Page 6 of Mayhem

There were a few odd stares as I made my way to the library, already working through Nichlas’ schedule. I had memorized the map of this place and the exact time that fucker would appear. Now, I just had to hope I was right.

echo

The library sat past the main hall, tucked between two older stone buildings and a courtyard full of students pretending they weren’t watching everyone else. I headed that way with the campus packet still tucked under one arm and my bag still cutting into my shoulder. Graduate housing could wait. Orientation could wait. Whatever cheerful first-day nonsense Aldrich had planned could absolutely die alone in a corner.

Nichlas’ class was supposed to let out soon, unless he’d changed the schedule, changed the entrance, changed his entire face, or finally developed survival instincts. I didn’t give him that much credit. He’d always been good at hiding behind people smarter than him, but on his own, Nicky boy was just a nervous little rat with pretty handwriting and a talent for betrayal.

I spotted him near the library steps before I reached the path.

For half a second, my body didn’t do anything useful. My feet kept moving, my fingers tightened around the campus packet, and my brain emptied down to one bright, vicious point.

Him. Blond hair tied back. Glasses. Uniform neat. Bag slung over one shoulder like he’d earned a normal day. Like he got to walk across this campus with coffee in one hand and friends around him while the scar down my side still remembered the shape of what he’d done.

I slowed beside a stone planter and looked past him. There were plenty of those around. Heavy planters. Metal signposts. A maintenance cart near the side entrance with pruning shears clipped to the rail. The library doors were glass, thick enough to reflect movement but not thick enough to stop someone’s head if I got a running start and enough motivation.

My hand drifted toward my thigh. I caught myself before I dug in too hard and pressed the campus packet against my ribs instead. He laughed at something one of the guys beside him said, and the sound hit worse than seeing him had. I wanted to take his tongue first. No, fingers. Fingers were better. He had used those to hold my ledger, to turn pages, to pretend he was helping me build something that belonged to us while he figured out exactly what pieces someone else would pay for.

Our last campus, I had been the queen, the one in charge of favors dealt to people who would pay anything for their problems to go away. And I was fucking good at it before Nichlas stole that book and pointed the finger at me.

He shifted his weight, looking relaxed in a way that made my vision sharpen around the edges. I pictured my hand in his hair, yanking his head back until his throat stretched. I pictured the first cut along his flesh shallow enough to scare him, then deeper when he started crying. I pictured him trying to explain, trying to bargain, trying to say my name like he had any right to put it in his mouth. I’d let him talk for a minute. Maybe two, if he was funny about it. Then I’d break his nose, take his glasses, and make him crawl around blind until he understood what helpless actually felt like.

One of his friends touched his shoulder, and Nichlas leaned closer to listen. That almost did it.

My teeth locked together so hard my jaw hurt. I could cross the courtyard in under ten seconds. The students between us were soft-looking, distracted, breakable in an inconvenient but manageable way. The maintenance cart was closer than the signpost. The shears would be a sloppy option, but workable. Father Two would judge the angle, Father Three would judge the witnesses, Father One would feed me afterward, and Father Four would probably ask if I had enjoyed myself.

No bodies today.

I hated that sentence. I hated every responsible syllable of it.

Nichlas turned slightly, and the morning sun caught his face. He looked older than the version of him I carried around in my head, but it was still him. Still breathing. Still wearing the life someone had bought him. My thumb pressed into the edge of the packet until the folder bent, and all I could think was that the first scream out of him had better be good. After a year, I’d earned quality.

“Hey!” someone called behind me.

The voice snapped me out of a very reasonable mental image involving pruning shears and Nichlas losing the ability to point at anything ever again.

I turned with the campus packet still bent under my thumb and found three people looking at me like they’d been deciding whether I was lost, dangerous, or entertaining enough to keep. All three wore the Aldrich uniform better than I did. The guy in the middle was broad-shouldered in the soft, expensive way, with gorgeous curls, and a watch that probably cost more than my motorcycle.

The girl beside him had glossy black hair, a perfect line of red lipstick, and a cardigan draped over her shoulders like she’d been born near a country club and had never apologized for it. The third was smaller, pale, and mild-looking, with round glasses, honey-blond hair, and the kind of smile that made people underestimate her right before she stole their seat in a seminar.

The smiling one lifted a hand. “You’re new.”

I looked down at the campus packet, then at my loose bowtie, then back at her. “Damn. I was going for mysterious local cryptid.”

The guy laughed first. The lipstick girl only looked me over, starting at my boots and ending at the colored streaks in my hair, her expression caught somewhere between intrigued and judgmental. The smiling one stepped closer before the silence got weird. “I’m Priya Shah. Criminal studies. That’s Devon Reyes, also criminal studies, and Maren Bell, behavioral sciences.”

“Echo,” I said, because giving a last name felt like a gift and I didn’t know them well enough to be generous.

Maren’s gaze flicked toward the library steps, where Nichlas was still standing with his little circle of borrowed safety. “Echo,” she repeated, like she was filing it somewhere. “That’s memorable.”

“So is the hair,” Devon said, still smiling. “And the leather. And the boots. And the general feeling that you might bite someone if they ask where you’re from.”

“I only bite when people are rude.”

The lipstick girl, Priya, hummed. “Then you’re going to be exhausted here.”

I liked her a little for that, which was annoying since she also looked like the kind of person who’d tell me my bowtie was crooked without offering to fix it. Behind them, Nichlas started moving with his friends, heading down the path that curved around the library. I tracked the shift without turning my head all the way, catching the direction, the pace, the fact that he stayed in the middle of the group like a man who’d learned to love barriers with pulses.

Maren seemed to notice but didn’t say anything, redirecting the conversation. “You need graduate housing?” she asked, pointing at the packet under my arm. “Orientation sends everyone the long way around, but there’s a faster path through the west court. The signs are technically correct, which is Aldrich’s favorite way to be unhelpful.”