“Just about. Almost ready for the big day.”
“You kids are doing a great thing,” he says with a warm smile. “This campus could use some Christmas spirit. You have a good night, now.”
“You too, Frank.”
The security office door clicks shut behind me, and I’m alone in the shadowed archway between the buildings. The air is bitingly cold, and a shiver runs down my spine. Before I head back to my dorm, I decide to take one last look.
I walk over to the large, arched window of the common room, cupping my hands around my eyes to peer inside. I want to check if we remembered to turn off the big overhead work lights, leaving just the festive decorations lit.
They look perfect. A warm, inviting glow emanates from within. Satisfied, I let my hands drop and turn around.
And nearly scream.
A massive figure detaches itself from the deep shadows of the wall just a few feet away.
He pushes himself off the brickwork and takes a step toward me. My heart leaps into my throat.
“It’s just me.”
The voice is a low rumble in the darkness. My terror sharpens, crystallizes. Raiden.
Just me.
‘Yeah, you, the biggest nightmare of my life,’I think.
“What do you want?” I say, my voice sharp and brittle. I
immediately start walking, moving away from the building, out into the open pathway that leads toward the dorms. I make it clear with every line of my body that this is not a conversation; this is me leaving.
He falls into step beside me, his long strides easily matching my hurried pace. He’s like a shadow I can’t shake.
“I noticed you weren’t at the game tonight,” he comments, his voice casual. Too casual.
A hot flush of embarrassment and anger crawls up my neck. Of course he noticed. “I never go to the games,” I lie, the words feeling clumsy and stupid as soon as they leave my mouth.
He’s silent for a few steps, and then he says, his voice taking on an aggressive edge, “That’s bullshit. I’ve definitely seen you there. At least once.”
“Maybe you were mistaken,” I snap, pulling my jacket tighter around me. Why is he doing this? Why is he following me?
“I don’t make mistakes like that,” he says flatly.
We walk in tense silence, the only sound our footsteps crunching on the frosty path. I can feel him beside me, a huge, imposing presence radiating heat in the cold night. I didn’t invite him to walk with me, but here he is.
“I have more important things to do than watch a bunch of guys hit a puck around,” I say, trying to regain some semblance of control. “Like painting. Some of us have actual work to do.”
“I know,” he says quietly. “Like Winter’s Respite. That one’s already done, right?”
I stop dead in the middle of the path. My blood runs cold.
I turn to face him for the first time, the faint light from a campus lamp post carving his face into sharp planes and deep shadows.
Winter’s Respite is the name of the painting that just sold. The name Marianne and I decided on and the name no one else on this campus should know.
A protective fury I didn’t know I possessed floods through me. My art is the one thing that’s truly mine. It’s my mother’s love legacy, and it’s my future.
“You know what?” I say. “I can put up with a lot. I can put up with the comments and the sabotage and you following me around in the dark. But if you do anything to my paintings, and if you so much as go near my studio, I will fucking respond aggressively. Do you understand me?”
He stares down at me, his expression unreadable in the dim light. But I can see the muscle in his jaw tense.
