4. echo
echo
By the third morning, my room had stopped looking like Aldrich housing and started looking like the evidence table Father Three kept telling me not to build in shared spaces.
The desk held my laptop, two campus maps, a half-empty coffee I had stolen from the graduate lounge, and a neat list of every time I had seen Nichlas cross the east walkway.
The chair sat under the door handle because the lock was probably fine and I wasn’t.
The lamp had been stripped down to see whether the base had enough weight to crack a skull.
It did, but only if I swung from the shoulder, which made it less elegant than I preferred.
I was crouched beside the bed, testing whether one of the cheap metal slats could be worked loose without making noise, when someone knocked twice.
The chair jammed beneath the handle shifted under the pressure from the other side but held. I left the slat alone, crossed the room, and dragged the chair back with my foot before opening the door.
Priya stood in the hallway with a shoebox under one arm. Maren was beside her with two more stacked against her chest. Devon leaned against the opposite wall, sleeves rolled up, expression too calm for a man participating in what was clearly an ambush.
I glared at the boxes before shaking my head and returning to the bedframe. “No.”
Priya’s smile widened. “You don’t know what we’re here for.”
“You’re holding shoes, and Devon looks like he’s trying not to laugh. I know enough.”
Maren’s gaze moved from my hand on the bed slat to the chair near the door. She didn’t comment on either. “We have Professor Sterling in fifteen minutes. If you leave in the boots again, Professor Alder from ethics is going to report you to the dress-code office.”
“There’s a dress-code office?” I asked, standing and wiping dust from my fingers onto the school skirt. The skirt was another crime. It sat too high when I moved, too stiff when I sat, and had no useful pockets. I had worn it for three days and still considered it a hostile garment.
“No,” Devon said. “But he’ll find one for you.”
“That sounds like initiative. He should put it on his resume.”
Priya stepped inside without waiting and set the first box on my bed. I respected the audacity more than the invasion. “We’re helping you blend.”
“I don’t blend. I haunt.”
“You attract attention,” Maren said, putting the other boxes beside Priya’s. “Different issue.”
Priya opened the first box. Thin black heels stared up at me, glossy and delicate and absolutely useless in an emergency unless the emergency involved disappointing me. The second pair had little buckles. The third pair made me pause long enough for Devon’s mouth to twitch.
They were still heels, but clunky. Thick soles. Heavy backs. Ugly in a way that almost circled around to useful if everyone involved lowered their standards and lied to God.
Priya pointed at my face. “I knew she’d like those.”
“I haven’t chosen anything.” I picked one up and tested the weight in my palm. If I drove the heel into someone’s foot hard enough, they would remember me every time it rained. “I’m evaluating.”
“You’re choosing,” Devon said.
I looked at him. “You’re enjoying this too much for someone standing within throwing distance.”
He lifted both hands, still calm. “I’m here as a witness.”
“That’s worse.”
Deciding a fight wasn’t worth it, I sat on the edge of the bed and changed shoes while Priya inspected my desk like my room had personally invited her to violate its privacy.
She picked up the campus map beside my laptop, turned it sideways, and frowned at the marks I’d made near the east walkway before setting it exactly where she’d found it.
Devon turned his back before I tugged at the strap around my ankle, as Maren stepped around Priya to set the empty shoeboxes together on the corner of my bed, her eyes moving once over the stripped lamp base, the notebook, and the bedframe before coming back to me.
“These are terrible,” I said, fastening the second strap and flexing my foot against the floor. The shoes pinched near the ankle, but the heel had enough weight to make me stop wanting to throw them out the window immediately.
Priya looked over from my desk again. “They’re the least terrible option.
You can keep acting like the boots are a personality trait, but people are starting to recognize you by sound before you even turn a corner.
These make you look like you’re trying to follow the rules badly instead of declaring war on them. ”
“I was not declaring war on the rules.” I stood, tested my balance, and reached for my leather jacket.
Maren’s mouth softened while she stacked the shoebox lids. “Wear the uniform jacket today.”
“No,” I said, already pulling my leather jacket closer.
Priya crossed the room and plucked the school jacket from the back of my chair before I could grab mine. “One day. That’s all we’re asking. One day where you don’t look like you’re about to mug the dean behind the library and steal his parking pass.”
I stared at the jacket in her hands with its awful navy wool and the Aldrich crest. “I hate the skirt. I hate the bowtie. I hate the shoes. If I also wear that jacket, I’m going to lose the last few scraps of my identity, and then one of you will have to explain to my fathers why I came home looking employable. ”
Devon glanced over his shoulder. “Fathers?”
The question landed exactly the way questions always did when someone heard the plural and realized I hadn’t misspoken.
Priya stopped trying to force the jacket into my hands, and Maren’s fingers stilled on the shoebox lid.
None of them jumped on it, which meant they were either polite or smart enough to know I’d bite if they lunged too fast.
I took the jacket from Priya and shoved my arms through the sleeves. “Don’t look so proud of yourselves.”
Priya’s smile said she was absolutely going to be proud of the fact that I was finally giving in.
She moved behind me without asking, caught the collar before I could ruin it, and tugged it into place with quick, bossy little movements.
“There. Still weird, but now it looks intentional. Wealthy people love intentional. It makes bad decisions feel curated.”
“I’m keeping the bowtie loose,” I said.
“Obviously. I’m not trying to destroy your spirit before lunch.”
The walk to Sterling’s building took us through the west court, where the rain from last night had left the stone paths dark and slick.
The heels changed the way I moved, which annoyed me more than the pinch at my ankle.
The boots let me own the ground. These made me think about it.
Priya noticed, slowing enough that I didn’t have to rush while I learned the new balance.
Students looked anyway. The uniform did its job, smoothing the first glance, before they got to the dyed streaks in my hair or the expression on my face. The whispers still followed. They were just softer now, more curious than alarmed.
“That’s her, right?” someone murmured near the archway as we passed. “The transfer?”
“She looks different today.”
“Still her.”
I kept my gaze forward and let the words trail behind me. Priya’s shoulder brushed mine once, a reminder to keep walking. Devon and Maren kept their head on a swivel, which was... weird.
“You three always move like this?” I asked as we crossed under the stone arch. “Or did I stumble into some rich-kid migration pattern?”
Priya adjusted the strap of her bag and kept walking.
“We move like this because Aldrich is full of people who think a conversation is harmless right up until they realize they’ve agreed to something.
Devon makes sure nobody boxes us in, Maren sees doors and exits, and I talk enough that people underestimate what everyone else is doing. ”
Devon opened a side door with his student ID and held it while we passed. “That’s the most generous description of yourself I’ve ever heard.”
“It’s accurate,” Priya teased, breezing through ahead of me. “Also, you both get weird in public if I’m not there to make us look normal.”
Maren’s gaze cut toward her. “You do not make us look normal.”
I stepped into the warmer corridor and let the door fall shut behind us.
The hall was lined with donor portraits and little brass plaques, all of them polished to a shine that made me want to touch them with dirty fingers.
At the fork ahead, Maren shifted left without slowing.
“This way is faster. The right hall passes the faculty offices and two rooms people use when they don’t want to be seen. ”
Priya glanced back at me. “Don’t ask what that means unless you want Maren to explain scheduling patterns for eight minutes.”
“I only did that once,” Maren said.
I bit back a smile as we passed a set of double doors at the end of the corridor. There was no sign, just dark wood, black handles, and a card reader set low into the wall. The three ignored its existence entirely which made me focus on it instead.
Priya caught me before I could ask. “That’s not for us.”
I let my gaze stay on the card reader for another second. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to,” she said.
Devon waited until we had turned the corner before speaking. “Some spaces are attached to the Kings. People don’t use those spaces unless they’re invited, assigned, or too stupid to finish the semester in one piece.”
That was more information than they’d given me yesterday and still almost nothing.
The Kings again. No names. No faces. A title without a body.
A door everyone knew not to touch. I watched Priya’s reflection in the glass of a display case as she checked the hall behind us, casual enough that anyone else might have missed it.
“I haven’t even seen them,” I said, hoping someone would explain.
Maren’s fingers tightened around her tablet. “That’s better.”
Priya nodded, but she didn’t look pleased. “People think getting noticed by them is flattering until they have it. Then they spend the rest of the semester pretending they meant to do whatever happens next.”
“That’s...” I trailed off as we entered Sterling’s lecture hall, the whispers around me resituating.
A girl in the second row leaned toward her friend as we passed. “She cleans up better than expected.”
I smiled at the board instead of at her. Priya didn’t slow, but her voice dropped near my shoulder. “Don’t start a fight before Sterling takes attendance.” She threw me a glare and then slid into her own seat, the other two crowding around me like their mission was to protect me.
It was almost laughable. If they only knew why I had come to this godforsaken academy, they wouldn’t be sitting anywhere near me.
Priya opened her mouth to ask a question before I just pointed toward the front of the class.
Her gaze narrowed but she didn’t push whatever conversation she was about to start.
Professor Sterling started talking about criminal negligence and intent, and I lasted almost four minutes before my attention dropped to the notebook in front of me, a small smile spreading across my lips.
Across the top of the page, I had written Nichlas’ name and boxed it in until the paper started to bruise. Beneath it were the times I had so far.
First day, library steps before lunch. Yesterday, east walkway, 11:07.
Today was still blank. I drew a line from the business annex to the library, another to the cafeteria, then a third toward the frosted doors I still didn’t have a reason for.
Every route looked too clean until I started adding people.
Two beside him.
One behind.
Different faces. Same shape.
Sterling said something about protection creating dependence, and my pen stopped long enough for the word to land.
Dependence. I wrote it beside the line that led to the annex, then scratched a question mark under it hard enough that the tip of the pen caught in the paper.
If Nichlas came from the library side again, I’d have him from this window.
If he didn’t, then Nicky boy had changed doors, and I hated when prey learned.
Devon shifted in the seat ahead of me, then angled his body just enough to glance back without making it obvious. His eyes dropped to my notebook. “What are you doing?” he asked under his breath.
I covered the bottom half of the page with my hand and kept my eyes on Sterling. “Taking notes.”
Devon looked at the map lines visible above my fingers, then back at my face. “For this class?”
I shrugged and added another mark beside the east walkway. “Eventually.”
At 11:04, Nichlas crossed the east walkway.
I saw him through the rain-streaked glass between Sterling’s shoulder and the edge of the projector screen.
Two students walked with him, close enough to count as company if anyone asked, too loose to feel like friends.
A third trailed several steps behind with his phone in one hand and his eyes moving over the path before Nichlas reached the annex doors.
I wrote 11:04 under the other times.
Nichlas looked over his right shoulder. Then one of the students beside him said something, and Nichlas turned back toward the annex like he’d been corrected without anyone touching him. The third student waited until Nichlas passed through the doors before following.
I added one more line beneath the time.
Same pattern. Different bodies.
Sterling’s lecture kept moving though I didn’t hear most of it after that. My attention stayed on the door Nichlas had disappeared through and the ugly little shape forming in my notebook. He wasn’t walking with friends. He wasn’t being watched by people who cared whether he made it to class.
He was being kept in place.