“No, you’re not.”
I close the book. The sound is louder than it should be. “I said I’m fine.”
He watches me for a long moment. Unlike Saint, Azriel doesn’t make silence feel like a weapon. He makes it feel like a choice. Like he’s giving me room to decide how much of myself I want to hand over. But I give him nothing.
Eventually, he reaches into his pocket and slides a folded piece of paper across the table. I stare at it.
“What is that?”
“My address in case you need somewhere to go.”
“I already have campus security.”
“I wasn’t talking about campus security.”
The words settle between us, and that somehow makes it worse. Because Azriel belongs here. Even when he’s gentle, he belongs to this place. Designer coat, old-money posture, with a name that opens doors before he knocks.
He can sit in this library and look like part of the architecture. I look like someone who snuck in through a side entrance.
“I don’t need help,” I say.
“I never assumed you did.” His voice is soft. “Keep it anyway.”
He stands before I can argue. Then he leaves me with the folded paper and the uncomfortable knowledge that there are people here who might try to protect me.
But none of them are Saint. And I hate that I know the difference.
On my way back across the quad, I see Monica. She’s sitting beneath one of the old oaks with two girls from my literature class, sunlight filtering through the branches and breaking across her bare throat.
There is a fresh mark there. A bruise shaped like a mouth. One of the girls says something that makes Monica laugh. My steps slow before I can stop them. I think about the night at the party. The red pool. The room in the back.
The way Saint opened the door without flinching. The way Monica had looked inside that world like she belonged.
Something twists inside my chest. I shouldn’t compare myself to her. I shouldn’t wonder whether she understands Saint’s darkness better than I do. I shouldn’t wonder whether girls like Monica know how to surrender without disappearing.
Maybe that’s why she was there, and that’s why Saint knew where to find her, because girls like Monica fit into his world. They know the rules and give them what they want. And it’s no secret he wanted her.
I was never taught how to be wanted without being taken and don’t know the difference. Maybe that was what he was trying to tell me.
The quad stretches around me in bright, indifferent green. Kenyan breathes around me with all its money and secrets and polished cruelty. For one terrible moment, I understand it. This place was never built for girls like me. Scholarship students weren’t invited. We were collected, and not all Prey survive this place.
By Friday night, the walls are moving. Not really but I know the difference between reality and panic. The room isn’t shrinking. The ceiling isn’t lowering.
I know Roman isn’t outside my door, but my body doesn’t. My body remembers his voice. The envelope with the license hinting at what awaits me outside of these walls. There is nowhere to run. I have no money, no connections, and nowhere to go.
I check the lock, then the window. Then the lock again.
I pull the envelope from beneath the mattress and stare at it until the letters blur.There has to be a way out, I tell myself.
Every time I think there is hope, my thought leads back to Roman. The way he appeared on campus like distance had never existed. The way he looked at me and already saw the ending.
I put the envelope away, and it feels like I can’t breathe.
The room is too hot. I’m sweating as I gather my things and head to the women’s shower.
I stumble into the bathroom, pull the curtain, and turn on the shower. Steam fills the space slowly. I step under the water before it’s warm enough in my clothes and all.
The shock of the wet fabric makes me gasp, but it doesn’t stop the shaking. I slide down the tile wall until I’m sitting on the floor of the shower with my knees pulled to my chest. Water beats against my shoulders, my hair, my face.
