Chapter 10 Shadows and Watchers – Luna
The maintenance worker is outside the dining hall when I arrive for breakfast. Older guy, maybe fifty, wearing the standard Shark Bay uniform of navy coveralls with the academy crest embroidered on the pocket.
He’s doing something with the exterior light fixtures, standing on a ladder, his tool belt jangling with each movement.
I wouldn’t have noticed him at all except that he was also outside the library yesterday. And the administrative building the day before. And in the corridor near my dorm room when I left for my morning class.
Always within visual range. Always busy with some repair or maintenance task. Always watching.
I pause on the steps, pretending to check my phone while actually cataloging his position. He doesn’t look at me directly, but I can feel his attention like a physical weight. The way his hands still momentarily when I stop. The slight tilt of his head??suggests he’s listening.
“Morning, miss,” he says pleasantly when he notices me noticing him. “Watch your step there. These old stones get slippery when there’s dew.”
“Thank you.” I force a smile and continue inside, my skin crawling.
The dining hall is crowded with the usual morning rush—students grabbing coffee and toast before early classes, clusters of friends laughing over their breakfast trays. Erik is already at our usual table near the windows, and I make my way toward him through the crowd.
“Hey.” He looks up as I sit, and I can see the dark circles under his eyes that match my own. Neither of us is sleeping well. “Coffee?”
“Please.” I accept the cup he pours from the carafe, wrapping my hands around it for warmth even though the dining hall isn’t cold. “The maintenance guy is outside again.”
Erik’s expression doesn’t change, but his fingers tighten slightly on his own cup. “Same one?”
“Same one. That’s the fourth time in two days I’ve seen him in different locations around campus.”
“Could be coincidence. It’s a small island.”
“Could be.” I take a sip of coffee, using the movement to scan the room. Students, faculty, the usual morning crowd. Nothing obviously suspicious. But that’s the problem—nothing here is obviously anything. “Or it could be Selena making sure we know we’re being monitored.”
Before Erik can respond, a cheerful voice cuts through our conversation.
“Morning, Luna! Erik! Mind if I join you?”
Leyla Clark appears at our table, tray in hand, honey-blonde ponytail bouncing, that perpetual smile plastered on her face. She’s wearing her uniform with the same meticulous precision she always does, her backpack covered in those ridiculous dolphin patches resting at her feet.
“Actually, we were just—” I start, but she’s already settling into the chair beside me.
“I know, I know, you’re probably discussing your Advanced Lit assignment. Professor Bennet’s essay prompts are brutal this semester, right?” She stabs at her eggs with unnecessary enthusiasm. “But I figured, hey, why eat alone when there are friends nearby?”
Friends. The word tastes bitter. Leyla Clark isn’t our friend. She’s someone with family connections to organized crime, someone who conveniently shows up at our library study sessions and casual gatherings with unnerving frequency.
Someone who might be reporting everything we do back to Selena.
“The essay’s not due for another week,” Erik says carefully. “We’re just having breakfast.”
“Oh, good! Then you have time to chat.” She leans forward conspiratorially. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask—are you two going to the Halloween dance next month? I’m on the planning committee, and we’re trying to get a headcount for catering.”
I force myself to engage, to play the role of normal student who cares about normal things like costume dances. “We haven’t really discussed it.”
“You should totally go! It’s going to be amazing.
We’re transforming the whole gymnasium into this Gothic haunted mansion theme.
Very dark academia, very on-brand for Shark Bay.
” She takes a bite of toast, somehow making even that seem aggressively cheerful.
“Plus, it would be good for you guys to do something fun. After everything you’ve been through, you deserve a night to just… relax, you know?”
There it is. The subtle reminder that she knows about our history, our trauma, our status as survivors-turned-suspects. It’s delivered with such apparent innocence that I could almost believe she’s just being thoughtful. Almost.
“We’ll think about it,” I say noncommittally.
“Great! Oh, and speaking of events—” Leyla pulls out her phone, scrolling through something. “The kickboxing club is having a demonstration next week. You still train, right, Luna? You should totally come. Might be fun to spar with someone new.”
She knows I took on kickboxing during my time away from school. She knows my schedule, my habits, probably my class roster and my coffee order. The friendly questions aren’t innocuous at all—they’re confirmations that she’s been watching, gathering information, staying close.
I’m saved from having to respond by Belle and Max entering the dining hall. They spot us immediately, and something passes across Belle’s face when she sees Leyla at our table. Annoyance? Frustration? Fear?
“Morning,” Belle says as they approach, her voice perfectly neutral. “Leyla. I didn’t realize you were having breakfast with Luna and Erik. In fact, I didn’t know you were friends at all.”
“Oh, we’re not that close yet,” Leyla says brightly, missing or ignoring the edge in Belle’s tone. “But I’m trying to be more social this semester. Make more friends, you know? This place can feel pretty isolating otherwise.”
Isolating. The irony would be funny if it weren’t so terrible.
Belle and Max take the remaining seats at our table, and for the next fifteen minutes, we’re forced to make small talk while Leyla chatters about upcoming events, campus gossip, and her opinions on various professors.
She’s good at it—the conversation flows naturally, never dwelling too long on any sensitive topic, never asking questions that are too probing.
Just friendly interest from a fellow student.
But I notice how she watches us. How her eyes linger on Belle’s hands when she’s gesturing. How she tracks Max’s expressions when he thinks no one is looking. How she seems to catalog every interaction between Erik and me, filing it away for later analysis.
When she finally leaves—promising to save us seats at the kickboxing demonstration—the four of us sit in loaded silence.
“She’s reporting to Selena,” Belle says quietly, leaning forward so her voice won’t carry. “Has to be.”
“We don’t know that for certain,” Max counters, but he sounds uncertain. “She could just be lonely. Looking for connection.”
“With family ties to the mafia? Please.” Belle’s eyes are hard. “Nothing about Leyla Clark is coincidental.”
I think about the maintenance worker outside. About Victoria Charlson following Belle. About Dr. Moore spending an hour in Selena’s office discussing how to keep us here. About the security guard who will probably appear if we try to explore too far.
“We’re surrounded,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Everywhere we go, there’s someone watching. Someone listening. Someone making sure we stay exactly where Selena wants us.”
“Then we need to be smarter about where we go,” Erik says. “Find the blind spots. Test the boundaries.”
Belle and Max exchange a look, and I know immediately that something happened. Something they need to tell us but can’t here, in the crowded dining hall with Leyla potentially still within earshot.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Belle suggests, standing. “All of us. Get some fresh air before classes start.”
***
Twenty minutes later, we’re on one of the island’s smaller paths, heading away from the main campus buildings.
The autumn morning is crisp, the ocean visible through gaps in the trees.
I’m acutely aware of every sound—footsteps that might be following us, branches breaking that could indicate surveillance, the distant drone of what might be cameras or only insects.
“Professor Austin gave me files,” Belle says once we’re far enough from the main path.
She explains quickly—the thumb drive, the surveillance footage, the video of her as a child with Selena, the message warning us to leave.
“It all auto-deleted before I could save most of it. But he was clear: the network is bigger than we thought, and we need to get off this island.”
“How?” The question comes out more sharply than I intend. “Selena controls everything. The ferries, the supplies, the communications. We can’t just walk off.”
“No,” Erik agrees. “But there are other ways off an island. Boats. Maybe even swimming to the mainland if we could get to the right part of the shore.”
“That’s insane,” Max says. “The currents around here are deadly. Even if we made it, we’d be hypothermic before we reached land.”
“Then a boat,” I say, an idea forming. “There have to be private boats somewhere. Maintenance vessels, fishing boats, something we could use.”
“The north shore,” Erik says slowly. “I’ve seen a small dock there before, back when I first came to Shark Bay. It’s where they bring in heavy equipment, stuff that won’t fit on the passenger ferries.”
“Then that’s where we start,” Belle decides. “We scope it out. See what’s there, what kind of security is in place, whether it’s viable.”
We change direction, following Erik’s lead toward the less-traveled parts of the island.
The path narrows, becoming more overgrown, and I realize with growing unease that we rarely come to this side of campus.
The academic buildings, dorms, dining facilities—they’re all concentrated in the southern section.
The north shore is rocky, inhospitable, deliberately left undeveloped.
Or deliberately kept restricted.