Chapter 6
Talia
The silence of my dorm is a fading echo. The noise of the main hall is a physical assault slamming into my skull.
It's not just the muffled chaos of a hundred conversations ricocheting off high ceilings; it’s the squeak of sneakers on polished floors, the rumble of carts, the heavy thud of a textbook dropped like a gunshot.
A door bangs somewhere down the corridor, and my shoulders spike like a fist swung too close.
I keep my head down, hoodie pulled low, hands shoved deep in my pockets. The strap of my bag slices across my chest like a shackle. My spine remains rigid, taut with tension that promises violence. I am not a tightly coiled spring—springs just react. I’m a fighter already losing the war.
I’m just trying to get to class. Trying to be invisible.
But the noise follows me, today wearing a new texture. A new name.
“…Reid just lost it, man…”
I don’t turn my head. I keep moving. Don’t listen. It’s none of my business. Don’t let it in.
“…doesn’t make sense. Reid is a machine. He doesn’t talk, let alone fight…”
“…had him pinned by the throat. They said he looked like he was going to kill him…”
My pace quickens. It’s not the violence that rattles everyone; it’s who committed it. The campus isn’t buzzing about a fight; they’re whispering about a glitch in the system. The stone wall cracked. The machine broke.
My world is small by design. I have my room, my classes, my fiercely guarded circle of friends. That’s all I can handle. I’m furious this—this disruption—is invading even that sanctuary.
“…Coach Addison ended practice early. Cleared the room…”
My father’s name slaps me hard enough to stop my breath. My heart kicks against my ribs, a wild animal desperate to escape. I feign checking my bag, letting a wave of students wash past, their voices a watercolor blur of rumor and exaggeration. But it doesn’t matter.
The fact that his anger is a headline in the hallway makes bile rise in my throat.
Reid. Declan Reid.
The name doesn’t fit the image: the man I saw at the bar, the one who checks the exits, the solid wall of heat pressed against me. The man who waited until my door was locked. He was a fortress of control. He was still. He was quiet.
I should’ve known. Still water always hides the most dangerous undertow.
I shake my head, tug my hood lower, pushing back against the current of bodies, unease curdling into that familiar, quiet dread. I need to find Clara. I promised I’d meet them for lunch.
It’s an act of reclamation. A test. He doesn’t get to take this, too. He doesn’t get to have cafeterias. He doesn’t get to have friends. Forcing myself to go is the only way to win. If I start avoiding anything linked to his name, I’ll have to stop existing.
I spot them through the glass doors. The sprawling Titans table at the center of the room—the new normal.
A knot of navy and gray hoodies occupies the loudest part of the cafeteria, like they’ve claimed center ice here, too.
A phantom image fills the empty stretch near the end: black hoodie, head down, green eyes taking in everything.
You can do this. It’s just noise.
The cafeteria is hell reborn. Louder. Brighter. I push the door open, and the clang of silverware against ceramic, the scrape of chairs, the high, sharp laughter—all hit me like a punch. Overhead lights glare off stainless steel and glass, too bright, too exposed.
I weave through the tables, shoulders tight. Every step is a choice. Don’t flinch. Don’t run. My boots squeak on the tile, and my heart rockets as I almost lose my footing. I don’t. I keep going.
I slide into the one empty seat Clara saved for me. She pushes a tray toward me with a small smile—soup, a roll, something normal.
“I got you the least threatening food in the building,” she says, a little joke nestled in the words.
“Low bar,” I mutter, but the corner of my mouth twitches. Familiar is work. She remembered I like soup, that I can usually manage soft food when everything in me is locked up. The gesture makes my throat burn, and I hate the vulnerability it stirs.
The table is packed. Me, Clara, Zoe, Genny, and Maya, mixed in with Adrian, Gio, Dante, and Cole. One quick, anxious scan confirms the two at the center of the rumors aren’t here. No Rylan, which isn’t surprising. No Declan.
Relief hits so sharp it almost hurts—one small, selfish pocket of air in my suffocating lungs. He’s not here. I can breathe—mostly.
The group is still loud, chaotic, and terrifyingly large.
I’m pinned on one side by Clara, on the other by the aisle, this long table of men and noise stretching out in front of me.
My spoon clinks against the bowl when I pick it up; the sound echoes in my chest like a countdown to something inevitable.
Before I can settle, before I can breathe, Zoe says, “Okay, tell us now—I’ve been dying. How bad was it?”
Adrian’s glare snaps to her so fast she flinches. “Zoe. No.”
Zoe’s hands go up. “I’m just asking—”
“Don’t.” His voice is quiet, controlled. Captain-mode. The kind that ends conversations, not starts them.
“Subtle, Hale,” she mutters but backs off.
Clara leans in toward me. “We were waiting for you before talking about anything. Maya’s got the real story.”
Maya’s notebook is already open beside her tray, pen tucked behind her ear. She doesn’t look up when she says, “I was in Coach Addison’s office yesterday. Interview for the mid-season article.”
My chest tightens. Of course she was there. Of course she heard something.
Maya continues, voice even. “Coach came in after it happened. Called a staff meeting and canceled today’s practice.” She finally lifts her gaze to me. Calm. Direct. “So I asked questions.”
Adrian exhales sharply but doesn’t shut her down.
Maya taps the edge of her notebook. “Here are the facts.”
The word facts freezes the whole table. Even the guys go still.
She looks straight at me. “Rylan was talking about you. Loudly. In the locker room. He called you ‘sweet’ and ‘quiet’ and said he’d ‘like to find out what you’re really like.’”
My stomach pitches. Heat rises, then drops to ice.
And then the guilt hits.
It crashes into me like a physical weight, collapsing my lungs.
Me.
It was me. I did this.
I went to the bar. I sat with them. I let myself be seen. And because I was there, Rylan spoke. Because I existed in their space, the machine broke.
I am the contamination. I am the fracture.
I stare at my soup, nausea rolling in a cold tide. I dragged my chaos into their world, and now it’s exploding.
Gio shifts, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah,” he mutters. “He said that shit. I told him to shut up.”
Zoe’s eyebrows shoot up. “Hold on, weren’t you two, like, close?”
Gio cuts her a look, sharp and tired. “Not anymore. Not after I realized he’s a walking dumpster fire. You don’t talk about someone like that. Not at our table. Not anywhere.”
Zoe sits back, chastened. “Okay. Point taken.”
Maya goes on. “Declan heard it. And he reacted.”
“Reacted?” Zoe echoes, bracing.
Adrian’s voice slices in before Maya can answer. “He didn’t hit him.”
The table goes silent.
Adrian’s jaw flexes hard, all captain and loyalty. “He pinned him. By the throat. Against the lockers.”
Gio nods, his jaw tight. “Rylan was turning purple. Declan didn’t even raise his voice. He just… ended it.”
Zoe looks between them, processing. “So… Declan’s not a psycho?”
“No,” Adrian says, voice low. “He’s Declan.”
The finality in those two words makes the hairs on my arms stand up.
Cole finally speaks, barely above a mutter. “Rylan keeps acting like that, he’s lucky he walked away.”
Dante sets his fork down with a soft click, and Cole’s mouth snaps shut.
Maya finishes, “I didn’t print it. None of this goes in the article. This is for you.” Her gaze pins mine. “Declan didn’t snap at random. He snapped because someone talked about you.”
The cafeteria blurs at the edges. My fingers go numb around my spoon.
Clara sees it first. “Talia—”
The clang of the spoon hitting the bowl detonates the past in my skull.
The doorknob. The lock. The voice behind me. The smell of beer and sweat.
My breath stutters. Everything glows too bright. Too close.
“T,” Clara whispers, the sound barely a thread.
Weak. Exposed. Seen. I hate it. Hate that one word—slammed—can rip me open.
I blink hard, forcing my feet flat on the tile, forcing air in. “I’m fine,” I say, brittle as glass. “Just… not hungry anymore.”
No one believes it, but no one pushes. Adrian looks away, jaw tight. Maya closes her notebook without a sound. Gio stabs a fry like it insulted him personally. Dante watches me, unreadable, predator-still, as if he’s deciding whether I’m prey or something dangerous pretending to be fragile.
The table feels like a pressure cooker.
“Library,” I say, the word scraped out. “If I don’t go now, I’ll never get that paper done.”
It’s flimsy, but it’s the only way to escape without shattering.
No one stops me. Adrian gives Clara a tiny nod—let her go.
Even though I don’t need to go, I head there anyway. It’s a retreat. A failure. I’m furious at myself for running, but the need for silence, for safety, is a physical claw in my throat.
The freezing air on the walk is a sharp shock that cuts through the anxious fog. I pull it deep into my lungs, my boots crunching on salted paths. The cold is good. It makes me feel alive. It stings my cheeks, making my eyes water for reasons that have nothing to do with memory.
I take the long way around the quad instead of cutting through the center, skirting the edges where I can pretend I’m choosing the scenic route—not avoiding people. A couple of students in Titans beanies cut past, voices carrying.
“Reid’s a freak, man. Who chokes a guy over nothing?”
It wasn’t nothing, a voice in my head whispers. It was you.
I walk faster.