I didn't sleep well that night.
I told myself it was the new bed. The unfamiliar ceiling. The sound of traffic outside the small apartment my mother and I were still unpacking boxes in. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw the same thing.
Grey-blue eyes. Steady and unreadable.
*Like recognition.*
I folded my pillow over my face and told myself to stop thinking about it.
Tuesday morning I was up before my alarm.
My mother was already in the kitchen when I came downstairs, still in her work uniform, a mug of tea going cold beside her on the counter. She worked nights at the hospital — not as a doctor, not as a nurse. She cleaned the floors and the rooms and the things nobody wanted to touch. She never complained about it. That was the thing about my mother. She carried everything quietly.
"How was yesterday?" she asked without turning around.
"Fine," I said.
She nodded. She knew I wasn't telling her everything. She always knew. But she also knew when not to push.
"There's toast," she said. "Don't skip breakfast."
I ate standing up, bag already on my shoulder. On my way out, I touched her arm once. She covered my hand with hers for exactly two seconds. That was our version of a long conversation.
Maya was waiting at the school gate.
That surprised me. I hadn't asked her to be there. She was just there, coffee in one hand, uniform already perfect, like someone who had been awake for three hours and enjoyed it.
"You came back," she said.
"I live here now. I don't have a choice."
"Some transfer students don't come back after day one." She handed me the second coffee she was holding. "I got you one just in case."
I looked at it. "You didn't know if I was coming back, but you still got me a coffee?"
"Optimism." She started walking toward the entrance. "How are you feeling?"
"Normal," I said.
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true."
She gave me a sideways look. "Did anything happen after I left you yesterday? You seemed quiet at the end of the day."
I thought about the note. Still in the pocket of yesterday's blazer, folded into a small square.
"Nothing happened," I said.
First period was History. No Adrian. I started to think maybe Maya had overreacted. Maybe he was just a rich boy with a cold face who stared at new people out of boredom.
Second period was Chemistry. Still no Adrian.
By the time I got to third period — AP Literature, different room from English, larger class — I had almost talked myself into believing the day would be unremarkable.
Then I walked in and saw him sitting in the second row.
He didn't look up when I entered. He was reading something, pen turning slowly between two fingers, completely unbothered by the noise around him. Three students were talking to him — or at him, more accurately. He wasn't responding. Just reading.
I took a seat near the back.
Mrs. Aldridge called the class to order, went through attendance, and launched straight into a discussion on unreliable narrators. I kept my notes clean and my eyes forward. I was doing well. I was being invisible.
Then Mrs. Aldridge said: "I'd like to pair everyone for the semester project. I've already assigned the pairs."
A few groans around the room.
She read through the list. When she got to my name, the name after it hit me somewhere in the chest.
"Lena Carter and Adrian Blackwood."
Complete silence for two seconds.
Then a soft ripple of noise — whispers, a short laugh from somewhere to my left, the kind of reaction that told me everything I needed to know about what this pairing meant to this room.
I didn't move. I kept my face neutral.
Mrs. Aldridge moved on down the list like nothing had happened.
I heard the pen stop turning.
At the end of class, Mrs. Aldridge asked the pairs to exchange contact details and agree on a first meeting time. Around me, students shuffled desks and pulled out phones.
I stayed in my seat.
Adrian hadn't moved either.
After a moment, I picked up my bag and walked to the second row. He was closing his book, unhurried. When I stopped beside the desk, he looked up.
Up close, he was more unsettling than across a horseshoe of desks. Not because of anything dramatic. Just the stillness. Most people shifted slightly when someone stopped next to them — adjusted, acknowledged. He didn't. He just looked at me like I was something he had already decided about.
"I'm Lena," I said. "Carter."
"I know who you are." His voice was low and flat.
"We're partners. For the project."
"I heard."
I waited. He didn't offer anything — no name, no phone, no attempt.
"So," I said evenly, "when do you want to meet?"
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he said, quietly enough that no one else could hear:
"You should have stayed in Millfield, Lena."
Not angry. Not sneering. Just simple. Like a fact.
My stomach went still in a way that was different from nerves. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me." He picked up his book and stood. He was taller than I'd realized — not aggressive about it, just there. "I'll handle the project. You don't need to do anything."
"That's not how a partnership works."
"It is with me." He looked at me once more — that same flat, measuring look — and then he walked past me toward the door without another word.
I stood there for a second, completely still.
Then Maya appeared at my elbow from across the room, slightly wide-eyed.
"What did he say to you?"
"He told me to stay out of the project." I picked up my bag. "And that I should have stayed in Millfield."
Maya stared at me. "He said that?"
"Word for word."
She exhaled. "Lena."
"I know."
"That's not —" she lowered her voice, "— that's not nothing. That's him telling you he knows something. That's not what someone says to a random new student."
I had already worked that out. I just needed a second to hear it said out loud.
"He's done this before," Maya said carefully. "Targeted someone. Made their year difficult."
"What happened to them?"
She hesitated. "She transferred out by December."
I looked toward the door where he had just disappeared.
"I'm not transferring," I said.
Maya was quiet for a moment. Then, quietly: "I know you're not. That's what worries me."
I found Jason at lunch.
I didn't know his name yet — I would learn it later. What I noticed was that he was sitting three tables away from the main group, which for someone who was clearly in Adrian's circle seemed deliberate. He had an easy face. The kind that smiled without effort.
He noticed me noticing him and raised his chin slightly. Not unfriendly.
I filed that away.
At the end of the day, I went back to my locker.
Clean inside. No note.
I almost felt relieved. Then I opened the front pocket of my bag to put my schedule away and found it.
Same neat handwriting. Same folded square.
*Stop asking questions you don't want the answers to.*
I hadn't asked anyone anything. Not out loud, anyway.
Which meant someone had been watching me close enough to know what I was thinking.
I stood there for a long moment, the note in my hand.
Then I put it in my pocket next to the first one, closed my bag, and walked out of the building into the grey afternoon air.
Two days. Two notes.
And a boy who k
new my name, knew where I came from, and wanted me gone.
*Why?*
That was the only question that mattered.
And I was going to find the answer — whether Adrian Blackwood wanted me to or not.