Chloe moved faster when she was thinking too much.
The corridor stretched long and empty in that dead-hour way the school only had after midnight, lights dimmed to a low, automatic hum that made everything look slightly unreal, like the building had stepped out of its own day. Her footsteps sounded louder than they should have. She kept them quick anyway.
I should've just kept my mouth shut.
The thought had been looping for the past.. what? 5 minutes? 20 minutes? She didn't check. Checking would mean admitting how long she'd been stuck on it.
Aiva's not coming tonight.
That part kept landing wrong. Not just not coming. Not can't make it. Not busy. Something heavier than that, sitting behind the words like a second meaning she didn't want to unfold all the way.
Because of me.
She exhaled through her nose, sharp, irritated.
Great. Cool. Amazing. Well done, Chloe.
She turned the corner and the gym doors came into view. The small window set into one of them glowed, bright compared to the hallway's low light.
She slowed without meaning to.
Why is the gym light on.
Midnight pressed against the glass from the outside. The brightness inside felt wrong, like a stage left on after the audience had gone home.
Who's at the gym at midnight.
She angled slightly, enough that she could've looked through if she leaned just a little more.
She didn't.
Her shoulders tightened, then loosened as she straightened back out.
Not my problem.
She kept walking.
The library door gave with a quiet click when she pushed it open. The air inside hit her immediately, paper, dust, that dry, settled smell of books that had been sitting still longer than anyone who read them. The silence here was different from the corridor. Thicker. Like it had weight.
She stepped in, closed the door behind her, and didn't pause.
Left wall. Third shelf from the back.
Her hand lifted, casual, two fingers flexing in a motion that barely registered as movement.
Three books slid out at once.
Not dramatic. Not even fast. Just… inevitable. Like they had already decided to move and were only catching up to the decision.
They hovered for half a second, long enough for the mechanism to register, then the shelf behind them shifted with a quiet, internal click. A seam appeared where there hadn't been one a moment ago, widening into a narrow door.
Chloe let the books drop back into place. They slid in cleanly, like nothing had happened.
She stepped through.
The staircase spiraled down, tight and familiar. The door closed behind her before she reached the first turn, sealing with a soft, final sound that cut off the last trace of the library above.
Her hand brushed the wall as she descended. Not for balance. Habit.
By the time she reached the bottom, the dark had fully settled in.
No lights.
She stopped on the last step, eyes adjusting.
He's not here today?
Something in her chest loosened. Something else sank a little deeper at the same time.
She didn't look at either of them directly.
She stepped onto the landing.
"Hey."
The voice came out of the dark, low and close enough that her body reacted before her brain did.
Her hand snapped to the side, fingers closing around something that wasn't there a second ago and then was; solid, familiar weight snapping into existence as the staff materialized along her grip. She brought it up in one motion, angled toward the sound, stance already set before she'd fully processed who it might be.
A small flame flickered to life across the room.
Steady on Adam's hand. Just enough light to sketch him into existence.
Chloe's grip tightened for a fraction of a second, then eased.
She lowered the staff slowly. It dissolved from the end inward, vanishing before it would've hit the ground.
"You scared me."
"Sorry." His voice was quiet. "Didn't think you'd come down swinging."
"Then you don't know me that well."
The flame shifted slightly as he adjusted his hand, and the light moved with it.
He was at the far end of the room, sunk into something that looked out of place down here, soft, rounded edges catching the dim orange glow. A bean bag. The grimoire rested open in his left hand, spine cracked like he'd been holding that page for a while.
"I found the spell," he said, lifting the book slightly. "the bean bag thing."
She glanced at it, then back at him.
"Yeah, I can see that."
"Wasn't that hard."
"Mm."
She studied him for a second longer than she meant to.
"You look like shit."
There was a beat. Then, "You could say the same about you."
She considered that.
Didn't argue.
"Make another one."
He blinked. "What?"
"Bean bag. I'm not standing."
"Oh." He shifted the grimoire in his hand, angling it toward the flame. His right hand lifted, fingers forming a loose cup, then opening outward like he was letting something spill from his palm.
He read, voice low but clear. "Saccus mollis, formam cape."
The air in front of him tightened, then popped, a small red bead appearing midair. It dropped, hit the ground...
...and expanded.
Fast. Soft-rushing, like something inhaling. Fabric pushing outward, filling, settling into shape with a quiet whump.
Chloe walked over and dropped into it without ceremony.
It caught her weight and sank.
A breath left her in a long, unplanned exhale.
"…Okay," she muttered.
Silence settled in around them again, broken only by the faint flicker of Adam's flame.
He looked at her.
"What's up?"
She tilted her head back slightly, staring at the ceiling she couldn't fully see.
"You can go first."
"I'm fine."
"Mm."
She didn't move. Didn't push. Just stayed exactly where she was, weight sunk into the bean bag, eyes half-lidded like she might fall asleep if the conversation didn't happen.
The silence stretched.
It wasn't empty. It pressed.
Adam shifted slightly, the fabric under him rustling.
"I'm fine," he said again, quieter this time.
Chloe didn't look at him.
"What actually happened today."
Flat. No emphasis. Just… there.
The flame flickered as his fingers adjusted, like the question had weight.
Another beat.
Then he exhaled.
"They posted the census."
Her eyes flicked toward him.
"My name's on it." He stared at the flame instead of her. "Not surprising. Just... seeing it there. Official."
He swallowed.
"And then the game."
A small, humorless breath left him.
"It was… weird. Like—" he paused, searching. "They kept giving me space. Like I was… I don't know. Contagious."
His shoulders lifted slightly, then dropped.
"Guy I was guarding wouldn't drive. Not once. Just passed it off every time I got close."
Chloe said nothing.
"I dunked," he added after a second. "And someone on their bench—" He stopped. Shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
It did. He just didn't want to say it again.
"And then I tried to study."
That was where his voice shifted. Not louder. Not sharper. Just… thinner. Like something had worn through.
"I can't turn it off," he said. "This... hearing ability."
Chloe's gaze settled on him properly now.
"I was sitting there, trying to read, and I could hear—" He made a small, frustrated motion with his free hand. "Everything. Next room. Hallway. People two rows over."
His grip tightened slightly around the book.
"And whenever someone said my name, it just—" He tapped his temple lightly. "It just locks. Like it grabs it before I even realize."
He huffed a quiet breath.
"Someone in the class next door was asking if there's an animal control number for when a werewolf loses it."
The words landed flat. No emphasis. Just fact.
"Guy two rows ahead of me was talking about what it'd be like to get bitten. Like it's some… experience to try."
Chloe's jaw shifted.
Adam kept going.
"One of the guys I had lunch with this week, like, we sat together, we talked... he was telling his friend about me like I was…" He trailed off, then finished anyway. "Like a documentary. 'Oh yeah, he's in my class. He's usually pretty chill. Doesn't seem like he'd snap, but you never know.'"
The flame dipped slightly, then steadied.
"And then—" He hesitated, just for a second. "Someone asked... since I'm black, would that mean the werewolf's black too."
A pause.
"Does that make him a nigwolf?"
The word sat in the air, ugly and heavy.
Adam didn't look at her.
"I read the same paragraph for twenty minutes," he said instead. "Couldn't get past the third line."
His voice stayed even. That was the worst part of it.
"Because every time I started, something else would... pull me out of it. And I can't… not hear it. There's no off switch."
Chloe's fingers curled slightly into the fabric of the bean bag.
"And it's the same people," he added, softer now. "That's the part I don't—" He shook his head. "They texted me about NBA trades this afternoon. Same guys. Same numbers in my phone."
He finally looked at her.
"What does that even mean?"
There was no accusation in it. Just… confusion.
"What even is that, then?" he asked. "Like... what is a friend if it's that easy to just—" He made a vague motion, like flipping something over. "Was any of it real, or is it just… until it's not convenient anymore?"
The question hung there, not looking for an answer so much as somewhere to exist.
Chloe didn't respond right away.
She let it sit.
Let the words settle into the room, into her, without rushing to fill the space they left behind.
Yeah. Such is life.
Her throat tightened slightly. She ignored it.
"I'm your friend."
The words came out blunt. Clean. No lead-in, no softening.
They sounded almost out of place coming from her, like she'd skipped a step somewhere, like there was supposed to be a joke or a qualifier and she'd just… decided not to include it.
She didn't look away after she said it.
Didn't elaborate. Didn't fix it.
Just let it stay there.
Adam didn't answer immediately.
His gaze dropped slightly, not avoiding, just… taking it in. Letting it land where it needed to land without grabbing at it too fast.
The flame in his hand steadied.
"…Thanks."
One word. Quiet.
Enough.
The silence that followed wasn't heavy in the same way as before. It had edges now, but they weren't cutting.
Adam shifted slightly in his seat, glancing back up at her.
"What about you?"
Chloe's shoulders tightened before she could stop them.
"Where's Aiva?"
There it was.
The thing she'd been circling since the corridor, since before that, really.
It came back all at once. Not louder
just… closer.
I should've just kept my mouth shut.
Her jaw set.
She looked at him.
"You have no idea what just happened tonight with her."