I scramble to my feet so fast my vision spots at the edges.
My knees ache from the cold concrete, my cheeks burn with humiliation I can taste on my tongue, and this stranger stands there watching me with an expression I can't begin to decode. Tall. Broad. Mid-thirties with dark hair and darker eyes that hold absolutely nothing I can read.
"Who are you?" My voice comes out sharper than I intend, brittle and defensive, the voice of a girl who's been caught at her lowest and hates every second of it.
He regards me with his arms crossed over his chest, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world and I'm barely worth the seconds he's spending. Something about his face tugs at a memory I can't quite reach. The shape of his jaw or the way he holds himself, I don't know, but I've seen him before.
"I know you." I take a step toward him, my hands curling into fists at my sides. "I've seen you somewhere. Who the hell are you and why are you here?"
He doesn't answer. He studies me for a long moment, something flickering in those dark eyes that might be recognition or might be pity, and then he turns to walk away.
"You'll see," he says over his shoulder.
"Hey—wait—"
But he's already gone, disappearing around the corner before I can demand more. The hallway stretches empty in both directions, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, and I'm standing here with my heart still racing and absolutely no answers.
I push through the side exit and step onto the campus grounds, the evening air cool against my flushed skin. Students pass by in groups, laughing at something on someone's phone, complaining about professors, living the kind of normal lives I can barely remember having. I walk without direction, my feet carrying me down the familiar path toward the old oak tree near the library.
The stranger's face keeps flickering through my mind. That maddening sense of familiarity I can't place. Something about the way he looked at me—intense, knowing, like he could see straight through me.
The only other man who ever looked at me like that was my father. And I haven't seen him in years since I enrolled college.
Kian Morris is the man I wish I hadn’t known. The brilliant CEO whose company graces magazine covers and business journals. The man who could find time for board meetings and investor calls and charity galas but could never seem to find thirty minutes for his own daughter.
I remember being eight years old, dressed in my best clothes, pressing my nose against the window for hours because he promised to take me to the zoo. I picked out my favorite dress, the yellow one with sunflowers, because I wanted to look pretty for him. He never came. His assistant would call me with apologies and a stuffed elephant arrived the next day, as if toys could fill the space where a father should have been.
I remember being fourteen, crying into my phone, begging him to come to my school play. I had the lead role. I'd practiced for months. He said he had a board meeting that couldn't be moved, and I listened to the dial tone for a full minute before I realized he'd already hung up.
I remember being seventeen, finally screaming at him that I was done. That I didn't want his money or his gifts or his empty promises. That I wanted him, just him, just once, and watching his face go blank. He looked at me the way you look at a problem you don't know how to solve.
I stopped calling after that. He never noticed.
I sink onto the bench beneath the oak tree, staring at nothing, trying to make sense of what just happened. The video. Nate's threats. The stranger who appeared from nowhere and vanished just as fast. My brain keeps spinning in circles, refusing to land on anything solid.
"Lyra?"
Angel's voice cuts through the fog. My best friend stands a few feet away, backpack slung over one shoulder, concern already creasing her forehead. Her dark curls are piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she's wearing the oversized hoodie she always steals from her brother. The one that smells like laundry detergent and safety.
"I've been looking everywhere for you." She crosses the distance between us and drops onto the bench beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. "You missed our afternoon class. Professor Hayes asked about you. What happened?"
She waits. She's always been good at waiting.
My throat tightens. I meant to tell her this morning, before everything spiraled, but there was no time between rushing to practice and dodging Nate's texts. Now the words feel like rocks I have to push up my throat one by one.
"Remember that night?" I finally managed. "The night I slept with Nate?"
Angel nods slowly, her expression careful. "You said it was perfect. Candles and everything."
I laugh, and there's no humor in it. "I thought it was. I thought he loved me."
The memory rises up, sharp and cruel. Lying in his bed afterward, my whole body still trembling, feeling like everything in my life had shifted into place. I turned to him with my heart in my throat and told him I loved him. That giving him my first time meant everything to me.
"He laughed at me, Angel."
Her face goes still. "What?"
"He laughed. Said virgins are boring and rigid. Desperate women living in a fairytale, thinking that waiting for a trustworthy guy is somehow valid." My voice cracks on the last word. "And I just laid there. Confused. Vulnerable. Already broken and not even understanding why."
"That piece of—"
"And the next morning it got worse." I cut her off because if I stop talking now, I'll never get it out. "He started telling me how I should dress sexier. How I owed him for being so patient with my inexperience. How lucky I was that someone like him chose someone like me."
My hands shake in my lap. Angel grabs one and squeezes tight, her fingers warm against my cold skin.
"That's when everything changed. The flowers stopped. The sweet texts stopped. The control started." I swallow hard. "And now..."
I can't finish. The words lodge in my chest, too heavy to lift.
"What happened today at practice, Lyra?" Angel's voice is gentle but insistent. "You're scaring me."
Before I open my mouth to answer, to finally tell her about the video, about what Nate tried to make me do, about the stranger who saved me—
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I pull it out with trembling fingers. Unknown number. Two words glowing on the screen.
Stay safe.
My head snaps up. I scan the darkening campus, searching for a figure in the shadows, a face watching from behind a tree, anything. But there's no one. Just students wandering toward their dorms, just the evening breeze rustling through the oak leaves, just the streetlights flickering to life one by one.
Just the feeling, cold and certain, that my carefully constructed walls are already beginning to crumble.
And someone out there is watching them fall.