— Stop dragging me, you motherfucker! — The boy forcibly pulls Danielle out of the car and leads her towards the school. — I'm not your rag doll.
— Maybe not a doll, but a rag doll you certainly are — he replies, to which she opens her mouth in indignation. — Although that's still too weak a word to properly describe you.
Hannah looks at the building and closes her eyelids for a moment as she recalls the day she stood here for the first time. She felt special because this was, and still is, the best private high school in the country. Intelligent children from wealthy families study here. In this regard, nothing has changed.
This school is still the same, although the walls of the building hide many secrets.
The girl takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. Her lips involuntarily stretch in a smile as she remembers that this is the place that brought her and Joseph together.
— My hand hurts from your hug, brute! — Danielle continues to provoke Johnny, playing on his nerves. — Although it's still a delicate move on your part, since you tried to bust my ass seven years ago.
— Shut your mouth, redhead, as long as I'm patient.
The brunette ignores them and slowly heads for the front door. She doesn't know how she should convince the man in charge of the building to be willing to let her into the boarding house.
Danielle notices the embarrassment on her face.
— I don't know how you fell in love with that jerk named Scott, sis, but you don't know how to seduce men. Let me show my sex appeal, since you dragged me here by force. This is not much different from kidnapping.
— Be glad you still have all your hair. Johnny has been patient long enough.
The redhead bursts out laughing.
— Go ahead, you can deprive me of my attachments.
— I will do it with great pleasure, if your sister finds the diary, and it turns out that you actually had the biggest part in the death of Solar — replies her boy.
Hannah looks at the man in charge of the boarding school for a long moment. She has no idea how to properly puzzle him out. It seems to her that using Danielle is the best way to get inside in this situation.
— Go. Show off your ability to manipulate people — she turns to the twin.
Johnny lets go of Danielle and pushes her towards the main entrance. The girl tosses her hair, combing it over her shoulder, then savagely steps inside.
A middle-aged man immediately takes notice of her.
— Can I do something for you?
— Yes. I am the older sister of one of the students. I need to see her — she says, out of the corner of her eye, looking at the teenage girls walking in front of the building. As she walked past, she heard one of them call Kylie Wood a "tawny mare." — My sister is Kylie Wood. I just need a moment. I need to tell her something important.
— I'm sorry, but I can't let you in.
— I know the rules, since my sister lives here. No one will fire you if I slip in for five minutes.
The redhead leans over the countertop, almost lying on it. She tickles the man's hands with her hair, which makes him swallow his saliva harder.
— I'm truly sorry, but...
The girl grabs him by the tie. He looks surprised by her courage.
— Listen... I've had my eye on you for a long time. My sister was supposed to tell you, but she has been especially silent, so I have to speak to her. I'm not going to wait any longer.
The man is turning red up to his ears.
— What are you doing? — he says in an embarrassed voice.
— What can I do about the fact that I like mature guys? — She looks into his eyes, not even for a moment looking away. — You don't seem to have a wife, do you?
— Wife? Me, from where. — His voice is hoarse from nerves. — If it's important, I'll take you to your sister's for a while, even though I shouldn't leave my workstation.
— I'm sure no one is controlling you here. Let's go.
Danielle smiles under her breath and purposely touches his butt, while using her other hand to signal her sister to come inside.
Either he's shy, or it's the redhead who has that effect on him.
*
Hannah can't believe what she sees. The room that was her resting place when she lived in a boarding school seven years ago is now a stash of junk. Rumors contributed to the fact that none of the students wanted to live here, so the management decided to make it a room where unnecessary things are stored.
The strangest thing, however, is that this room is not locked. Probably the students are so afraid of this place that they avoid it by a wide margin.
The brunette sighs loudly, Johnny closes the door behind him, and she finds the switch on the wall and turns on the light. A shadow of sadness runs across her face. She can't believe that after seven years she is in this room again, although the interior looks entirely different.
It is not as she has preserved it in her memories.
Not so long ago, she was a teenager, and now she is already a young woman.
How time flies fast...
— Can you remember anything? — Johnny asks, looking carefully at her face. — Since you found the Solar diary seven years ago, only you can remember where it is.
The girl closes her eyelids.
— I don't need to remember. I guess where it might be located. I hope it is hidden in the place where I stored the letter — she replies in a whisper.
Her gaze is focused on the cardboard boxes laid out there. She points her finger at them, making the boy realize that he should help her move all these things.
He immediately does so, not intending to extend the time.
— Are you sure?
— I'm not sure. If the diary isn't there, I really have no idea where I put it.
She crouches down and pushes back the floorboard with a firm motion, swallowing her saliva harder as she remembers that before she left here, she found a letter that she wrote with her hand. And the worst part is that she still can't remember when she did it.
Is it possible that she was not herself at all that time?
— Do you see anything?
Johnny leans over the girl, while she looks at one point, realizing that there is nothing here.
It's empty.
— My guesses were off.
A light flickers, and Hannah's attention is caught by a silhouette that appears in the middle of the room. She sees Solar's depressed gaze, which is directed at her ex-boyfriend.
She looks as if she is in pain.
— Look deeper, Hannah — she turns to the girl when she finally shifts her gaze to her. — Discover the truth. Recall everything you know.
The brunette wrinkles her eyebrows. She stretches out her hand and puts it into the hole that is under the open board. Her hand moves deeper, searching under the floor, until finally, she encounters something hard.
Her heart rises to her throat as her fingers grasp the square binding of the notebook and pull it toward her. To her eyes appears a pink diary with a blue elephant on the cover.
Solar's diary.
— I found it — she says quietly, shifting her gaze to the boy. — I have it.
Her hands tremble as she crouches on the floor and holds the notebook in her hands. She's afraid of what's inside. She is terrified at the thought that any moment she will remember everything she learned in the past.
— We should get out of here. Let's go back to the car and see what's hidden inside.
Hannah nods and rises from the floor. She watches the boy open the door and glances down the hallway to make sure they can safely leave the room.
He leaves, and as the girl approaches the exit, the door unexpectedly slams in front of her nose. The brunette tugs on the handle, wanting to get out, but then the light starts blinking again.
Solar is standing in the middle of the room, and it's quite a frightening sight, considering that everything started right there.
Johnny tries to open the door, judging Hannah to be up to something. He thinks she locked herself inside, wanting to read his dead girlfriend's diary alone.
He has no idea that the brunette is not alone here, as she is accompanied by Solar.
— Excuse me very much, but who are you? Why are you on the premises of the building? — Hannah hears a woman's voice addressing Johnny, trying at all costs to ask him out of the boarding house.
The man who should be guarding the entrance of the building will be in serious trouble.
— Here I am the strongest. I won't let you out until you read the entire diary and remember what you learned seven years ago.
Hannah swallows her saliva harder, pressing the notebook to her chest.
— Why are you trying to introduce your past to me at all costs? For the sake of my boyfriend and friends?
— I want you to know their real face, to stop trusting them implicitly because in the end you will end up exactly like me. You are just like me, Hannah. You are as weak as I am.
Chills shake her body.
— What do you mean?
— I chose you as my vessel for a reason.
The light stops blinking. Hannah opens the diary, and the pages turn to the page where she should start reading, but it's not the content that catches her attention, but the photo there.
With wide-open eyes, she stares at the photograph.
— Joseph lied to me — she says in a weak voice, feeling tears gathering under her eyelids. — He lied to me.
— He continually does this, manipulates you. Come to your senses at last, girl! He and his friends are vultures. They devour you in small pieces, and you trust them implicitly....
— No...
— Look at the picture again! Look at it carefully!
Her eyes are running over with tears. She sees everything through a fog.
— This is an illusion. You are trying the same tricks you used when I lived in this room. I saw images in photographs that were not true.
— You saw real images! See through your eyes! I'm trying to help you, silly girl, before it's too late!
Her knees buckle under her. She falls to the floor, clenching her lips to keep from crying. Too many emotions hit her in one moment. She can't control it.
— Open the damn door, stupid woman! — screams Danielle. — My psycho sister is locked in there. What will you do if she falls on her head and commits suicide!
— You'd better worry about what you guys are going to do, since you trespassed on the boarding school grounds, which is against the rules!
Hannah ignores the voices that can be heard on the other side of the door. She focuses all her attention on Solar, who is crouching right in front of her, combing a strand of her hair behind her ear.
— Realize at last, Hannah, that you don't fit in. You are weak. They don't take you seriously. They consider you their mascot because you don't harmonize with their strong characters.
— Why do you say that? What do you mean?
The words that the phantom whispers in her ear cause fear to paralyze her body. With dull eyes, she looks at her sister, who rushes into the room and jerks her around, trying to lift her up. She shouts for her to take a hand.
Nothing reaches her. She looks at one point, in her mind repeating the words she heard from Solar.
This can't be true...