Piece by piece. Step by step.
Everyone leaves a trail eventually. And when Rowan Hale finally does? I’ll be there to see exactly where it leads.
9
ROWAN
The steps outside the law library are damp from late-morning rain. The stone is slick beneath my shoes, the air wet and cold, sharp enough to sting my lungs when I breathe it in.
I’ve got too much in my hands: laptop balanced against my hip, case notes wedged under my arm, a pen between my teeth, coffee in my right hand—lukewarm but vital.
I take one step down. Then another. And that’s when someone slams into me.
Not violently—just with enough force to knock the air out of my chest and shift my entire center of gravity.
My coffee jerks sideways first. A helpless little tilt. Then a dramatic, doomed tip.
The motion pulls my wrist, which pulls my arm, which pulls—everything.
My laptop slips. My papers slide free. The pen drops from my mouth. And the coffee completes its betrayal, splattering across stone and the edge of my laptop like a final insult.
“Oh—God, sorry,” the man apologizes, grabbing my elbow before I can follow my belongings to the ground.
His grip is steady, warm. Too steady. Students are clumsy. Awkward and harried in their distraction.
They don’t move like this—with sharp reflexes and surgical precision.
Heat stings my cheeks as I kneel to retrieve the chaos.
“I should’ve been watching where I was going,” I mutter, reaching for my laptop first. I dab the damp corner with my sleeve, praying the coffee didn’t seep under the keys.
He crouches too—mirroring me perfectly.
His hand brushes mine again as he lifts a stack of soggy case files. The touch is too light to be intrusive, too deliberate to ignore.
“Let me help.”
His voice is soft. He speaks carefully, every word measured, like he’s trying to give me a safe place to land after making me fall.
I glance up. And everything inside me goes still.
I’ve seen this man before. I’m certain of it—certain in that unsettling way that doesn’t come with a memory, just a recognition. His wavy dark-blond hair is damp from the drizzle, curls darkened and heavy against his forehead. His jaw looks almost gentle at first glance, soft in a way that suggests approachability—until the light shifts and I catch the tension coiled beneath it. Control.
His eyes are green. Calm. The kind that seem kind until you look a second longer and realize the softness is trained, confident.
And then it clicks.
He’s the man who met with Dean Stockton outside the Administration building. The day afterthatnight. After the unfortunate incident with William Scott-Evans.
Up close, he looks younger than I remembered. Which, somehow, makes him far more unsettling.
He holds out a handful of my papers. “Law student?”
“Yes” I say, too tired to invent a safer lie. “With a minor in clumsiness.”
Something flickers in his eyes that feels like amusement or interest. He gives a small, slow smile, like it’s being coaxed out rather than simply appearing.
“The world needs more of that,” he murmurs.
