It had been three years since the fall of the Rose Garden.
Annie was now a university student—quiet, composed, stronger than the girl she once was. Kayla, working part-time at a self-defense center, still carried the fire in her eyes. They kept in touch, met often, and occasionally laughed at how far they'd come.
Briarwood High was just a memory now—scars that had faded, though never fully healed.
Life had moved on.
Or so they thought.
One evening, Annie opened her inbox to a strange message.
"You may have cut the garden, but roots grow deep."
No sender. No reply option. Just those words.
She stared at the screen, heart skipping a beat.
Was it a joke?
Or a warning?
Somewhere in the city, someone was watching.
And something… was waking up again.
Annie didn't wait.
She grabbed her phone and called Kayla, her hands trembling slightly as the message replayed in her mind.
Kayla picked up on the second ring. "Hey, what's up?"
Annie's voice was low, tight. "Kayla… I just got a message."
Kayla sat up immediately. "What kind of message?"
"No sender. No reply. Just one line: 'You may have cut the garden, but roots grow deep.'"
Silence.
Then Kayla said carefully, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Annie swallowed hard. "Is Rose back? But… we humiliated her. Her garden was destroyed. We ended it. How could this be happening again?"
Kayla was quiet for a moment longer. "I don't know. But if this isn't a joke… then someone wants us to believe she—or something—is still out there."
Annie looked out the window, paranoia creeping in like fog. "Then we need to find out who's planting again. Before the garden grows back."
Kayla's voice dropped into a whisper. "Wait… Rose's father was arrested, remember? Corruption charges. His influence is gone. They lost everything."
Annie nodded slowly, her thoughts spinning. "Exactly. That's why this doesn't make sense. The garden shouldn't be able to grow again."
Kayla added, "Unless… it's not Rose."
A heavy pause filled the line.
Annie's mind raced. "Her underlings?"
"We took down the main ones," Kayla said. "But you know how many followed them. How many kept their heads down. Maybe someone's trying to revive it—to rebuild what Rose started, piece by piece."
"Like a cult trying to bring back their queen."
Kayla exhaled. "Then we're not dealing with the same game. This might be something worse."
Annie glanced back at the message still glowing on her screen. You may have cut the garden, but roots grow deep.
Her stomach sank.
This wasn't over.
Kayla paced across her room, phone pressed to her ear. "It doesn't make sense, Annie. The Rose Garden was a circle of bullies. Manipulative, cruel—but not organized. It was personal."
Annie leaned against her desk, voice low. "Exactly. This? This feels... bigger. More planned. It's not just some school drama anymore."
Kayla stopped pacing. "Are you saying someone's turning the Garden into an actual organization?"
Annie hesitated, then said what she didn't want to believe.
"Maybe. Maybe someone saw what Rose built—the power, the fear—and decided to take it further. Something darker. Structured."
"But would Rose do that?" Kayla asked. "Would she really turn the Garden into something like… this?
"I don't know," Annie admitted. "She loved control, not chaos. This feels different. Almost… colder."
They were silent for a moment, both weighing the same unsettling thought:
If it's not Rose… then who is it?
And worse—what do they want?
Kayla called back minutes later, her voice tense.
"Annie… I just heard from someone else."
Annie sat upright. "What do you mean?"
"That message. 'You may have cut the garden, but roots grow deep'—it wasn't just sent to you."
Annie's breath caught. "Who else?"
"All of them," Kayla said. "Every victim of the Rose Garden. Everyone who was targeted. Everyone who was hurt."
Annie stared at the message on her screen again, her pulse quickening.
"This isn't about revenge," she whispered. "It's a warning."
"Or a recruitment," Kayla said darkly. "Someone's trying to wake up the past."
And for the first time in years, the wounds they thought had healed... began to sting again.
Annie and Kayla sat across from each other in the café, a laptop open between them, the screen displaying the names of Rose's former inner circle—what remained of them.
"We need to start here," Annie said. "Her underlings. The ones who weren't expelled… the ones who disappeared into the background."
Kayla scrolled down the list. "Most of them vanished after the fallout. Changed schools. Went quiet. Some deleted all their socials."
"Or," Annie added, "they're working in the dark."
They began reaching out to old classmates, subtly asking questions. Most didn't want to talk. Others claimed they hadn't seen those girls in years.
But something didn't sit right.
Kayla leaned back. "If someone's reviving the Garden… it has to be for Rose. Loyalty. Ego. Maybe even fear."
Annie nodded slowly. "We were the ones who tore it all down. We'd be their first targets."
They both believed they were closing in on someone from Rose's past.
But they were wrong.
Because the one building the new Garden… was never loyal to Rose at all.
She was someone else entirely.
And her reasons were far more dangerous.