My breath stutters. I blink, hard, then lean in.
She’s there.
The grainy black-and-white feed flickers with her form—Olivia, back in her dorm room. I freeze. My coffee sloshes violently in my hand, forgotten. I nearly knock it over in my scramble to magnify the frame. I track her movements, my eyes glued to the screen, starved for the sight of her after a day of deprivation.
She’s pacing, rubbing her arms. I see the tension in her shoulders, the weariness in her steps. My heart kicks against my ribs.
She’s safe. She’s okay. She went back to the dorm.
A moment of relief—swift, sharp—gives way to a deeper dread as I keep watching.
Something shifts in her posture.
She scans the room. Slow. Suspicious.
No.
Her eyes lift upward, toward the ceiling.
I bolt upright.
She drags the desk chair across the floor. The scrape echoes faintly through the monitor feed, and I feel it in my teeth.
No, no, no.
She climbs. Reaches. Her hand moves toward the ceiling tile.
My pulse spikes violently.
She knows.
When her fingers brush the lens and recoil, I feel the full weight of it crash through me like a blow.
My vision narrows. The blood drains from my face. My hand flies to the drawer, yanking it open again to shove the ring box deeper, burying it beneath files, folders—anything.
I can’t stay here.
I’m on my feet before the thought fully forms. Jacket. Keys. Door. It’s all motion, blurred and frantic, my body operating faster than my mind can catch up.
I have to get to her.
Before she runs again. Before she shuts me out for good.
Before I lose the only thing in this world that matters.
TWENTY-TWO
olivia
I standa step away from him in the elevator, my hands clasped in front of me, my gaze fixed on the seam where the floor meets the wall. He doesn’t speak.
From the corner of my eye, I catch the slight twitch of his hand, as if his body is fighting itself, desperate to close the gap between us.
I can feel the tension humming off him like a low current, but I don’t move.
I don’t reach for him.
I don’t give in.
