I pull up the library's catalog system and search for a specific book — one I know is relevant to her Comparative Government coursework. The Federalist Papers, original printing, kept in the rare books section because the university likes to pretend it has culture.
I check the location. Third floor. Political theory section. Two shelves from where she usually sits.
Perfect.
I close the laptop and lean back in my chair, a slow smile spreading across my face.
I stand, walk to my closet, and pull out a dark hoodie and jeans.
Beckett is getting too comfortable. That's the problem with giving someone a role that requires proximity — eventually, they forget it's a role. He's supposed to be keeping her contained, keeping her close enough that she doesn't do anything unpredictable. Instead, he's sitting in her dorm room at two in the morning like he belongs there.
He doesn't.
I pull the hoodie over my head.
She's stronger than I calculated. I'll admit that. I expected her to fold after the laptop. After the flowers. After the night, we zip-tied her to that chair and made her watch Cody fuck all those women. Most people would have gone home by now, called their parents, and disappeared back into whatever comfortable life they came from.
She's still here.
Still pulling threads.
She just doesn't know yet which threads lead somewhere worth pulling — and which ones I need her to leave alone.
That's what Beckett doesn't understand. He thinks keeping her calm keeps her useful.
But calm isn't what I need from her.
I need her to be moving in the right direction.
For Nessa.
I grab my keys off the dresser and head for the door.
Chapter 24: Adela
There'sastudycarrelon the third floor of the library, tucked into the political science section by the window, that I've quietly claimed as mine over the past two weeks. The light is good here, and the noise is minimal, and nobody has challenged me for it yet. It's become a kind of refuge — the one place on campus that feels like mine without any history attached to it.
I have my laptop open, three books stacked beside me, and a coffee going cold at my elbow.
For the first time in weeks, I don't feel like I'm walking around with a gaping hole where my life used to be. I feel present. Grounded. Like I'm actually inhabiting my own body instead of just piloting it through the motions.
Beckett texted this morning — something simple about practice running late, but he'd call later. I read it twice, a small smile pulling at my lips before I could stop it.
Whatever's happening between us, it's real. And that makes everything else feel almost manageable.
Almost.
I sink back in my chair and scroll through my phone instead of doing the research I'm supposed to be doing. My photos app opens without thinking — Maeve, Penelope, Elena, all of us somewhere sunny and loud and completely unbothered. Long gone are the afternoons we'd spend laughing about nothing. I miss them, but something stops me from reaching out. I keep thinking about Julian's face outside that parking lot. The way he almost said something and didn't. I don't doubt he told them what we found on Cody's laptop. The silence in my messages feels like confirmation.
I set the phone face down and refocus on the screen.
I've submitted a few job applications but haven't heard anything back yet. I can probably thank my lack of experience. If nothing comes through soon, I'll have to walk into somewhere and demand an interview, because if I don't land a job like I promised my dad, I don't want to give him any reason to pull me back to Puget Sound. Not now. Not when I'm this close to something.
I'm researching institutional corruption — specifically how judges and politicians protect each other through layers of legal maneuvering and strategic silence. Trying to understand how Judge Ravenshaw could arrange a hospital transfer with no public record, no questions asked, no oversight.
But everything I'm finding is surface-level. Academic theory. Sanitized case studies. Nothing that explains the actual mechanics of how power shields itself from accountability.
I'm staring at the same paragraph for the fourth time when a book lands on the desk in front of me.
