truth, '' he whispered.

She feigned a look of offense and pouted. "You really think a harmless girl like me would be able to kill you?"

'HARMLESS?! Yeah, right! Tell that to my bleeding ear!' but he couldn't say it out loud. He couldn't risk upsetting her. She reminded him of a bear. Beneath its warm and fluffy exterior, it was dangerous and unpredictable.

"And I'm guessing you're trying to solve this case on your own? Wow, you're really bad at this detective thing." She laughed. "You entered the wrong room, told a person you just met confidential information, and let's be honest, you're really terrible at sneaking around."

"Hey! Looking for leads is harder than it looks. Especially when the government is clearly covering up everything related to the case!"

"That's impossible. The school isn't affiliated with the politics of the outside world. Even the government wouldn't have the power to block the news from the students."

"Unless the news blackout was from the inside! Ambrose declared standing up from his seat. And the only person with that much power and influence in school was none other than...

"The student council president" He realized.

"Or the teachers, maybe the headmistress, it could be the board of directors, maybe even the… hey, are you listening?"

Ambrose drowned out his surroundings and focused on the moonlight streaming from the adjacent window. It was as if the universe was giving him a sign, a path toward solving the case. Like how the moonlight leads newly hatched sea turtles to the water, it was leading him to the culprit. He pumped his fist into the air. 'Finally, a lead!"

Ambrose's Suspect list: Student Council President, Ken Wang.