When I came to my senses, it was already Sunday evening. I groaned involuntarily as I woke. I forced my eyelids open—and was startled.Simon was seated beside the bed on a chair. He reached out, lifted a towel from my forehead without a word, and left the room.Through the open door I heard hushed voices in the living room. After a moment, Hugh appeared in the doorway. His face was tanned from the weekend. He looked worried as he entered.“You’re finally awake. You were really hurt.”He stood holding the metal rail at the foot of my bed.I tried to speak, but my throat was tight. Hugh sensed it and brought me a glass of water, which I swallowed in a single gulp. My throat cleared.“George said you got lost in the woods yesterday? Didn’t you get bitten by something?”“No…it was nothing like that. I just wandered a bit…”My voice was hoarse. Hugh looked surprised by how rough it sounded. An awkward silence followed, but instead of pressing me further, he said,“Simon’s been nursing you all day.”I only nodded in grateful silence. Hugh glanced at me worriedly, told me to rest, and left the room.I was truly in pain. My entire body ached, my head spun and felt heavy. Though it was early summer, I shivered as if cold. Even dangling my feet outside the covers sent a chill through me. Just going to the bathroom had left me exhausted. I burrowed under the covers, pulling them up to my chin. Even the feel of the sheet on my skin hurt.Before long Simon returned, a towel draped over his forearm and a tray bearing soup and bread in his hands. I lying there, he set the tray on the bedside table and sat. Folding the towel, he wiped my forehead. The cool fabric cleared my drowsy head.“Eat something, even a little. You don’t want to collapse from exhaustion.”I said nothing. Simon continued,“You should take your medicine, too. Your fever’s gone down, but it might flare up again.”Still I remained silent. He said,“I want to help.”He spoke quietly.“Let me help you.”I answered him.“You betrayed me.”My voice was rough and cracked, trembling.“I trusted you.”“I’m still the same.”Simon said briefly, meeting my gaze with serious, steady eyes.“I’ve been genuine with you since the day we first met.”I retorted cynically, “Then you fooled me from the start.”Simon said, “I’ve always treated you sincerely.”“Don’t play word games.”I snapped.“Damn it, I really trusted you, you bastard! You were on my side…”Instead of finishing the sentence, I fell silent and stared up at Simon. A thought flickered through my mind: how many times had he gone through this? All those before me must have said the same words: I truly trusted you. Perhaps Simon’s pleasure came from this very moment. If Jérôme’s pleasure was a power game of fighting me, Simon’s pleasure was…Simon spoke again.“I want to help you.”I said nothing more. I sat up slowly; Simon removed the towel from my forehead and cleared away the tray. I ate the soup and soft bread, then took the medication obediently. As soon as I swallowed the pills, drowsiness overtook me. It felt like a gentle wave that suddenly crashed down, and I drifted into a deep sleep once more.Three days passed before I finally recovered. By Wednesday morning I was able to wash up and go to school. A few teachers and students asked how I was. Though my cheeks were still a bit gaunt, I was fully healthy again. Thanks to Simon’s devoted care: he brought all three meals to my bedside, hardly slept at night, changed the sweat-soaked sheets, and wiped me down with warm towels.I let him touch my body. Simon even dressed my wounds and helped me into fresh clothes. I watched, curious how far he would go—and that madman tended to me as if playing with a doll. We were physically close, yet never spoke a word. Simon remained his usual taciturn self, and I said nothing to him. There was never a moment when words were needed: every action spoke volumes.While Simon played caregiver, nothing alarming happened. The two boys who vowed rape seemed to have forgotten that entirely. Simon touched me daily without any hint of sexuality, and Jérôme did not appear before me for days.The whip scars on my back healed quickly; apart from the marks, I had no significant pain. My back still throbbed occasionally, but not enough to hinder movement. Having spent those days with neither Jérôme nor Simon in conflict, I gained time to think.One thing I had to admit: I had become the rabbit in their hunting game. Jérôme and Simon held all the advantage. They had cornered me like a pack driving game, and seemed proud of it. As long as they remained triumphant, this hunting game would never end. As George had warned, I knew nothing of this school.Jérôme had no particular goal. He chose me and fought me for no reason beyond entertainment. He loved battling me, loved my revenge and his counterstrike. He would not end it until someone left the school—or someone died, and then this perverse hunt would finally conclude.I refused to play along willingly. Yet the game was already in motion, and whether it ended was no longer my decision. Jérôme had tried to kill me. Simon had betrayed me. So I would take my revenge on them both.No more cute conflicts—hitting Jérôme with a soccer ball or snatching his crop—ended that Saturday evening at Kelly Bog. Since Jérôme tried to kill me, I must kill Jérôme to balance the ledger. And Simon’s betrayal was what drove Jérôme nearly to murder me, so I must also kill Simon.I had already decided the order: I would first kill Simon, who foolishly slept in the same room every night with me.From the day I recovered, I avoided dining with Simon. Instead, I ate dinner with George. He was busy working on his computer—whatever that was—and we only descended to the cafeteria close to nine. George was thin but had a good appetite. He was cutting into a steak; I poked at a salad and sipped fruit juice. Ever since my illness, my appetite had not yet returned.George said, as if scolding me, “You need to eat well to recover quickly.”He added while slicing his meat, “You’ll need to heal fast if you’re going to fight Jérôme.”His gaze lingered over my shoulder. With my fork in hand, I turned—and saw Jérôme seated alone at the table opposite me, fish before him, smiling and watching me. When our eyes met, he winked. That lunatic.Rather than explode in anger, I gave him a crooked smile. Jérôme looked surprised—then bashfully grinned. His shy expression was so disgusting and contemptible that I quickly turned back to George. George seemed to have watched the whole exchange. He narrowed his eyes as though wanting to say something.“Well? If you have something to say, say it.”I furrowed my brow and ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) snapped, “What is it?”George waited until I swallowed before speaking.“You and Jérôme seem surprisingly close.”“What?”“You two— you get along so well.”He stabbed at my salad with my fork.“You know, your personalities aren’t so different.”I opened my mouth to protest but was too stunned. I only gaped until I gave up.“…Never mind. Eat the rest of the salad yourself.”Without hesitation, George pulled the salad bowl toward him and began devouring it. When we finished, he kindly brought me a cup of black tea.We sat on the first-floor terrace, legs stretched out, sipping tea. George gazed at the grand former monastery that was our school, then suddenly said,“Jérôme’s going to eat you alive.”I took a sip and replied, “You talk as if you know everything.”George said, “I do, actually.”I turned to look at him. “Then you knew about Simon, too? That Simon and Jérôme were in league?”“I knew.”Rather than blame him, I asked something else. “I wasn’t the first, was I?”At last George looked at me. He fixed me with his pale eyes and said,“You’re the seventh.”Instead of a chill, I burst out laughing. Seventh! Fantastic. Only then did I understand our Saturday evening conversation. I recalled his declaration that indifference is violence. The “indifference” he meant was his own: by telling me nothing and merely watching, he had allowed me to be deceived by Jérôme and Simon all the way to death’s door.One more question remained: Had George truly remained indifferent that evening to prove his point? Or was there some other reason?George waited for my laughter to subside before speaking. But I interrupted him first.“George, how about an evening walk tonight? Spend the night at Kelly Bog. It’d be a romantic summer night.”I stood. George said nothing, only looked up at me. I left him there and returned to the dormitory. The matron in the entryway caught me smiling; I grinned back and went upstairs.In the living room, Hugh lay half-reclined on the sofa, drowsily reading his notebook. Simon sat opposite him, writing a letter. Hugh, still lying down, waved a hand and asked,“Where’s George?”“He said he was going for a walk.”I loosened my school tie as I answered. Hugh sat up abruptly, shirt already tossed aside.“George’s taking a night walk? What’s up with that—did something happen?”“I don’t think so.”I glanced at Simon, but he was absorbed in his writing.When I finished dressing and bathing and returned to the living room, only Simon remained. He spoke unprompted:“Hugh went to bed.”“I’m going to sleep, too.”Though I still felt dizzy, I was oddly alert. Back in my room, I dried my hair, turned off the light, removed my robe’s belt, and wrapped it loosely around my hand before slipping under the covers. Pretending to sleep, I waited—and as expected, Simon entered without delay. I heard him tinkering with pens on his desk, then changing into pajamas and lying down.The room grew still—as if I could hear a pin drop. Simon, as always, lay perfectly still. He wouldn’t sleep until he was certain I had.So I rose first. Simon slowly turned to look at me. He watched silently as I climbed onto his bed, his posture as rigid as a corpse’s.Perched on Simon’s hips, I looked into his eyes in the darkness.“I put someone in a bog,” I said. “Now it’s time to pay the price.”

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