“Do you think the school’s overreacting?” I asked.
She shook her head, cotton pad sliding over her eyelids in smooth strokes. Black smudges transferred to white cotton, erasing liner and mascara in practiced efficiency. “No, it’s their responsibility to work with authorities.” She paused, studying her reflection in the small mirror propped against her wall. Her face, half-clean now, looked younger. Vulnerable. “Though I think the curfew is an overreaction. It'll cause more fear than safety.”
“Agreed.” I rummaged through my desk, pulling out the texts I needed for today’s studying. The weight of them in my hands felt grounding, normal—The Problems of PhilosophyandThink: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, their spines stiff from being so new. My studies, at least, were something I could control in a world spinning faster than I could track.
“Do you have class today?” I asked.
Alice yawned, her jaw cracking audibly, and nodded. She stood and began peeling off her dress, the emerald fabric pooling at her feet like liquid. Beneath it, she wore black lace lingerie that looked expensive. Inoticed her skin looked flushed, almost fevered—a pink heat spreading across her collarbones and up her throat.
“Are you getting sick?” The question came out before I could stop it. Too personal. I had a bad habit of crossing lines without permission. Instincts from my life of servitude: catalog everyone’s weaknesses, find the cracks in their armor.
Thankfully, Alice didn’t seem to mind.
“No, just a little fatigued.” She pulled on an oversized T-shirt—gray and worn soft—that swallowed her frame. “I’ll feel better after a nap. I don’t have classes until later.”
“Today is my training day, so I’ll have spare time between riding and rolling to study. Before any of that, though, I’m getting a couple of small tattoos done. But feel free to text me if you feel worse. . .” I stopped, realizing I’d never given her my number.
I scrawled it quickly on a scrap of paper torn from my notebook, the pen—blue ink, nearly out—scratching across the page. I handed it to her before grabbing my bag, the canvas strap settling against my shoulder.
She gave me a smile, genuine warmth crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, Violet.”
Her words settled strangely in my chest, a flutter of something unfamiliar. Gratitude from others still felt foreign sometimes, like a language I’d forgotten.
After my morning tattoo session with Adam, before it was even lunchtime, I realized Rowan was going to be a problem.
I caught him watching my BJJ practice from the doorway of the gym. The space smelled like sweat and rubber mats, with undertones of the industrial cleaner the janitors used—something sharp and chemical that burned the nostrils. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in flat, colorless illumination.
I’d been rolling with Mario, a purple belt with a nasty kimura and shoulders like a linebacker. His gi was white but graying from use, the fabric rough against my skin. I had my arm and leg bandaged to protect the fresh ink and it made rolls difficult. When the energy in the room shifted—a subtle change in air pressure, a sixth sense honed from my first life—the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
I glanced towards the door while securing an armbar and spotted Rowan leaning against the pale yellow cinder block wall, arms crossed over a white T-shirt that clung to his chest. His expression was unreadable, those pale blue-gray eyes tracking my every movement like a predator lurking in wait.
What is he doing here?
My focus slipped for half a second. Mario capitalized immediately, his weight shifting as he swept my legs. My back hit the mat hard, the canvas rough against my shoulder blades, smelling of disinfectant and a thousand bodies that had bled and sweated here before me. He pinned my shoulders, his knees pressing into my biceps.
I tapped out against his thigh, furious at myself for the lapse.
“Again,” I demanded, ignoring Mario’s raised eyebrows—thick and dark over brown eyes that assessed me with concern.
In the second round, I kept my eyes off Rowan, but my body remained hyperaware of his presence. Every move I made felt like a performance under scrutiny. Each submission attempt, each escape, each transition between positions carried the weight of his assessment. My skin prickled with it, sweat beading along my spine and trickling down between my shoulder blades.
By the third round, something strange happened. My mind began replacing Mario with Rowan. Rowan’s greater height, his broader shoulders, and the way he would use his weight differently. Leverage and pressure points shifted in my mental map. I imagined his heartbeat against my chest during a mount, the heat of his skin as I applied a choke, the pressure of his legs tangled with mine during a scramble. The hard muscle of his thighs, the way his hands would grip—
The thought made my core clench, heat pooling low in my belly.
I submitted Mario with a triangle choke that left him gasping and tapping frantically against my thigh, his palm slapping in rapid succession. When I released him, my eyes sought Rowan. The corner of his mouth had lifted slightly—not quite a smile, but enough to send heat rushing through my chest like I’d swallowed summer.
He waited while I gathered my things, patient as a constant shadow. I grabbed my water bottle—metallic blue, dented from being dropped—and my gym bag, stuffing my hand wraps inside. The fabric was damp with sweat, smelling of salt and exertion.
I marched towards him, still breathing hard, my lungs burning.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed low enough that other students couldn’t hear over the sounds of sparring—bodies hitting mats, the shuffle of feet, someone’s timer beeping. “I said I’d text you later.”
“You did say that,” he agreed, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in my chest.
He opened the wooden door—heavy oak etched with the university’s logo in fading gold paint—and gestured for me to step through first. Beneath the unforgiving Georgia sun that turned the world into a shimmering haze, the humidity engulfed me; like walking into soup, thick and oppressive. The temperature had to be in the low nineties, the kind of damp heat that made breathing feel like drowning. Moisture hung in the air so heavy I could taste it, muggy and mossy.
“While I waited for your call,” he said, “I received an ominous alert about a certain murder at a certain school.”
