Chapter 5
JAGGER
THE FIRST CLAIM
Ididn’t hit Johnny in the library basement.
That should probably count for something, considering he walked out wearing that smug little smile like he didn’t just stand too close to Alice on purpose.
Like he didn’t lean in and murmur she’s fun in my ear because he knew exactly where to put the knife and how slowly to twist it.
Like he didn’t come down here for the sole purpose of making me snap in front of her.
I didn’t.
But barely.
The basement door clicks shut behind him, and the quiet that follows is worse than his voice.
Dust hangs in the dim light. Old books line the shelves around us, and somewhere overhead, normal people are probably studying for normal classes and worrying about normal shit.
Down here, Alice stands beside the table with her camera strap wrapped around her fingers and her mouth pressed into a hard little line, like she’s already decided she’s not apologizing for whatever the fuck I walked in on.
Good.
I don’t want an apology.
I want to know where his hands were and what he said.
I want to know why the whole fucking room still feels like him even after he’s gone.
Johnny leaves traces on purpose. Smoke. Smiles.
Little comments sharp enough to keep bleeding after he walks away.
He doesn’t need to leave a note to make sure everyone knows he was here.
He just has to stand too close, say the wrong thing in the right tone, and watch the damage start doing what he built it to do.
My jaw locks.
Alice notices, of course. She doesn’t miss much, and that might be the worst fucking part, because I’m starting to like that about her.
She watches the shift in my face, the tightening of my hands, the way I don’t move even though everything in me wants to go upstairs, drag Johnny back down, and put his pretty fucking smile through a bookshelf.
“What did he want?” I ask.
Her eyes cut to mine, sharp and already annoyed. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice low because if I don’t, it’s going to come out worse. “Seriously.”
“You don’t get to interrogate me just because your brother likes being creepy.”
“I do actually, because his sudden interest in you is because of me.”
“That sounds like a you problem.”
“It is.”
That makes her pause.
I’d rather be honest than stupid, and right now, lying feels like both.
Her camera sits on the table between us, glossy black and expensive, the strap curled near her hand like she’s ready to snatch it back if I even think about touching it.
The anatomy book is still open beside it, ribs and shadows spread across yellowed pages, but all I can see is Johnny standing too close.
Johnny looking at her mouth. Johnny enjoying the fact that I walked in and saw enough to hate him for it.
My gaze drops to her hand.
Her fingers tighten around the camera strap.
Pissed looks good on her.
Too fucking good.
“You’re quiet,” she says after a beat, her fingers tightening around the photo like she thinks I might still try to take it.
“Yeah.”
“That’s not exactly comforting.”
“It’s not supposed to be.”
Her mouth flattens, but she doesn’t look away. “Jagger.”
Fuck.
My name sounds different in her mouth down here. Softer. More dangerous. Like she knows exactly where to put it so it gets under my skin.
“What?”
“Don’t do whatever you’re thinking. Even he isn’t worth it.”
I look at her mouth too long before I make myself look back at her eyes. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“No,” she says, voice flat, “but I’m starting to understand the warning signs.”
That almost gets a smile out of me.
Almost.
Johnny wants me loud. He wants me stupid, swinging first and thinking later, because then he gets to stand there smiling like he didn’t shove the match into my hand and dare me to burn the room down.
It’s his favorite fucking game. Always has been.
So I don’t give him that.
I go still instead.
Cold enough that Alice notices. Her eyes narrow slightly, not with fear, but with attention, and good. She should pay attention. She should understand that Johnny smiling is bad, but me going quiet is worse.
I step around the table and head for the stairs because staying near her right now feels like standing too close to an open flame and pretending I don’t want to put my hand in it.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
“Home.”
“Liar.”
I stop with one hand on the railing.
Alice doesn’t take it back. Most people soften after they push. They laugh, look away, try to make it smaller. Alice just stands there with my photo pressed to her chest and waits to see what I’ll do about it.
Brave girl.
Stupid, but brave.
I look over my shoulder at her. “Lock your door tonight.”
Her face closes off immediately. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you’re protecting me when you’re part of the reason this is happening.”
That lands right under the ribs.
Ugly and fucking accurate.
I don’t answer because there’s nothing clean to say. She’s right, and I’m starting to hate how often that happens, so I leave before I make it worse.
Or before I make it honest.
Outside, the rain is coming down hard enough to turn Brockville black beneath the lamps.
The old brick buildings look darker when they’re wet, all sharp roofs and narrow windows, like the whole campus was built by people who thought education should come with a haunting.
Orange Halloween lights blink in dorm windows, and plastic skeletons grin from behind glass because apparently everyone here thinks bad decisions look better with decorations.
I pull my hood up and walk.
I should go home.
I should get on my bike, ride back to my shit apartment above the mechanic shop, take a shower, and sleep for a few hours before swim practice at five in the fucking morning.
Our coach is already going to be pissed if I show up half-dead again. He loves acting like early-morning laps are discipline and not just punishment with lane lines. Count the tiles. Hold my breath. Push off the wall. Keep moving until everything ugly shuts up.
Usually, it works.
Tonight, I know it won’t, because water doesn’t wash certain things off.
It remembers.
It holds.
It gets into the cracks and stays there.
So I walk until the cold settles into my skin and Johnny’s voice stops replaying in my head.
It doesn’t.
She’s fun.
His hand near her camera.
His mouth saying pretty thing like he had any fucking right.
I tell myself it isn’t jealousy because jealousy is pathetic, and I barely know Alice. She’s a girl with a camera, a sharp mouth, and the very unfortunate ability to make my brain quiet and loud at the same fucking time.
That’s all.
Except every time I picture Johnny standing beside her chair, the lie gets harder to hold.
Johnny doesn’t want her like I do.
That’s the real problem.
He wants the chase. The game. The moment Alice realizes the room has changed and he’s the one holding the door shut. He wants to touch the thing I’m trying not to reach for just to see if I’ll bleed over it.
And maybe I will.
Maybe that’s what scares me.
Not Johnny.
Me.
Because Johnny likes ruining things, and I like keeping them.
But once I keep something, I don’t know how to let go without leaving claw marks.
My sleeve rides up when I shove my hands deeper into my hoodie pocket, and the streetlight catches the black ink on my forearm.
Cancer.
Two curved marks inked into my skin like a warning I paid someone to carve there. Simple. Black. Permanent. The kind of thing people mistake for astrology until they get close enough to understand it’s more like a fucking confession.
They call Cancer loyal. Protective. Emotional.
Like those things are harmless.
But they’re not.
Loyalty turns mean when someone threatens what matters. Protection gets ugly when the thing you’re protecting starts feeling like yours. And emotion? Fuck emotion. Emotion is just violence that hasn’t picked a direction yet.
I pull my sleeve down and keep walking, trying not to think about Alice in that basement with Johnny standing too close.
Trying not to think about his smile, her mouth, the way he looked at her like he’d already found a new way to fuck with me.
Trying not to think about how still she went when I walked in, like she knew exactly what kind of storm she’d been standing in the middle of.
I make it as far as the chapel path before I stop lying to myself.
The library is behind me. The dorms are ahead.
Between them, the back path cuts through the trees, narrow and dark and slick with rain.
The old cemetery fence runs along one side, black iron spears wet beneath the lamps.
Beyond it, stone markers sit crooked in the grass like the dead are tired of pretending this place has any respect for peace.
Campus lights glow through the rain.
Close enough to safety.
Far enough to make reaching it interesting.
I slide the backpack off my shoulder, unzip it, and pull out the mask.
White. Horned. Black mesh eyes. Jagged teeth.
Ugly as fuck.
Perfect.
I toss the empty bag into the trash can by the chapel gate, shove it down beneath wet coffee cups and soggy flyers, then turn the mask over in my hands.
My mind goes right back to Alice outside the arts building.
Rain on her lashes. Her umbrella tipped back. Her mouth acting bored while her eyes gave her away. She stood there beneath that covered walkway, too close to me, too curious for her own good, looking at me like fear wasn’t something to run from if she got to choose the shape of it.
That’s what stuck.
Not just that she wasn’t scared.
That she wanted to be.
Just enough.
Just in the right way with the right monster standing in front of her.
My thumb drags over the sharp edge of the mask’s mouth, and my own curves before I can stop it.
Fine, ghost girl.
Let’s see how much you really like it.