Then patterns started to form.
A judge in Virginia resigned overnight. A hospital director vanished two weeks later. A congressman from Georgia died of a “heart attack” three days before a corruption hearing. Different states, different stories, but the same last names kept repeating.
Men. Alumni of this university.
One mentioned more than the rest.
Ashford.
Not just Carrson. His father. His grandfather. All the way back.
That name was tied through everything, holding it together.
I shove the paper into my backpack, tugging on the turtle charm that hangs from the zipper, a gift from my sister, while I keep my eyes trained on the last remaining Ashford. Those grainy photographs didn’t do him justice, and I’m not the only one who notices. Conversations dip as he passes, as if someone turned the volume down on the entire campus. Heads turn. Not only the girls. Everyone.
And him?
He doesn’t acknowledge any of it.
He stares straight ahead, moving without hesitation. Doesn’t stroll or swagger. He marches along a path only he sees. Shoulders square. Posture perfect. His stride so exact I swear if I laid a tape measure across the ground, each step would land the same distance apart.
Uptight prick.
I trail him across the quad in my ripped jeans and heavy Doc Martens, the foam headphones of my Walkman resting around my neck. Girls in pastel sweaters and pearl necklaces step back when I pass, their penny loafers scuffing against the pavement like they’re afraid I’ll ruin something delicate.
The students here all look like they stepped out of a Ralph Lauren catalog.
I look like I’ve come to rob one.
It’s the mid-1990s. Thanks to Pearl Jam, grunge is everywhere. Except, apparently, at Ashford University.
Carrson disappears into the biology building.
I follow.
The three-story structure is older than the rest of campus, all dark stone and tall windows filmed with decades of dust. Ivy strangles the walls, trying to drag the building back into the earth. Words carved above the doorway catch my eye, the letters worn smooth with age. I squint to read them.
Aptissimus superstes.
Latin. I mouth it silently, pulling the meaning up from memory.
Aptissimus. Best. Or fittest.Superstes. Survives.
Only the fittest survive.
Darwin? Or something else?
The words feel less like a motto and more like a warning. Unease stirs low in my stomach as I stare up at the carved stone, but I force myself forward. I’m not here to admire architecture.
I’m here to hunt.
And my prey just walked inside.
The doors groan in protest when I push them open. I stop in the entryway, where the air is cool and stale, thick with the smell of paper and ink. Of wood and damp stone.
My boots echo against the old tile floor as I scan ahead, searching for the pale blue of his shirt, but there’s nothing. I move quickly, checking every corridor, every classroom. Rows of lab tables stretch under flickering lights. Shelves hold glass jars full of pale shapes in murky liquid, warped beyond recognition. Portraits of long-dead professors line the walls, their eyes following me wherever I go.
Empty rooms. Empty hallways. He’s not here.
