Elysium: Desired by the Cold-hearted Princess [GL]-Chapter 365: She’s lost

Seraphina’s POV

Dinner time crept up on me without warning.

One moment I was sitting on my bed, staring at the wall and pretending not to listen to Ashleigh complain about the food, and the next, the room was full of movement, the sound of the girls getting out of bed, bags being grabbed, and voices overlapping as my roommates got ready to head to the dinner hall.

"Coming or not, sick girl? I might not like you very much, but you just got out of the hospital, which means you should be taking care of yourself so you don’t end up dying on us," Liana said in a very unpleasant tone, while already being halfway out the door.

"In a bit," I said automatically, determined not to let her get to me since I had more important things to worry about.

Thankfully, she didn’t try to push it to get a reaction out of me, and within seconds, the room was empty, the door shutting behind them with a soft click that left me alone with my thoughts.

I wasn’t hungry in the slightest, and even if I was, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to swallow anything today. My stomach had been in knots all day, twisted tight with worry and things I didn’t know how to put into words, but sitting alone in my room felt worse than forcing myself to eat something bland and tasteless.

More than that, though, I wanted to see Electra.

I knew she had asked for space earlier. She hadn’t just asked, she’d made it painfully clear that all of us were overwhelming her, and I understood that, I really did, but hours had passed since then. Long, quiet hours where my mind kept drifting back to her blank expression and the way she’d looked at us like we were strangers trying too hard.

Dinner felt like a safe excuse since it wasn’t intrusive. It was just going to be us getting food, which was a normal thing people did together. Maybe if I invited her, she’d come, or maybe she’d say no. Either way, at least I’d know she was okay, even if I knew deep down that getting rejected would make my already bad day ten times worse than it already was.

I grabbed my cardigan and slipped out of my room, closing the door softly behind me. The hallway was already filling up with students heading toward the dining hall, their voices loud and animated, laughter bouncing off the walls.

I went the opposite direction.

The closer I got to Electra’s hallway, the heavier my steps felt. My confidence drained with every turn, replaced by a familiar nervous tightness in my chest. I replayed earlier in my head her tone, her words, and the way she’d looked at us when she said we were overwhelming her.

What if she didn’t want to see me at all? What if I got to her, and she just ended up losing her patience with me and telling me to get lost?

I stopped outside her door and hesitated.

’Just knock,’ I told myself. ’You’re overthinking it.’

I raised my hand and knocked gently, but then I got nothing.

I waited a few seconds and knocked again, a little louder this time. "Electra?" I called softly, careful not to sound too eager, but still nothing.

My stomach dropped.

"She’s probably just in the bathroom," I muttered to myself, though the thought didn’t really calm me. I knocked again, more firmly now, my heart starting to race.

No answer.

I frowned, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Maybe she’d fallen asleep? But it was still early, and Electra didn’t strike me as the type to nap in the evening.

After a moment of internal debate, I reached for the handle, and the door opened easily. That alone made my chest tighten.

I peeked inside cautiously. "Electra?" I called again, my voice louder now, but all I got back was silence.

I pushed the door open fully and stepped inside.

The room was empty.

The bed looked rough, like she had stood up from it abruptly without glancing back. The bathroom door stood open with the lights off, and her books were still neatly stacked on the desk, exactly as I had remembered them from earlier. Nothing looked out of place, and nothing suggested she’d gone out with a plan.

My heart started pounding.

"Okay... okay," I whispered, scanning the room as if she might suddenly appear if I looked hard enough. "She probably just went for a walk."

But that didn’t make me feel better.

Electra didn’t know the school, and she definitely didn’t know which hallways were safe, which students to avoid, or which corners of Elysium Girls High were full of gossip and resentment, and there was a lot of resentment, especially towards her.

Images flooded my mind faster than I could stop them. I could already picture some student saying the wrong thing to her, someone provoking her on purpose, and Electra snapping, losing control, and reacting on instinct instead of memory or reason.

Astor had been very clear that there was to be no use of powers, and no exceptions, and my hands curled into fists at my sides at the thought that came to my mind.

If Electra hurt someone, even accidentally, it wouldn’t matter that she didn’t remember who she was. It wouldn’t matter that she was still trying to find her footing. They’d expel her without hesitation, and gods, I couldn’t even blame them. The rules were the rules.

I backed out of the room slowly and closed the door behind me, my thoughts racing. I pulled my phone out of my pocket on instinct, only to freeze when it dawned on me that she didn’t have a phone yet since we weren’t too sure if she would be interested in learning to use it.

"Great," I muttered under my breath.

I leaned against the wall for a second, trying to steady myself. Panicking wouldn’t help, and I needed to think logically. Where would Electra go if she left her room with no destination in mind?

Somewhere quiet, probably, somewhere away from people, but it wouldn’t be as suffocating as being in her bedroom.

That narrowed it down... but only slightly.

Elysium was huge, full of hidden corridors, old classrooms, and unused wings that most students avoided. I knew some of them, but definitely not all.

I pushed off the wall and started walking quickly, my eyes scanning every passing face. Groups of girls passed me on their way to dinner, laughing, talking loudly, and completely unaware of the storm brewing in my chest.

I checked the common room first, but no Electra, and with every empty space I passed, my worry grew worse and more urgent. I imagined her standing alone somewhere, surrounded by hostile stares, her patience wearing thinner by the second.

"Please don’t get into trouble," I whispered under my breath.

I picked up my pace, my nonexistent appetite completely forgotten now. Dinner could wait. Everything else could wait.

Right now, all I cared about was finding Electra before something went wrong, before someone pushed her too far, and before the school decided she was too dangerous to keep around.