Page 50 of Shadowface

The girls are usually too stunned to say anything, and I’m quite nice about it. It’s amazing how willing most of them are and how quickly they drop to their knees.

I still don’t change their grade, and they don’t say anything because it could get them kicked out of the program.

I consider doing this with Misty, but change my mind. Not with Summer here, and Summer is the only one I want.

I’m not a normal TA, and the only reason I haven’t obtained my PhD yet is because Dr. Garcia thought it would be strange for me to get it so quickly, given how young everyone thinks I am. So I waited for the appropriate age by society’s standards.

Dr. Garcia has determined I am ageless. My mind knows no bounds, and its only societal constructs that hold me back. I also have the body of a twenty-five-year-old, which means my physical needs are relentless.

Once Misty finally leaves, the late afternoon sun casts a warm glow across my office. I sink into the comfort of my oversized chair, a warm sigh escapes my lips, and I turn to gaze at the grand oak door, anticipating my blonde beauty to walk through.

A twinge of disappointment hits me when the clock on my wall hits five-thirty PM. I was sure she’d visit after failing her. She was only one of a few to receive an F in the class.

I planned for her visit, prepared to talk to her, and I’m pretty sure she knows it’s me stalking, even though I’ve been avoiding her.

I lean back in my chair, and swivel to look out the window instead of staring down at the sprawling campus below. The sandstone buildings, the old architecture, and the canopy trees hint at shades of red and yellow, indicating the early signs of fall. The shrill of the early evening sun when things are the most peaceful and the sun is blinding in the sky.

Home…

This university made me what I am. I am a construct of what was created here, an outcome of the evil things people do for greed. All because of some silly parchment found in the university archives.

283 years ago, a historian decoded an ancient text. He wrote it down with a quill pen on parchment and sealed it with wax. Based on his loose and deranged interpretation of old Latin, and following the steps, he created the Order of the Shadows, proclaiming that following these steps will lead to enlightenment. He was the first of many people in town who ended up going insane, and who killed innocent people because the words in this book told them to.

The Order of the Shadows has been going strong ever since, nearly two hundred and eighty years of terror—and a new terrifying future I plan to forge into the dark past.

After a few minutes, I sigh and rise from my chair, pulling my wool coat off the hanger near my desk. A sweet voice pulls me from my thoughts.

“Um, Lincoln?”

I allow only a twinge of a smile before I place on my mask of indifference and turn around to face her. She looks just as gorgeous as she always does, her hair a brilliant natural white. The air sparkles around her as she takes a tentative step into the sunlight and shuts the door behind her.

It looks like she’s been crying, her eyes are glistening and puffy.

A small twinge of…something hits me. Pity, maybe?

I shove the emotion down so hard.

Get out of my head, especially while I’m at work.

“She’s crying.”

I can see that. I’ll handle it.

He settles back into onyx liquid, but his essence remains, and I put the walls up in my head—the same walls that used to work to keep him at bay. He never used to be this chatty.

I was formed during Mikael’s early years to help him disassociate from what he witnessed in his early childhood, but I lingered beneath the surface for years as a fragment. That changed the day he saw Summer for the first time. That’s the day the fragment that is me formed into the alter I am today.

She is smart. She must be piecing together her father’s time here. I wonder if she’s starting to suspect that her father was the most notorious serial killer of this century.

I offer a small smile and hold out my hand. “Hi, Summer, I was wondering when you’d come to see me.”

She quirks her head, then frowns, but keeps her eyes glued on me, studying me. Wanting to call me out, but still not sure.

She frowns and places her hand in mine. “How do you know my name?”

I arch my brow and sit across from her on my plush chair, pushing my glasses up my face, crossing my arms. “You’re the only one I failed who hasn’t come to see me.”

She chews on her bottom lip as I maintain eye contact. She blinks a couple of times before her cheeks flush.