I stop walking.
A redirect.
Toward her.
My grip tightens until the phone creaks. “Fuck,” I mutter.
And there it is—the price.
Hers.
Because if he’s willing to drag her name into this for clicks, for revenge, for whatever rot he feeds himself at night, then standing next to me doesn’t make Zoë safer.
It makes her visible.
It gives the machine a new target.
And if my plan backfires—if my mess stains her instead of her reputation steadying mine—then I’ve done exactly what I swore I’d never let my father do to me again.
Use someone. Label it family. Call it necessary.
My stomach turns, hot and mean. I don’t respond. I don’t forward it. I don’t warn anyone.
I pull up the campus map, thumbing through building schedules. Design studio. Open blocks. I check the time.
8:45 a.m.
We started before dawn. We always do. Enough time has passed that most of campus is awake now, moving, watching, hungry.
I turn toward the design studio anyway.
The decision locks in without ceremony. No speech. No justification. Just alignment snapping into place like it always does when there’s only one move left.
In the glass doors, my reflection stares back—shoulders squared, face blank, already committed.
Then I see her through the glass.
Design studio lights are on—too bright for morning—and she’s inside, alone at one of the long tables. Tote dropped at her feet. Sleeves pushed up. Focus locked so tight the rest of the building might as well not exist.
She shifts her weight, reaches for something, and keeps working like the rest of campus can wait.
My stride slows half a beat before I catch it.
Annoying.
I adjust. Keep moving. Don’t let my eyes snag on details I don’t need.
They do anyway—her posture, her stillness, the way she makes concentration look like dominance.
My chest tightens like my body recognizes her before my brain gets a vote.
Heat slides in under the armor, unwanted and precise.
I hate that it’s there. I hate that it makes the math feel personal.
I stop outside the studio doors.
Calculation.
