Monday morning arrived cold and sharp, the kind of weather that bites through your layers no matter how much you've braced yourself for it.
I walked to school alone.
Tessa had a dentist appointment and was dragging in late, which left me with nothing but my headphones and a head full of jagged thoughts. I kept my eyes on the pavement and my pace fast, repeatedly promising myself that I wasn't going to do anything impulsive.
Then I hit the main courtyard and saw Zane.
He was sitting alone on a stone bench near the entrance, a dark silhouette against the bright morning. I didn't even finish deciding to talk to him before my feet were already moving across the concrete.
He watched me approach. He didn't look surprised or annoyed, he didn't look like anything. He just tracked me with those measured, obsidian eyes that seemed to be deconstructing the world even when he was perfectly still.
"I talked to Tessa," I said. I didn't sit. I stood directly in his line of sight, forcing him to look up. "About you and Bianca. About last year."
He held my gaze, unblinking. "Okay."
"Is it true? That girl who left school because of her?"
"Yes."
No hesitation. No "it's complicated." Just the flat, ugly truth. I felt the weight of Ace's warning... he always tells the truth and it sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the wind.
"And you knew," I said, my voice tightening. "You knew she'd pull that same shit on me the second she invited me to that party."
"I suspected."
"That's why you warned me."
He looked at me for a beat, his expression unreadable. "Yea, partly."
"What's the other part?"
He didn't answer immediately. He looked away, not like he was hiding, but like he was weighing his words on a mental scale, deciding if I was ready for the heavy ones.
When he looked back, his voice was level, almost clinical.
"She does this to anyone she perceives as a threat. She's been doing it since Year Ten. I ended it because while she isn't a 'bad' person, she's a destructive one. I don't stay in situations that cost more than they give."
He sounded like he'd made peace with that particular wreckage a long time ago. "When she went after the others, I felt responsible. I wasn't — what she does is her own choice but I felt it anyway. I wanted to give you the chance to not walk into the fire."
"I walked in anyway."
"That's right."
"And you watched me handle it."
A pause. "Yes."
"Did I handle it right?"
He looked at me for a long, heavy moment. "You handled it the way someone handles it when they aren't afraid of the fallout. That's not always 'right.' But it was honest."
I sat down on the bench. Not right next to him though... I kept a respectful, cautious gap between us, a neutral zone for a conversation that was still finding its footing.
"What's her next move?" I asked.
"She'll dig. She'll look for something real, or something she can twist until it looks real. Bianca is patient; she'll wait for the perfect moment to strike." He shifted slightly, his gaze sharpening. "How's your scholarship structured?"
The question hit me like a physical blow. "Why?"
"Because it's the biggest target you have. Academic scholarships usually have conduct clauses. 'Representation of the school' and all that bullshit."
The cold intensified. I'd heard it from Tessa, but hearing it from the guy who knew Bianca's DNA better than anyone made it feel like a death sentence.
"There's nothing to find," I snapped, though my heart was starting to race. "I don't get in trouble. I show up, I do the work, I keep my head down."
"You didn't keep your head down Saturday night."
"She came at me first!"
"I know that. You know that. But Bianca will tell the version where the scholarship girl started a scene in a private home. By the time you get to tell your side, the faculty will have already formed an opinion."
I let that sink in. It was infuriating, unfair, and completely plausible. "So what do I do? Just wait to be hit?"
"No. You watch. You keep doing exactly what you've been doing; school, work, zero friction. And you don't react when she pokes you. Because she will poke you, Mila, and she'll do it where everyone can see."
"That's a lot of waiting," I muttered. "I'm not exactly built for it."
A ghost of a movement caught the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a full smile, but it was close; a private acknowledgement. "I noticed."
The first bell shrieked through the courtyard. Around us, the stagnant morning exploded into movement as students streamed toward the doors. We both stood up.
"Zane."
He stopped, his hand on the strap of his bag.
"Why did she invite me? Specifically. Out of every new face at Crestwood, why me?"
He looked at me, and for a second, the distance between us felt shorter than it actually was.
"Because I sat next to you in History," he said. "And because when she looked at you, she saw something she didn't recognize."
"What's that?"
"Someone who wasn't going to be impressed by her."
He didn't wait for a reply. He just turned and walked into the building, leaving me standing in the wake of his gravity.
"Was that a whole conversation?"
Ace appeared at my left shoulder like he'd been manifested out of the fog. His eyes were wide, his grin suggestive. "Zane Calloway does not do 'whole conversations.' Especially not before nine AM on a Monday."
"I've been told I'm hard to ignore," I said, stepping past him and heading for the doors.
Behind me, Ace let out a laugh; full, real, and completely unguarded. "No kidding!"
I kept walking, focusing on the rhythm of my own feet. I told myself not to smile. I told myself to stay sharp, to stay invisible, to stay safe.
I almost managed it.