Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
RAELYNN
After three murders, the university doesn’t feel like a place of learning anymore. On paper, it still wears its familiar skin—red brick warmed by the sun, stucco facades threaded with ivy—but the surface is a lie.
Under the heat and the greenery, everything has been hardened into something defensive and raw—a battlefield disguised as academia.
Security checkpoints choke the main entrances where students once streamed freely.
Now, ID cards flash under suspicious eyes, and bags are thoroughly examined.
The rhythm of campus life has slowed to a crawl—impatient lines stretching down sidewalks, bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, the air full of shifting feet and muttered complaints.
Uniformed officers scan each face with deliberate precision, their gazes sharp as glass.
Campus police stand in pairs at every corner, their hands resting on their belts, their eyes hard and sweeping as if they’re waiting for the killer to reveal himself in broad daylight.
A few city cruisers sit parked along the main quad, their hoods catching the sun, lights off but presence heavy.
The officers stationed near them don’t move, don’t blink, until you realize their eyes are tracking every motion with a predator’s patience.
It’s all meant to reassure, but it doesn’t.
The air feels stretched too thin, brittle with unease, and the silence between footsteps always feels a second away from snapping.
Three murders are proof enough that promises of “increased security” don’t mean shit.
Locks, buddy systems, ID checks, badges, flashing lights—it won’t stop a determined killer who has already picked their prey.
The entire atmosphere of campus has soured.
The chatter that once layered the background—gossip about who hooked up at the last party, debates over football scores, the endless buzz about Greek life—has been stripped away.
In its place is something sharp, jagged.
Conversations are cut short when someone gets too close.
Students move in packs now, shoulders brushing, eyes flicking toward every sound.
Even the bulletin boards look like they’ve been through triage.
The neon flyers for rush week and improv nights, the profuse posters for film club and intramural sign-ups gone.
In their place are black and white handbills stapled in neat rows—counseling hotlines, phone numbers for campus safety escorts, photocopied vigils with time, place, and an urging to “come together.” Someone has laminated a map of well-lit routes with arrows and the words “STAY SAFE” printed in block letters.
Dorms now have printed lists taped to their doors: “If you witness something suspicious, call 911; report it to campus safety; do not approach.” Little prayer candles and hastily arranged bouquets lean against a corkboard like failed attempts to hold back the bleed.
I can still hear Emilio’s voice in my head as I push through it all, like a recording on repeat. He’d told me last night, while we lay in bed, what the detectives were saying, in a voice that tried to stay calm but didn’t quite manage it.
“Forensically, what CSU can link is the wound pattern,” he’d said, hands steepled together as if he were holding the blood itself.
“They’re seeing the same thread through all three scenes: same blade type—long, serrated; same stroke depth and angle; same right-to-left trajectory, which suggests a right-handed attacker using a downward, oblique motion.
Defensive wounds on the victims’ forearms show similar parry patterns.
It’s—” he paused, thumb tracing an invisible line in the air “—consistent enough that the detectives believe the same person committed all three.”
And enough to convince the media that a new serial killer has started stalking the streets. A serial killer they have tastelessly named Ripper Incarnate.
The phrase is a notch in the hum under my skin as I move across the quad.
It feels like a mockery—a Victorian nightmare stitched onto our modern walkways—a monster named before anyone’s been brought to justice.
The name spreads through the feeds, the group chats, and the water-cooler gossip with all the speed of a flame on dry grass.
It makes people look at strangers like they might be a costume and a devil at once.
I hitch my bag higher on my shoulder and weave into the slow-moving crowd toward the Koffler Building.
The early sun cuts across the quad, white-hot, turning the glass walls of the science buildings into blinding mirrors.
Heat presses down, dry and sharp, carrying with it the faint tang of asphalt already baking.
My boots crunch against stray gravel scattered along the walkway.
Each step echoes too loudly in the taut hush; a rhythm that keeps time with the small, repetitive questions flitting through the crowd.
“Did you know them?” a whisper brushes by me.
“I’m not walking home alone tonight,” someone else says.
“They caught someone, right? They had to have by now.”
Same questions, same hollow answer—silence. The current of whispered worry tangles around my shoulders like static.
My book bag thumps against my hip with each step I take as I climb the concrete steps to my lecture hall.
At the landing, I pause, gaze sweeping across the quad—half expecting to catch someone staring.
I can’t stop the thoughts that come. What if he’s here?
Hidden among the sea of students, watching me or looking for his next prey.
The thought sends a shiver down my spine, and I push it out before it can take root and force myself forward. The heavy metal door groans as I tug it open, swallowing me into the shadow of Room 204.
The dimly lit room slopes downward in half-moons of fold-out desks, rows that climb like bleachers.
Usually, this space hums with sound—gossip traded across aisles, friends shouting greetings, the crinkle of snack wrappers, and the clatter of iced coffees set down too hard.
Today, it’s hushed. Barely half the seats are filled, and even those who came look unsettled, their pens scratching without focus, their eyes sliding often to the doorways and corners of the room.
The low murmur of conversation bounces faintly off the whiteboard at the front. A few students tap on laptops, their faces lit in cool glow, but their eyes don’t linger on the screens for long—they flick toward the doors, the aisles, the backs of the room, like prey waiting for a shadow to shift.
I slide into my usual seat midway down. Marlena is already there, her face pale, shadows bruised under her eyes.
She forces a small smile, the corners of her mouth twitching up without conviction.
Her hand brushes mine under the desk, the minute I pull it down over my lap, fleeting but firm—one squeeze, a wordless reminder that she’s here, that we’re still here.
Austin sits on her other side, posture slouched but gaze sharp. His usual lazy grin is absent, replaced by something quieter, more intent. None of us says anything at first. We don’t need to. The silence speaks enough.
When Professor Henley walks in, the room seems to shift. His stride is steady, composed, not a hair out of place. His slacks are pressed, his shirt sleeves rolled just enough to show forearms that suggest ease without effort.
He sets his messenger bag on the desk, arranges his papers into neat stacks, and finally looks up. His gaze sweeps the room once—calm, unreadable—before it settles. On me. Just for a second. Long enough to stir the prickling heat across the back of my neck.
“Good morning,” he begins, voice calm and evenly pitched.
It carries easily without strain, yet is deep enough to demand focus without needing to be loud.
“I realize the past week has been… difficult for many of you. Three lives lost in such a short span—classmates, friends, members of this community. That weight is not something I overlook.” He pauses, allowing the silence to thicken, then continues, his tone softening just slightly.
“Please remember there are resources available to you—counselors, peer support, and my office hours if you need them.”
The silence afterward is heavy. A few students shift uncomfortably, and someone coughs near the back, but no one speaks.
Then, with a click of his mouse, the projector flickers to life, splashing pale light against the screen, and his voice falls back into lecture mode, smooth and steady, the rhythm of normalcy.
Except it isn’t.
The seconds stretch until Henley’s words blur together, bleeding into a low hum that doesn’t quite touch me.
My pen scratches nonsense patterns into the margin of my notebook, shapes looping and curling without meaning.
My body is in this chair, but my mind is outside—back in the quad, in the heavy air, under the glare of watchful eyes.
Waiting for a shadow to break away from the corner and move toward me.
When dismissal finally comes, it’s like a valve releasing.
Chairs clatter as they snap back upright, bags zip open and closed, the sound sharp and chaotic after an hour of forced stillness.
Conversations ignite instantly, buzzing and fractured, spilling into the aisles and swelling into a static hum that follows us out the door.
Marlena falls into step beside me without a word, her presence steady but taut, and Austin lopes up on her other side, his easy grin muted by the weight that hasn’t left the air in days.
The three of us move with the tide of bodies through the narrow hallway, the crush of shoulders and backpacks pressing until we finally spill out into the open quad.