Chapter 2

I was on edge the entire time I walked across campus because of course, my night class was in the furthest building away from my dorm. I held my pepper spray down by my side in a death grip and my dorm keys in the other, with a key slotted between my knuckles.

My paranoia was in overdrive after that strange encounter and my even weirder reaction to him. Because of that, I kept having this insistent and unsettling feeling of being watched. The back of my neck prickled as a tingling chill raced down my spine. I wanted to chalk it up to the chill that was in the air now that the sun was gone, but I couldn’t. My head was on a near-constant swivel as I kept glancing around.

Others were walking along the sidewalks, laughing as they chatted, not at all bothered by the night since they had the safety of being in a group. On any other night, I would’ve been just like them, but for some reason, not tonight. I watched every shadow as if they held something sinister, even though logically, I knew they would be empty.

A sharp breeze rustled the leaves in the nearby trees and had my strawberry blonde hair blowing in my face. I should’ve brought a jacket, but I hadn’t been thinking ahead. Up ahead of me, a lamp flickered, only increasing my paranoia and making my steps pick up as my flight instincts went wild.

As I took a bend around a building, I barreled into someone’s hard chest and would’ve fallen on my ass if they hadn’t reached out and caught me. “Whoa there, are you alright?” His low and deep voice was filled with a hint of worry and had my gaze snapping up to his.

Surprised flooded my body as I met a pair of deep blue eyes that I knew all too well. The same ones that always reminded me of the depths of the ocean. It was fitting since his eyes were as fathomless as the ocean. Cassius’ gaze scanned my face, still holding onto my upper arms even though I was no longer at risk of falling over. He was a whole head taller than me, and I had to crane my head back to look up at him.

This was the closest I’d been to him in the past nine years. With the small distance between us, I was easily able to notice the changes he’d gone through over the years. He’d lost all the softness of youth, his face chiseled and rugged, with a square jaw that was dusted with dark stubble and high cheekbones. Full lips offset all of the sharp angles of his face, which were now pressed together as he observed me. His bronze skin held a healthy glow, presumably from spending a lot of time outside.

“Rhea? What are you doing walking alone at night?” His words snapped me out of my shock, and I took a step back. He let his hands slide from my arms as he too, took a step back and crossed his arms. How the hell was he not cold in that tank top that showed off his muscular arms? He didn’t even seem bothered by the sharp breeze that had my muscles tensing.

Rolling my eyes at his tone, I went to walk around him without answering. Bratty? Yes, but I didn’t give a shit.

As I passed him, he grabbed my arm, spinning me around to face him. “Nice try,” he murmured, his lips tipping into a smirk.

I briefly considered acting like a brat and telling him it was none of his business, but he was a stubborn bastard when we were children, and I doubted he changed over the years. If anything, it seemed like it had gotten worse.

“I had class.”

“His eyes widened a fraction as his grip on my arm eased. “You’re taking a night class?”

“Yep,” I said with more bite than necessary and yanked my arm out of his grasp.

He took a step closer to me, dipping his head closer so he could maintain eye contact. “You need to be careful and never walk alone at night.” There wasn’t an ounce of humor to be found in his expression as he held my gaze captive.

I took another step back from him, tearing my gaze away from his and trying to control my racing pulse—only this time, it wasn’t from fear. “You almost sound like you care.” My voice was slightly breathless and somewhat marred my dig.

I didn’t wait for his reaction, spinning on my heel and walking away from him.

“I mean it. You need to be wary of the night,” he called after me as I headed back to my dorm.

The unreasonable paranoia didn’t ease until I stepped into my room and locked the door behind me. Letting out a long breath, I leaned back against the door, closing my eyes as I forced my heart rate to return to normal. The familiar sounds of the TV and my roommates talking soothed and reassured me that I was safe.

It was almost like my room was my safe haven, because the insistent feeling that kept telling me I wasn’t safe was nowhere to be found. I no longer felt unseen eyes watching me. I felt like I could finally breathe.

This was fucking ridiculous, was I seriously about to let one interaction with an asshole and Cassius’ stupid cryptic warning get to me? While I didn’t make it a habit of walking around alone at night, I never feared it as I had tonight. Whatever had come over me, I needed to get over it, and soon. I’d have to do that walk three times a week—every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The walk was only about ten minutes, if even, and not far enough for me to justify driving and dealing with parking. None of my friends were in the class or taking any night classes, so I would just have to learn to get over myself.

After giving myself a minute to calm down, I pushed off the door and walked further into the room. Sel was on the sofa—that was barely big enough for two—in the small sitting area. A fabric chair sat beside the sofa so we could all enjoy watching TV together. Two of our three desks were crammed over here—mine was under my lofted bed. Sel and Addie’s beds were turned into bunk beds.

Sel was watching some random reality show as she assembled her new coffee machine. The unopened instructions were on the floor since she always insisted they were “guidelines” and completely useless.

Addie was sitting on her bed, hanging up posters. We’d gotten basic decor out of the way when we moved into the dorm the other day, but we were all too exhausted to hang pictures and put up personal touches. I guess Addie was tired of not having her band posters above her bed. The girl was a huge fan of metal, rock, and alternative music; her clothes and makeup showcased that. Her natural blonde hair was always dyed an unusual color—at the moment it was a dark purple—and her icy blue eyes were sharply contrasted by her smokey eye makeup.

Like any group of friends, none of us ever matched in the clothing department. Whenever we went out, we all looked like we were going to three different places. Sel liked to dress up, always wearing some sort of heel to compensate for being short, and loved wearing dresses, even when it was cold.

I wasn’t a slouch, but I preferred my clothes to be comfortable, cute but comfortable. I didn’t want to have to keep adjusting my clothes throughout the day. Nor did I want to worry about accidentally flashing someone if a strong gust of wind blew by.

Based on appearances, you’d think we wouldn’t work as a friend group, but you’d be dead wrong.

“How was class?” Addie asked as she pressed on the corners of her poster. “Is this straight?”

“Nope.” Sel didn’t bother looking up from the coffee maker, but she was still right.

“The left corner is too high,” I said as I dropped my bag on my desk with a sigh. “And class was…it was fine.

Sel set her coffee maker on the ground, turning her full focus on me. Her whisky-colored eyes scanned my face, and whatever she saw had her pressing her lips together. I didn’t think my face showed my previous paranoia, but I couldn’t be too sure. I’d never been one to hide my expression. It was something I’d inherited from my mom, or so I was told.

“What’s wrong?”

As I headed to the sitting area, I paused at the mini fridge and grabbed a bottle of water. “I had a weird interaction in class.”

Sel grabbed the remote, turning down the volume on the TV so it was background noise as I sat beside her on the sofa. Addie climbed down from her bed and moved the fabric chair so it sat in front of us.

I tucked my feet as I adjusted my ponytail. “Okay, so we were doing that stupid classmate bingo game, and I accidentally bumped into this guy. And he was looking at me like I’d done it on purpose or something. He didn’t say a single word. He signed my paper and stormed out of class early. I don’t know, it was just weird. The guy gave me a bad vibe.”

“Wait, did he leave because you bumped into him, or was he already on his way out?”

“More importantly, is he hot?” When Addie and I both stared at Sel, she shrugged, unashamed by her question.

“Is that all you think about?” Addie asked, her tone incredulous as she shook her head.

Sel ignored Addie, turning her focus to me. “Well?”

I let out a frustrated sigh as I tipped my head back. “Like many assholes, he’s good-looking.”

“Details,” Addie prompted with a wave of her hand, showing she wasn’t above drooling over guys.

Resting my head on the back of the sofa, I thought back to my interaction with him and pictured his face. “He’s pale, like seriously pale. He puts me to shame. His hair is blonde and is fairly short. Um…he’s tall, maybe 6’1”, and is lean—not scrawny.”

“Ew, blondes.” Addie’s nose wrinkled as she made a face.

“You’re blonde,” I pointed out, fighting my smile when she rolled her eyes.

“But he’s only part of my weird encounters tonight,” I added, bringing the conversation back on topic.

Sel made an impatient hand gesture as she perked up, as did Addie. Chuckling at their enthusiasm, I yanked out my scrunchie and fluffed out my red hair. “I ran into Cassius—literally—and he was all like, don’t walk by yourself at night.”

Addie frowned as she scratched her arm. “I didn’t realize you guys were talking.”

“We’re not.”

“You need to walk us through the conversation word for word,” Sel said, hugging a pillow to her chest.

After warning them there wasn’t too much to tell, I gave them a play-by-play of our brief conversation, giving them a detailed description of how he grabbed my arm—at Sel’s request. She was squealing by the end and practically bouncing on the cushion beside me. Addie was more reserved in her reaction and ended up agreeing with Cassius that I should be careful walking home from class.

The conversation eventually drifted away from Cassius and the mystery man and switched to more mundane things. After a quick shower and my nighttime routine, I climbed into bed, where I tossed and turned for over an hour until I fell into a fitful sleep filled with strange nightmares. Strangely enough, all of them centered around the guy from my class.