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“He gave me a C.”

Dani’s eyes widen. “Damn,” she whispers, and then shrugs. “I guess that’s not that bad?”

The last two assignments I’ve only received Cs. Not an F to get my attention, and certainly not an A. Just a C. He’s trying to send me a message.

Mediocrity. I don’t matter to him.

Dani still looks at me with worried eyes. She’s dropped her obsession with finding anything out about them, or at least hasn’t discussed it with me. She won’t talk about the kiss with Xander, either.

Mikael walks into the dark lecture hall without his glasses, his eyes locate mine, and he sits in his usual spot near the front. The intensity in his eyes tells me I’m wrong. He’s very much still fixated on me.

No one bats an eye at the fact it’s a different person walking by them. No one knows or cares that he’s killed or will kill again if left untethered.

My world, however, comes to a standstill as it always does when I see him. Lincoln admitted to me what Dr. Garcia made Mikael do. The prostitutes she brought in as a child to run tests on his sanity. He blacked out and killed every single one of them.

The girls in front of me watch his every move. He exudes confidence as he leans back in his seat like he owns the classroom, his black shirt wrapping around his lean muscles. I rip my eyes away from him as my face turns crimson, thinking about everything both minds did to me in that basement.

Dr. Garcia follows him with her gaze and smiles at him, giving no hint of whether she knows if her adopted son has changed.

She stands before us in this tainted lecture hall, looking every bit as intimidating as the first day of class. Her dark hair is pulled back, the sharp white streak shining from the lights above. She stands on the same stage that I am positive she burned fifty years earlier. She seems ageless as she spews her darkness, her theology of chaos. It’s embedded in every lecture, through the doctrine of research, through the lens of psychological principles.

Chaos. She’s an agent of chaos and evil.

And she uses this platform to serve her dark agenda and nothing else.

I can’t look at either of them, so I avert my gaze. But no matter where I look, he is there, consuming my thoughts, every moment of every day. And after spending my entire life utterly alone, knowing he’s always watching me makes me feel morbidly safe. Even though I am anything but safe.

I watch him now, watching me. He frequently watches me, without even pretending that I am not the center of his existence. I can sense the threats behind those gleaming eyes.

“It doesn’t look like he got the hint,” Dani says, watching him, too. “He keeps staring at you.”

A small sound dislodges from my throat.

She narrows her eyes. “Summer?”

“It’s fine,” I tell her as tears threaten my eyes. “It’s for the best. He’s faculty, and I’m a student. I broke it off with him, Dani, I promise.”

He can mute women by morphing the color of his eyes.

I’ve noticed his mind control seems less potent when we’re apart, weaker with the more distance I have from him. He can’t do much to me if I avoid him and stay locked in my room where he can’t access me.

Dani says, “Yeah, but you said you were in love with him. You can’t just turn that off.”

I turn to face her. Her brows are pinched together, and I know she’s worried about me. I know she suspects Lincoln’s involvement, and she’s right about all of it.

“I’ve known him for two months, Dani. It was an infatuation that came on strong and fast, and now it’s gone. He has a thesis deadline. He’s busy, I’m busy, and it’s not a good idea.” Which is why I suspect he hasn’t come to pay me a visit. I’m not the center of his obsession, even if I secretly want to be. He has goals, a career, a life. He must see that I threaten to derail all of that. “I don’t want to stay at this school. I’ve talked to my mom about transferring to a school on the West Coast.” Where thousands of corn fields will be in between me and this dark place.

If what he says is happening is true, then parts of Lincoln are still in there. He’s not the Mikael who used to visit me in my room, stealing my innocence and taking what he wants from me. He’s more sophisticated. More advanced, more controlled.

And that is more terrifying because I don’t know this version of him.

“Summer…I don’t want you to leave. I’ll be here by myself.”

I sigh because I don’t have a choice. In fact, I need to leave tonight—that would be the smart and sensible thing to do. It’s not like the Order prowls every inch of these woods. I could leave if I really wanted to.

If I really wanted to. I need to face him. This will never end if I don’t. And who’s to say he won’t follow me or come after my family if the rest of them think we are a threat to their money?

“I just don’t fit in here, Dani,” I tell her. “Plus, you have Misty.”