6. Lynn
— ? —
Lynn
I spend all day spiraling.
This isn’t unusual, spiraling is kind of my default state, but today’s spiral has a specific flavor.
It tastes like his fingers on my neck. It’s the sound of you okay, darling?
whispered low enough to make my toes curl, and the sight of a packed lecture hall watching me get fake-seduced in the name of academic demonstration.
I skip my afternoon class.
Lunch is three granola bars because I forget to go to the dining hall.
I reorganize my bookshelf twice, first by color, then by size, then back to alphabetical because the chaos was making my ADHD worse, and I text my mom a series of increasingly unhinged messages that I immediately delete before she can read them.
By the time my library shift starts, I’m a wreck.
But at least I’ll see him.
I keep coming back to the one thought that makes the spiral bearable: he comes to the library every night now.
Earlier and earlier. Last night he showed up before closing, helped me shelve for hours, and taught me three words in a language he claimed was Old Norse but sounded like nothing I’d ever heard.
He’s going to come tonight. He has to come tonight.
The hours crawl by.
Seven o’clock. I shelve the returns. Eight o’clock. I help a freshman find sources for her anthropology paper. Nine o’clock. I check the door every thirty seconds like a puppy waiting for its owner.
Nine-thirty.
He’s not coming.
Something sinks in my chest, disappointment, sharper than it should be for someone who’s only known me a few weeks. Maybe he has papers to grade, or meetings. Or he realized that whatever’s happening between us is insane and inappropriate and needs to stop before someone gets hurt.
Maybe he finally came to his senses.
I force myself to focus on the cart. Shelving. I can shelve. The mythology section is almost done, just a few more books to go, and then I can close up and go home and try not to think about-
“Excuse me.”
I spin.
The man standing at the end of the aisle isn’t Professor Draven.
He’s older, maybe fifties, with thinning hair and a face that looks like it’s been lived in too hard. He’s wearing a coat that doesn’t quite fit and he’s standing too close to the shelves, crowding the space, and the way he’s looking at me makes my skin crawl.
“Can I help you?” I ask, keeping my voice professional.
“I’m looking for recommendations.”
“Sure. What genre?”
“Something with…” He moves closer. Too close. “Lonely women. Vulnerable ones. Stories where they get what’s coming to them.”
Every alarm in my body goes off at once.
“I don’t think we have anything like that,” I say, taking a step back. “The circulation desk can help you find-”
“You’re here alone.”
“Excuse me?”
“The library’s almost empty.” He’s still moving, still closing the distance. “Just you in the stacks. Must get scary, working by yourself this late.”
“Sir, I need you to step back.”
“Or what?” He smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “You’ll call security? They’re across campus. Takes them ten minutes to get here. Lot can happen in ten minutes.”
My heart is pounding. I grip the shelving cart, measuring the distance to the end of the aisle, calculating whether I can make it past him-
The window explodes.
Glass shatters inward, and something massive comes through, a blur of fur and muscle and teeth, and I scream as the wolf lands between me and the man, its growl shaking the floor.
It’s huge. Bigger than any wolf should be, with black fur and eyes that flash gold in the fluorescent light. It faces the man with its hackles raised, a sound coming from its throat that I feel in my bones.
The man runs.
He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t look back, just bolts for the exit like death itself is chasing him. The wolf doesn’t follow. It stays planted between me and the broken window, and slowly, impossibly, it turns.
It looks at me.
Those eyes. Gold and deep and familiar.
“Professor-?”
The wolf takes a step toward me.
I run.
I don’t think about it, don’t plan it, my legs just move, carrying me past the shelves and through the emergency exit and out into the night. The moon is full overhead, huge and silver, and I can hear paws behind me, gaining, and I push myself faster.
The science building. It’s closest. If I can get inside, get something to defend myself-
I slam through the doors and grab the first thing I see: a fire extinguisher mounted on the wall. My hands are shaking so hard I almost drop it, but I manage to get it free just as the wolf appears in the doorway.
“Stay back!”
It doesn’t stop.
“I SAID STAY BACK!”
I pull the trigger.
White foam explodes from the nozzle, hitting the wolf directly in the face.
It yelps, an almost human sound of surprise, and staggers, and I don’t wait to see what happens next.
I’m already running again, out the back door and across the quad and into my dorm building, my lungs burning and my heart threatening to explode.
I don’t stop until I’m in my room. Door locked. Chair shoved under the handle. Mr. Darcy staring at me from his cage like I’ve lost my mind.
“It’s fine,” I gasp, sliding down the door. “Everything’s fine. I just - I got chased by a wolf. A giant wolf. That may or may not be my professor. That’s - that’s normal. That’s a normal Tuesday.”
Mr. Darcy doesn’t look convinced.
I pull my knees to my chest and try to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. I’m safe. I’m in my dorm. The door is locked and I’m three stories up and there’s no way anything could-
Tap tap tap.
I freeze.
Tap tap tap.
The sound is coming from my window.
My window that’s three stories above the ground.
I turn my head, slow and terrified, and there, crouched on the narrow ledge outside my window, illuminated by moonlight-
Is Professor Draven.
His face is streaked with white residue from the fire extinguisher. His clothes are torn. His eyes are gold and burning, nothing human left in them.
And he’s watching me the way starving people watch food.
Tap tap tap.
“Lynn,” he says, his voice muffled through the glass. “Please. Let me explain.”