Chapter 3 Isolde #2
I’m so focused on the words that I almost miss the professor’s entrance. She’s a tiny woman with a voice that could sandpaper a blackboard. Within thirty seconds, she’s already running through the syllabus at a clip that makes me wish I’d brought a recorder.
“Collapsing ecosystems, thermodynamics, population cycles—if you’re looking for hand-holding, you’re in the wrong course. In the wild, nothing survives unless it fights for its own niche. That’s the only rule that matters here.”
A slow ripple of laughter. Someone in the back says, “Sounds like Westpoint,” but the professor doesn’t acknowledge it.
She talks about carrying capacity, the point at which a population explodes and then crashes from its own weight. All I can think about is the desk and the way my sister’s name would have looked on the roster a year ago.
I remember Casey’s voice: “You’d love Dr. K. She doesn’t put up with any bullshit. She reminds me of Mom, if Mom was shorter and angry about trees instead of men.”
That was before the phone calls stopped and the texts got weirdly formal. Before she sent a single, cryptic “I’m sorry,” and then disappeared.
A jolt of laughter pulls me out of the memory. The girl next to me is sketching something in the margin of her notebook. I risk a glance: it’s a stick figure with X’s for eyes, floating above a wavy blue line.
Subtle.
The professor calls my name. “Greenwood.”
I lift my head. Every eye in the room is on me.
“Can you tell the class what a keystone species is?”
I could do this in my sleep. I clamp down on the urge to stutter and say, “A keystone species is one whose impact on its ecosystem is disproportionately large compared to its actual abundance.”
Dr. K nods, once. “Give me an example.”
I want to say “people,” but that’s not the answer she wants. “Wolves. In Yellowstone. Their removal caused the population of deer to explode, which destroyed the vegetation and altered the riverbanks. When wolves were reintroduced, the system stabilized.”
She cocks an eyebrow, impressed. “Excellent. The wolves keep the world in check. Everyone else just pretends to.”
A few students actually clap. The rest go back to their own private musings.
I sink lower in my chair, hands trembling under the table. I force them flat, knuckles whitening against the composite wood.
Dr. K launches into a ten-minute rant about invasive species, and I let my mind wander. I imagine Casey sitting here, arms crossed, tapping her pen against the leg of her desk. She always tapped when she was nervous.
I try to picture her face, but it’s already slipping. All I see is the carving in the desk and the swollen, blue tint of her lips from the morgue photos I made Dad delete but never forgot.
The period ends with a shriek of metal as everyone stands at once. I stay seated. I run my palm over the words again, this time with enough pressure to leave a dent in my own skin.
When the room empties out, I pull a knife from my bag and start scraping the letters out of the surface. Not gentle, not slow. I want to rip through the damage, leave a scar deep enough to remind the next person who sits here that someone fought back.
I don’t stop until there’s a gouge in the wood and the words are gone.
I close my eyes, inhale the scent of wood.
I will not give them the pleasure of seeing me break.
I wipe the crumbs from my palm, stand, and walk out. The desk is still ugly, but now it’s ugly on my terms.
The library is built like a fortress, thick stone walls and slit windows. All except one giant bay window, one I can see the entire outer perimeter.
I find the biggest table in the reading room, already occupied by a dozen students with laptops, color-coded notes, and the casual confidence of kids who’ve never watched someone drown. They’re arranged in a loose horseshoe, backs to the windows, eyes tracking every moment I make.
I hover just outside the ring, textbooks jammed against my ribs, and wait for someone to acknowledge me. No one does. I count to ten, then step up and clear my throat.
“Hey. Is this spot open?”
The noise stops. Not just at the table—everywhere.
I feel a hundred eyes burning through the shelves, but I keep mine steady on the group.
A girl at the end looks up first. She’s classic Westpoint: expensive highlights, perfect nails, pearl necklace sitting above a sweater with a logo that costs more than my rent.
She eyes me, slow and surgical. “You’re Casey’s sister, right?”
I flinch, but only internally. “Isolde,” I say.
Another girl, brunette with skin like it’s never been in the sun, glances at Pearls and says, “We’re actually full up today. Sorry.”
There are three empty chairs. I shrug. “Okay.”
The boys at the table are smirking, like they can’t wait for the show. Pearls leans back, crosses her arms. “You know, Greenwood girls don’t last here.”
I smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace. “That supposed to scare me?”
She tilts her head. “No. Just thought you should know the odds.”
“Thanks for the warning.” I slide my books onto the table, keeping my hands flat to keep them from shaking and take a seat. “I just need to get some work done.”
No one speaks for a long minute, shocked that I sat even when I was unwelcome. When the tension finally breaks, it’s with a hiss of gossip between two boys at the far end. They say something under their breath—“Feral bait” is all I catch.
I ignore them, open my notebook, and start copying out my notes from Environmental Science. My handwriting is neat, controlled. I make sure my posture is perfect, my face unreadable.
Every so often, I look up. Every time, Pearl is watching me, blue eyes shark-bright and unblinking.
I finish a page, close my book, and stand.
“Leaving already?” Pearl says, voice dripping with mock concern.
“Don’t want to mess up your average,” I say.
She smirks, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “See you at the next funeral. Oh wait, I won’t. It’ll be yours.”
I walk out without looking back. But I memorize every face at that table. The snickers and the eyes and the way their lips moved when they thought I wasn’t watching.
I add them to the list, right next to the boy who mimed drowning and the girl with the floating stick figure.
The wolves may keep the world in check, but I’m not here to join the pack.
I’m here to thin it.
The bathrooms in North Hall are a relic from the original campus, all white marble and brass taps so old they turn your hands green. They smell like bleach and dried flowers and the ghosts of a thousand anxiety attacks. I avoid them when I can, but my bladder wins the argument.
There’s no one at the sinks when I enter. The mirrors are polished to a shine, and the lights overhead buzz with the effort of being alive. I drop my bag on the counter, turn to the nearest stall, and—
The door swings open with a crack.
Three girls file in. The leader is tall, brunette, cheekbones sharp and high.
Her eyes are so pale they look translucent in the light.
I recognize her from the library: one of Pearls satellites.
The other two are smaller, one ginger, one dirty blonde, both with the posture of people who’ve never heard the word “no.”
They don’t say anything at first. Just watch me with the kind of focus that only happens when the outcome’s already decided.
I try to sidestep, but Cold Eyes blocks the exit, leaning against the door with a smile that could cut glass. The others drift closer, flanking me at the sink. The move is practiced, rehearsed in a dozen other bathrooms on a dozen other victims.
I put my hands on the marble, gripping until the veins pop in my wrists.
“Lost, Greenwood?” Cold Eyes says, making my name sound like a joke.
“Nope. Just washing up.”
She shrugs, inspects her nails. “You should have kept walking.”
The ginger laughs. “She can’t help it. They say trauma makes you do weird shit.”
The blonde leans in, her perfume so strong it makes my eyes sting. “You know, it’s really not fair to make everyone else uncomfortable with your… presence.”
I don’t reply. The only way out is through.
Cold Eyes tips her head. “You don’t talk much.”
“Maybe I’m just not interested in your voices,” I say.
The ginger oohs, like she’s watching a catfight on pay-per-view. The blonde moves to the tap, fills her cupped hands with cold water, and then slaps it straight into my face.
The shock is instant. My eyes snap shut, the cold burning up my nose and down into my lungs. I taste copper and chlorine and the sharp spike of humiliation.
I stand there, dripping, every nerve ending screaming for me to swing or scream or break. But I don’t.
Cold Eyes laughs, low and mean. “Can you hold your breath like Casey couldn’t?”
The words slice deeper than the water ever could.
The ginger tries for another round, but I dodge, sidestepping so fast she sloshes most of it onto her own shirt.
My clothes are wet. My hair sticks to my cheeks in ropes. My heartbeat is a drumline in my ears. But my breathing is steady. I force it steady. In and out, like the shrink at my old school taught me.
I wipe my face with the back of my hand, then meet Cold Eyes’ stare. She’s waiting for me to crack.
I don’t. Instead, I memorize every detail: the mole on her jaw, the chipped polish on her pinky, the way her smile flickers when I refuse to flinch.
“Next time,” I say, voice flat, “pick a fight you can win.”
I grab my bag and shoulder past, bumping her hard enough to make her stumble. Her shock is almost worth the humiliation.
Their laughter echoes after me, too loud and too high, like they’re trying to chase me down the hall.
But I’m already moving, already counting the steps to the next attack, already adding three new names to the list.
I hope they remember my face, too. The way I refuse to let them win.
It’ll be the last thing they see before I take this place apart, brick by brick.
At night, Archer House is quieter than the grave. The walls eat sound, so all that’s left are the hisses of the pipes and the far-off echoes of Charlie talking to Lucy in hushed whispers. I strip off my shirt, and hang it over the radiator to dry.
My room is still all white. I haven’t bothered to decorate. The only color is the photo of Casey, perched on the edge of my desk where the light from the window catches her smile.
I change into a sweatshirt and sit on the bed with the notebook balanced on my knees. The first page is a list: names, descriptions, the small tells that people think you don’t notice.
1. Pearls. Leadership, power complex, doesn’t blink.
2. Cold Eyes. Bathroom ringleader, left-handed, mole on jaw.
3. Rugby Mouth. Tries too hard, not actually dangerous.
4. Blondie. Watcher, follows orders.
And so on.
I fill two pages before I stop. My handwriting gets looser the angrier I am, the loops sharper, the slashes deeper. I flip back to the front and draw a box around the names that matter most.
Rhett’s being the biggest box with the hardest lines.
The rest can wait.
I go to the window and prop it open, letting the cold leak in.
Down in the quad, lights from the library spill out onto the grass.
There’s a group of guys wrestling on the steps, laughter bouncing off the stone.
Rhett is there, standing apart, watching the chaos with the same detached interest I saw in the dining hall.
He raises his eyes and, for a second, I think he sees me. But the light is behind me and the window is too small. Still, I close the blinds.
Back at the desk, I pick up Casey’s photo. My thumb finds the scratch in the corner of the frame. I hold it for a long time.
I think about the words carved into her old desk, about the water in her lungs, about the way people say “Greenwood girls” like it’s an inside joke.
I want to cry, but nothing comes out.
Instead, I talk to the photo. Not loud—just enough for the words to exist.
“I’m not leaving,” I say. “Not until they pay. Not until someone remembers your name for something other than how you died.”
The laugh track from the hall gets louder, then fades. The house settles around me, creaking like bones in the cold.
I put Casey’s picture on the shelf above my bed, open the notebook, and start planning.
This place took everything from her.
But I am not her.
And I don’t care how many wolves they send—this time, someone’s going to bleed.