Chapter 96 – William MacLeod
The classroom was still wrapped in that strange silence that had settled after the new teacher's entrance.
It wasn't an empty silence. It was the kind that weighs, that seeps into your ears and makes you shift in your seat without really knowing why.
William MacLeod remained standing in front of the desk, observing the class with that calm that didn't seem like calm at all, but rather control. Like a general reviewing his troops before battle.
His blue eyes swept across the classroom once more.
He wasn't in a hurry.
He looked as if each face were a page he was reading. As if behind every pair of eyes there was a secret he already knew but wanted to confirm.
"Good," he finally said, his deep voice filling the space effortlessly. "Where were you in the syllabus with your teacher?"
The question fell into the classroom like a stone into still water.
There was a small stir. Heads turning. Glances crossing.
A student raised his hand from the third row.
"Roman history, professor."
MacLeod nodded once. A sharp, precise movement.
"Perfect."
He picked up the book that was on the desk, opened it calmly, and flipped through a couple of pages. The sound of paper turning was the only thing heard for a few seconds.
"Then we'll continue from there."
He closed the book. Set it down on the table with a dry thud.
And he began to speak.
But while the teacher's voice filled the classroom with stories of legions and conquests, almost no one from the group known as the Unwanted was really listening.
Titus kept staring at his notebook without seeing it.
The teacher's words passed through his mind like wind, like water, like nothing.
Diana.
His head was still trapped in her.
In the way her face had changed when he kissed her. The instant just before the impact. The way her eyes went from surprise to horror. To fury.
In the rage in her voice. Sharp. Final.
In the two slaps that still seemed to burn on his cheeks, even though he knew it was impossible, that no mark could remain, that it had all happened hours ago.
He closed his eyes for a second.
How am I going to look at her when she comes back?
The thought fell on him like a stone slab.
If she comes back.
That second possibility lodged deeper than the first.
---
Cristal watched him out of the corner of her eye.
She had noticed something.
Not just Titus's silence. That was obvious to anyone who knew him even a little.
It was the distance.
Something in him was far away. Too far away.
As if a part of him had decided to live somewhere else and had only left his body here, in this desk, in this class, in this moment.
And she didn't like that.
Not at all.
Her fingers slowly closed around the edge of the desk. The wood gave slightly under the pressure, a minimal creak that no one else could hear.
I can't let this keep happening.
Not now.
Not when the others are already moving their pieces.
Melanie.
Sofía.
Even Laura.
They all seemed to be moving in directions Cristal couldn't quite understand. As if they had seen a map she couldn't see.
And meanwhile, Titus kept drifting away.
Like a ship loosening from the dock slowly, without noise, but with no chance of return.
No.
She lowered her gaze to her notebook, but her mind was already working.
I need to talk to Bruno.
I need his help.
I need time.
Time to regain ground. Time to remind Titus who was really by his side.
Because in this game…
standing still meant losing.
And Cristal was not willing to lose.
Not Titus.
Not her place.
---
Elsewhere in the room, Bruno sat a few rows back.
But his mind was far from the class.
His eyes were fixed on Walter.
Walter had become, without Bruno wanting to admit it yet, the center of his attention. Like a magnet. Like a gravity he couldn't explain but also couldn't ignore.
Every gesture Walter made seemed important. The way he rested his head on his hand. The way his fingers held the pencil. The deep breath he sometimes let out, as if he carried too much weight inside his chest.
Every silence seemed to say something Bruno still didn't know how to interpret.
Titus, for the first time in a long while, had faded into the background of his mind.
And that, somehow, also unsettled him.
---
Walter, on the other hand, was focused on something else.
On Melanie.
He watched her with that resentment that tightened his jaw, that made him clench his teeth until it hurt.
He still couldn't understand how Titus had ended up befriending her.
Or how Melanie had ended up being accepted into the group of the so‑called Unwanted.
For Walter, it remained incomprehensible.
A small betrayal lodged in his chest, like a splinter he couldn't remove.
Every time he saw her breathe in the same direction as Titus, something twisted inside him.
And he didn't know if it was hatred.
Or jealousy.
Or both.
---
Meanwhile, the teacher kept talking.
He explained how the Romans advanced with strategy, how the legions moved as a single unit, how discipline was what turned a group of men into a force capable of conquering half the world.
His words floated in the air, dense, charged with something that wasn't just history.
But there was someone in the room who wasn't listening to any of it.
Damián.
He was leaning back slightly in his chair, one arm resting on the desk.
His gaze was fixed on the teacher.
Not obviously. He had learned from a young age that staring too much could reveal too much. That predators could also feel when someone was staring at them.
But still, his eyes kept returning to the front of the room.
That man.
That red hair. That coppery shade that captured the light and returned it in warm flashes.
That beard. Thick. Well‑kept. Ancient.
That accent.
Because now that he listened more carefully, it was obvious.
Scottish.
The words had that particular rhythm, that rough way of dragging certain consonants. As if every syllable had to earn its place before being spoken.
The kind of accent Damián had heard many times in his father's clan meetings. In closed‑door conversations. In oaths of loyalty and threats of death.
His mind began to turn.
Scotland.
Clans.
Warriors.
Something about the way that man moved…
reminded him of someone.
He didn't know who.
But the memory was there.
Hidden.
Like a word on the tip of your tongue that refuses to come out.
Damián frowned slightly.
It's not just the accent.
It's the posture.
The way he walks.
The way he observes the class.
That wasn't the gaze of a teacher.
It was the gaze of someone evaluating.
Measuring.
Calculating.
Like a hunter studying the terrain before moving.
---
Professor MacLeod walked slowly between the rows of desks as he spoke.
His hands remained behind his back.
His steps were calm. Measured. Precise.
But there was something in the way he moved that made the air feel heavier around him. As if each step displaced more than it should.
When he passed near the row where Damián was sitting, the young man felt something strange.
A light pressure in his chest.
An ancient instinct.
A warning.
This man…
Damián didn't look up.
But he felt it.
Something about that man…
wasn't right.
His mind kept turning.
Trying to remember.
Trying to find the exact place in his memory where he had seen something like this before.
The way of walking.
The economy of gestures.
The way he held his gaze a second longer than necessary.
Where?
When?
But the more he thought about it…
the more uncomfortable the feeling became.
Like a puzzle piece about to click into place.
And when it clicked…
something was going to go very wrong.
---
Damián looked back toward the front.
The teacher kept talking about ancient battles, fallen empires, about how even the greatest civilizations could disappear if they stopped understanding the game of power.
But Damián no longer heard the words.
He only heard his instinct.
And his instinct kept repeating the same thing.
That man…
isn't here by chance.
There was no evidence.
No logic.
Just a gut feeling.
But in the world Damián had grown up in, gut feelings were often the only warning you got before everything changed.
Before the ground disappeared beneath your feet.
Before the ones you loved ceased to exist.
The feeling stayed with him.
Silent.
Persistent.
Like the first cold wind that announces a storm.
---
Hook: And that silence hid a danger that would soon come to light…