Cora's steps faltered slightly, which brought a round of laughter from the class, assuming their taunts were hitting their target.
Regaining her balance, Cora forced herself to keep moving and ignore the abuse being thrown at her. Her eyes were only focused on the orange post-it note.
Without looking she knew what it meant. She had received them often in the past but the last two years, since moving to university, there had been none. Leaning down she pulled off the piece of paper, her heart speeding up as she imagined the words that would be written on it.
As people started to realise they were getting no reaction from Cora, whispers started to exchange amongst the groups. A few asked questions about what she was doing while the others went back to insulting her in private.
Peeling open the note, Cora hoped it was one of her classmates playing a cruel joke and that it wasn't what it used to be. She willed the writing not to be the familiar blue scribble that she had grown to both love and hate. That scrawl only ever meant one thing: that they were coming for her. Rogan knew where she was because one of them had snitched. It would mean an end to her freedom and she would once again have to start over.
Damn my mother for falling for his charm, revealing everything, and then having the audacity to die and leave me with her mess, Cora screamed inside her head.
Only when Sam shouted out did she realise she was frozen in place, her hand paused halfway to opening the note.
"Get lost, Sarah! No one wants you here now we know the truth about you. You don't belong with us." His voice was full of disgust but his volume was fairly level. However, in the silence of the room it felt like he was shouting at her, his words resonating around the area that was designed to have good acoustics.
Cora was happy that he still only used her false name but ignoring him, she slowly lifted the folded section of paper to reveal whatever message was hidden within it.
The note only contained seven words but they were enough to send Cora's heart plummeting to her feet. It felt like every millilitre of blood had been recalled by her heart as her body froze, an ice cold fear running through her veins. Her eyes studied the room, wondering if anyone in there could be the one delivering them. But having never met the person, she wouldn't know where to begin.
"Not going to fight back, Sarah? What's got into you, don't you want to hit me? It will be the last chance you get, so don't waste the opportunity." He laughed cruelly while standing up and spreading his arms out wide. "Look, I won't even fight back."
As tempting as it was, Cora restrained the itching desire to throw herself across the room and tackle Sam to the floor, before raining punches down on to his already ugly face. She wished she had the time to beat the crap out of him-she'd done it before-but the notes had never been wrong and she wasn't going to start ignoring them, especially when her secret was out.
Turning to Sam, her eyes hardened and her mouth transformed into a cruel sneer. "Go jump off a cliff Sam because, trust me, you'll wish you had when I return as I will not hold back," she stated, her voice low and filled with controlled anger as she threatened him, making sure she could be heard by everyone. Unsurprisingly her threat drew a series of 'oos' from the group but Cora didn't react, she meant every word, and deep down they all knew it too.
Before Sam had time to respond, Cora turned and broke out into a run, fleeing the room as quickly as possible. The only trace that she had been there was the orange note that had fluttered to the floor. Face up and scribbled on it in rushed handwriting were the words:
You have ten minutes, get out now.
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