Page 40 of Top Shelf

And before I can tell him he’s wasting his breath, he’s gone.

The door clicks shut behind him, leaving the air too still, too heavy.

Only when my chest starts to burn, do I realize I’m holding my breath. My pulse beats in my throat, too loud in the empty room. Dragging a hand through my hair, I exhale shakily.

I hate this feeling.

The tightness in my chest.

The way my body reacts before my brain can catch up.

He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t say anything wrong.

But the memory of a hand on my wrist, of shadows and breath and no escape, coils like barbed wire through my chest all the same.

It takes me longer than it should to finish up my tasks andget home, and when I do, I’m inexplicably exhausted. I miss the Steelhawks. I miss Dylan. I miss the little bit of comfort I had carved out for myself at BSU. Everything here is foreign. New. Scary. I have no one I can trust. No one I can turn to, and I hadn’t realized how much comfort I’d found in Dylan’s presence. I might have only known her for a year, but in that time, she helped heal a part of me. She helped me learn to trust again. She made me feel bolder. More confident.

Now, I once again feel like a scared mouse jumping at shadows.

And I hate it.

I’m sick of being this person.

Of letting my trauma define me.

Of letting one night define everything that is still to come.

I’ve just finished double-checking that all the windows and doors are locked when my phone pings from my bedside table.

The sound cuts through the quiet, sharp and unexpected.

Dylan’s usually the only one who texts this late, but she?—

The thought dies the second I see the number.

Unknown.

The message preview glows on the screen:

Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about our project, little librarian. You and I have unfinished business.

My throat goes dry.

For a second, I stare at the words, my mind trying—and failing—to make sense of them.

Then I see it. The signature below the text, tacked on like an afterthought.

—L.C.

The air leaves my lungs all at once.

Lucian Caulfield.

I drop the phone onto the bed like it’s something that could burn me.

The room feels smaller now. Tighter.

Every window I locked, every door I checked… Suddenly, none of it feels like enough.