I can’t quite remember how I ended up in here. But here I am, trying not to look at myself in the mirror and about ten seconds from bawling my eyes out.

It’s been three-and-a-half weeks since Tori died and I don’t think I’ve really, actually cried yet.

But I just can’t stand it anymore.

Evie moved into the dorms immediately after the funeral, telling us that sleeping in that room without our sister was going to be horrible for her without her saying a word, and then Mum insisted that I move into the room in place of them both — that way they could use what was my room as some kind of little storage cupboard. And really, it was only ever fit for that.

Which means… well. Now I’m half-convinced that I hear Tori’s voice when I’m in that space between waking and sleeping, and sometimes I hear Evie too. Two ghosts, pretty much, and Evie isn’t even dead!

It’s almost silent in the bathroom, totally silent if you ignore my shaky breathing and that awful sound shoes make on… whatever the floor is. It’s almost silent, and I don’t like it. I feel like it’s getting under my skin — whatever ‘it’ even is.

So I ramble. Mostly about my insane desire to have Tori back, because I know that nobody can fulfil that wish, but then it turns to Evie and how Mum and Dad seem to have already brushed the whole thing aside even though it’s their child who died and—

“Jesus Christ, Jazz, shut up already.”

There is one person in this school — in the world — who I allow to call me Jazz.

It’s Evie.

But she wouldn’t be in the boys’ bathroom during class.

However… there are five other people who know the nickname. Mum, Dad, Charlie, Imogen… and Tori.

I never did like Tori calling me that, though she sometimes did anyway. And here she is, despite being very much dead, doing it again.

“Tori…?”

“Yeah,” the ghost (because what else could she be?) mutters, and I turn around to see…

Well, it’s Tori.

She’s obviously a little more translucent than the average human — which is, you know, not at all — and she seems rather washed-out, but the apparition in front of me is still my sister.

“Ghosts are real, then?” It’s a stupid thing to say, but half of what I’ve been saying to people recently probably sounds crazy.

“Of course!” She twirls around, letting me catch a glimpse of her shattered skull, and then sighs. “I’m not meant to be here, like as in talking to you, but you did seem pretty desperate… and you’re literally in a school bathroom, anyone could walk in.”

“Fair point,” I mumble. “So, uh. Are you allowed to tell me how you died or…?”

“I wish! But no, you get what everyone else gets, brother dear.”

I have to know how it happened, though.

I’ve been reading her diaries, hiding them from Mum and Dad and the twins, and she went into that tower a hundred times. She was careful, she always wrote that she was ‘dead careful’, and yet… she fell.

And I have to admit that I kinda doubt it’s as simple as that.

I have the one person who knows exactly what happened in front of me, and I can’t ask.

Unless…

“Can I ask how you felt…? Falling?”

“I…” She frowned at me, cocking her head to one side. “I can’t tell you that, Jazz. You’ll have nightmares.”

“I already do.”

“Then you’ll have worse ones!”

“Why are you still here?”

Tori sighs. “I want someone to know what happened so badly… I want someone to hurt. And I can’t do that, because I can’t tell you anything!”

There were three rational explanations. Accident, suicide, murder. Now there’s two: suicide and murder.

Suicide would mean her classmates, most likely. Murder… means her killer.

Both explanations are possibilities Mum and Dad refused to consider.

And I might be able to get a hint to which explanation is right…

“Who did it?” I ask quickly, watching her eyes widen.

“I can’t tell you!” she shrieks, and then vanishes again.

Leaving me alone, knowing more than before.

Because someone killed my big sister, and if I truly want her to rest in peace… well.

Isn’t there only one option here?

I have to find out who murdered Victoria Gill.

Should be simple enough, right…?

“Jasper?”

Damn it.