Chapter 2 Rhett
I’m already waiting, watching, when the sun starts rising. I want to watch her. Study her.
The chill of impending winter is brutal, knifing through the quad and into the east windows, but she stands at the edge of the steps like she doesn’t even feel it.
Auburn hair unbound, blazer worn loose, eyes hard.
She’s faster than the staff directory gave her credit for—most transfers stumble through orientation for a week before they learn the geography of this place, but she’s mapped it in under a day.
I watch from the library’s glass, mirrored from inside. She never glances up. Not once.
She’s moving down the path, towards the building, slow at first and then faster. Soon she will be out of sight and I can’t have that.
I keep the first approach slow. Subtle. She has too many eyes on her—faculty, the curious, a few of the legacies sniffing for gossip—but I am patient.
For now, I watch her movements with the interest of a man building a case file: note the clipped pace, the way she keeps her weight on her toes, the preference for keeping her chin up, even when she’s being stared at.
But the real tell is in the micro-expressions.
I chart every one of them, committing each to memory.
She makes the rounds—Registrar, Office of Student Life, the records window.
Getting the lay of the land. By mid-morning she’s learned which floors are safe, which elevators run slower than the stairs, which staff members are neutral about her and which are simply disgusted.
She ignores the whispers, but her skin is traitorous: a faint flush under the collar when she passes a group of seniors, jaw locked tight enough to fracture.
Her eyes are blue-gray, the kind of color that looks like nothing in particular until the light finds it, then turns to cut glass.
Casey’s were the same, but softer. There’s nothing soft here.
Around the third hour, she discovers the shortcut through the honors lounge to get to the library. I stake out the upper balcony, careful to blend with the architectural shadows, the same way I used to watch my father dismantle a roomful of attorneys without raising his voice.
She doesn’t see me, not directly, but twice she stutters at the end of the passage, as if sensing something off. She checks over her shoulder. Her gaze skims past mine, pupils narrow, then she squares her shoulders and keeps moving.
The pulse in her throat betrays her. I want to count the beats, but that would mean getting close enough to taste her.
And I’m not sure I’m as strong as Cai was with O. Holding out as long as he did.
The first day back to class unfolds with predictability: class schedules, orientation, the pre-lunch tour.
She never speaks unless spoken to. Her posture never slouches.
When she sits for the intake interview, she keeps her hands visible on the table, but the left is always flexed, knuckles raised, as if already preparing to break something.
The administrator tries for small talk, and she kills it with two sentences.
Later, she’s back in the library, tracing a line across the spines of the dead languages shelf. She pulls two volumes—Latin, then Old Norse. She doesn’t check them out. Instead, she copies down a single phrase from each, then puts the books back exactly where she found them.
Interesting.
At lunch, she takes the back corner of the study room, facing both doorways, and opens a notebook.
She eats nothing but an apple and one of those disgusting meal bars they sell in the Student Union and vending machines.
Halfway through the hour, three girls from the music department drift over to the table next to hers.
The one in the center—the obvious leader, all teeth and highlights and future eating disorder—turns to say something about “Casey’s ugly sister. ”
She’s not. At all. She’s beautiful, if hardened.
Like the way icicles form and grow until the spear is long enough that it could pierce your heart and kill you before disappearing entirely.
And yet in the moment the icicle falls, it catches the light and all you see is the way it forms patterns in the ice.
Beautiful.
Deadly.
My type to a T.
Isolde doesn’t react, but the leader’s smile falters under her gaze. There’s something about her stare that clears the air of small talk. Eventually, the trio leaves, laughing too loud to be real.
She waits another five minutes before packing up.
It’s almost disappointing. I thought there would be more drama, some shattering of glass or a scream, but she’s colder than the room. In another life, maybe she’d have been an axe-murderer. Or a lawyer. The steady eyes. The disregard for boring chit-chat.
I follow at a respectful distance when she leaves, tracking the subtle signs that she knows I’m there: the hitch in her breath at the corner, the way she takes the long route around the sculpture garden, the studied nonchalance of her footsteps.
She’s made me, but she doesn’t know which shadow to punch.
Down in the student archives, she’s less careful. She’s studying everything, observing it all. Probably has a little journal in her room to document what she sees.
The basement is empty except for an archivist with hearing aids and a row of broken microfilm readers.
The lights here are halogen, sick and flickering, and the only sound is the dull grind of the ventilation.
She moves fast, checks the indexes, pulls files.
Her hands are quick and sure. She finds what she wants and snaps a shot of it with her phone.
When the archivist clears his throat, she puts the folder back without looking up.
Don’t know what she’s looking for. All they have down here are rewritten pieces of history. The truth is in the Admin Building. In the real archive room.
I wait until she’s back at ground level before retrieving the folder. The title on the tab: “Incident Report, 4/8.” The date is one year ago today.
I check the index and find the page. The text is mostly redacted, but the signature line at the bottom is still visible. So is the name of the witness. Mine.
A smile graces my face.
Good girl.
Trying to figure out what happened to her sister only makes me want to toy with her. Lead her around in circles. She won’t find anything. The only person who can tell her what happened that night is me.
And to get to the truth, she’d have to earn that privilege.
Preferably on her knees.
With my cock in her mouth.
That night, I watch her window from the library roof. Her light stays on until 2:37 AM. She does not draw the blinds. Her shadow moves across the wall, reading, writing, pacing. She never once looks out.
By the time I leave, the fog has eaten the quad, and my clothes are wet through. I go home, peel off the shirt, and stand in front of the bathroom mirror until the image makes sense again.
I want to destroy her. To consume her. To allow her to infiltrate every cell that was written with Casey’s name and replace it with her own.
Sleep doesn’t come easy, not when Colton is busy fucking some chick from Philosophy. Maybe a prof. Didn’t get a good look. But her fake moans are grinding my fucking gears and it takes me an hour to fall asleep.
In the morning, I do it all again. An hour of sleep isn’t enough, but I need to figure her out so I can be one step ahead.
I become a part of her environment over the next week, as subtle and constant as the chill in the walls.
She gets up at 5:00 AM, runs the track at a punishing pace, and showers before the cleaning staff even opens the supply closets.
She cuts her hair herself, in the mirror, taking off the tiniest bit.
She wears the same shoes, changing only the laces—a deep purple.
Casey’s favorite color.
There are differences between them, sure, but none of them matter.
The key is in the eyes. She looks at the world as if it’s a system to be broken. I see it in the way she hacks the meal plan, sneaks into the restricted stacks, rewires her own reading lamp because maintenance is too slow. She plays the game, but only so she can learn where the rules are weak.
She’s not hiding, not really. She’s baiting. Testing to see if the predators are still here, or if the ghosts have finally gone soft.
At the third lunch, she switches tables.
This time, she picks the far end of the main hall, right under the nose of the senior class.
The Feral Boys are all sitting on their thrones—Jules, Bam, Colton, even the ghost of Cai.
I watch from two tables over as she cracks her notebook, takes notes, and never once acknowledges the roar of testosterone or the way the boys measure her with their eyes.
Today, I don’t want to be noticed. I don’t want to be seen. I want to watch her, see what she does.
Julian is the first to try a move. I half want to punch him, but my Board meeting is in a week… then I can tell them that she’s written in the book as mine and they can’t touch her. But until then, she’s a free for all. He walks past her, bumps the table, makes a joke about “fresh meat.”
She doesn’t even blink.
When he leans over her shoulder, she says, “Can I help you?”
He grins. “Depends. You lost, or just slumming it?”
She looks up, deadpan. “Neither. But you will be.”
He blinks, a full second of confusion. Then he laughs and wanders off, but I see the tension in his shoulders. He’s not used to being dismissed. It’s perfect.
I think I might be in love with this woman.
She returns to her work. I file it away: unflappable under pressure, prefers direct confrontation, but only as a last resort. She’s a slow burner, not a spark.
The Board will eat that up.
I know I do.