Chapter 22
Zoe
The lecture hall is a cage. Intro to Ethics. A required credit. A joke. The professor is droning on about societal frameworks, his voice a monotone hum that does nothing to drown out the noise in my head from yesterday. The hallway. The supply closet. The feeling of his hands.
"For the final component of the semester," the professor says, his voice suddenly cutting through the fog. "You will be paired for a longitudinal case study. This is mandatory. Attendance and participation are forty percent of your grade."
A collective groan ripples through the room. I just stare at the clock on the wall.
"I've randomized the pairs to ensure… diversity of perspective," he continues, tapping on his keyboard. The projector screen flickers, and a list of names appears. "I'll read them out. Listen for your partner."
He starts at the top. Names I don't care about. People I don't see. I check my phone again. Nothing new. Just the silence that feels like a precursor to a storm.
"Gio Rossi," the professor says.
My head snaps up. The room feels suddenly smaller.
"And Zoe Barnes."
The name hangs in the air. A murmur goes through the lecture hall, a ripple of whispers and glances.
They know. They all know. Rossi and Barnes.
The gossip blog headlines are fresh in their minds.
My eyes sweep the room, hunting through the sea of heads until I find him.
Three rows up, off to the left. He's already looking at me.
His expression is unreadable, a mask of calm indifference, but his posture is rigid.
He doesn't look away. He doesn't flinch.
The professor keeps reading, but the sound is just static now.
This is a sentence. We are now legally obligated by the university to spend hours together.
To work. To collaborate. Every study session, every shared document, every late-night library meeting is now a minefield.
It's a perfect, long-term source of simmering tension, forced upon us by the very institution I'm currently trying to survive.
I watch him for a second longer. He doesn't break eye contact.
It's a challenge. A silent acknowledgment that the walls are closing in.
"Alright, that's the list," the professor says, clapping his hands together. "Find your partner. Use the rest of the class to outline your project parameters. Exchange numbers. Get a plan in place. The first draft is due Friday."
The room erupts into a clamor of scraping chairs and shifting bodies.
People move around me, a blur of motion and noise, but I'm frozen.
I see him stand. He doesn't hesitate. He moves with an unnerving economy, his path a straight line toward my seat.
He doesn't navigate the crowd; the crowd parts for him.
He stops beside my desk, his shadow falling over my notebook.
The scent of him—cold air, clean soap, and something distinctly male—invades my space.
"Barnes," he says. His voice is low, a rough vibration that settles in my bones.
My gaze stays down. I start gathering my things, shoving my pen and notebook into my bag with sharp, aggressive movements. "Rossi."
"We need a plan." He doesn't sit. He looms, a tactic designed to assert dominance. It's a rookie mistake. I'm not intimidated by height.
"I'm aware of the syllabus," I say, zipping my bag with a vicious pull. "I'll read it."
"That's not a plan," he counters, his tone flat. "That's compliance. I need a strategy. When are you free?"
I finally look up, forcing my gaze to meet his. His eyes are dark, calculating. He's asking about my schedule. He's mapping my availability, cataloging my weak points. "My schedule is none of your concern."
"It is now," he says, leaning in just enough to drop his voice. "Forty percent of our grade. I don't fail. And I'm not about to let you be the reason I start."
The sheer arrogance of it makes me laugh, a short, sharp sound that's all steel. "Let me? You think you have a say in whether I fail or not?"
"I have a say in whether we fail," he corrects, his jaw tightening. "So I'll ask again. When are you free?"
Standing, I sling my bag over my shoulder. The movement forces him to take a step back, and I reclaim my inch of territory. "I'll text you."
His eyes narrow. "You don't have my number."
"I'll get it," I say, and turn to leave.
His hand shoots out, his fingers wrapping around my bicep. The grip is firm, not bruising, but absolute. A lock.
"No. We'll do it now."
I stop. My body stays exactly where it is. Slowly, I turn my head, my gaze dropping to his hand on my arm before rising back to his face. My voice is dangerously quiet. "Take your hand off me."
For a second, he doesn't move. The challenge hangs between us, a live wire. Then, his fingers loosen, and he lets go. He doesn't apologize. He just shoves his own hands into his pockets, a clear sign he's reining in a more aggressive impulse.
"Fine," he grits out. "You'll get my number. But we're meeting tomorrow. Library. Seven p.m. Don't be late."
"Or what?" I ask, the question a blade. "You'll mark me absent?"
A flicker of something—respect, maybe, or annoyance—crosses his face. "Don't test me, Zoe."
"The feeling is mutual, Gio," I say, and walk away. I don't look back, but I can feel his gaze on me, a physical weight until I'm out of the room.
My phone buzzes as I hit the main quad. An unknown number. I don't have to guess.
Library. My dorm. 7 p.m. Your choice.
The message holds my stare. It's an ultimatum disguised as an option. A test. He's forcing me to make the first logistical move, to decide the level of intimacy I'm willing to tolerate. Public and neutral, or private and dangerous. My thumbs fly across the screen.
Neither. Student center. Tomorrow night. I'm doing a project with Genny tonight.
I hit send. A refusal of his terms and a statement of fact. Let him chew on that. I slide the phone into my pocket and keep walking.
The library is neutral ground. A sanctuary of silence and enforced focus.
That's the theory. The reality is the low, electric hum of a room divided.
Genny's already got our textbooks spread across a table near the back, her highlighters poised like weapons.
I drop my bag into the chair beside hers, the scuff of my boots on the polished floor too loud.
"Professor Marks is going to flay us for this market analysis if we don't nail the competitive landscape," Genny mutters, not looking up from her laptop.
"Then we nail it," I say. I pull out my chair, and my gaze sweeps the room, a tactical assessment I can't switch off.
Clara is at the main circulation desk, stamping books with the grim efficiency of a prison warden.
Talia is perched on a stool by the study carrels, her proctor's roster a stark white rectangle on the dark wood. They're in their element.
Then there's the other element. Scattered throughout the reference section are the broad shoulders and restless energy of the hockey team.
It's the designated study hall night. A mandatory team-building exercise I'd successfully managed to avoid until now.
Irritation prickles at the back of my neck.
This isn't just a study session. It's a territorial pissing match, and I just walked onto the field.
I'm an intruder here, a variable in their controlled system, even as I sit with two of its key components.
My eyes land on him. Of course, they do.
Gio is slouched in a chair two tables away, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
He's not reading the textbook open in front of him.
He's just… existing. A silent, coiled threat in a room full of forced compliance.
He's required to be here. I'm required to be here.
The intersection isn't just geographical; it's a trap.
There's no way to leave without it looking like a retreat.
No way to stay without feeling his gaze on me, a physical weight I can already feel settling between my shoulder blades.
The sentence from the classroom hangs over us both, a shared burden.
Genny taps a manicured nail against her laptop screen, the rhythm sharp and impatient. "The demographic data for the Pacific Rim expansion is a mess. We need to restructure the whole segmentation."
I force my eyes to the spreadsheet, but the numbers blur into meaningless gray lines.
My peripheral vision is hijacked, locked onto a heat source two tables away.
Gio hasn't moved. He's shifted his chair, just a fraction, turning it to face me directly.
He's not looking at his textbook. He's not looking at Clara. He's looking at me.
It's a surveillance state. I try to focus on the column for Q3 projections, but I can feel the weight of his attention like a physical touch.
It's possessive. It's a claim staked in open air.
He's guarding. The distinction is subtle but poisonous.
A guard protects you from external threats; a cage protects the world from you.
"Zoe?" Genny's voice cuts through the haze, laced with confusion. "You okay?"
I blink, dragging my gaze back to the table.
"Fine. Just tired." The lie tastes like ash.
I'm hyper-aware. Every time I shift in my chair, every time I turn a page, I know he's tracking it.
The air between our tables feels charged, a high-voltage current humming despite the distance.
He's creating a perimeter. A silent blockade.
If anyone tried to approach this table, they'd have to get past him first. It should feel safe.
It feels like I'm serving a sentence I didn't know I'd been handed.
My skin prickles, hot and tight. I can't work like this. I can't think like this.