Chapter 3 THREE

MADELINE REYES' POV

"Was that… was that you?" Wren's tentative voice came through the phone.

"No," I said, looking fearfully at the pitch-black surroundings, feeling as though a pair of eyes were watching me.

"What do you mean, no? I just heard something."

"It wasn't me."

"Where are you?"

"Still in the office… where else would I be? I can't possibly be out of here as soon as—"

Another thud hit the floor.

Startled, I jumped; the aftershock felt like the ripple of a bomb explosion. Behind the door—the one I was now staring wide-eyed at—the thud was followed by a grunt. It was the sound of someone struggling with heavy things, throwing them on the floor, pacing back and forth, and repeating the cycle over and over again while occasionally cursing under their breath.

It seemed I wasn't the only one who had considered breaking into the office. Someone else had taken the opportunity of the meeting to do the same, but now the question was: who?

The door standing between me and whoever it was had ribbed glass on the upper half. I caught movement through the blur—a tall figure pacing back and forth like they were running out of time.

Yet, I stood frozen like a fool. A gust of cold air crept up my bare thighs beneath my uniform's mini skirt, raising goosebumps across my skin.

"...Maddy!" Wren hissed for my attention. "...Get out of there!"

"Someone... someone else is here."

"I know… all the more reason why you should get out of there…"

"It's not the principal."

"...Out of there!"

"What if—"

"OUT OF THERE!" she screeched.

Her voice crackled over the phone, sounding like a bad radio station on a rainy night. It echoed off the walls, and simultaneously, the person on the other side of the door stopped moving.

Oh, God.

I bit the inside of my cheeks, swallowing a whimper that still managed to escape in a squeak. The person was tall, enough to fill the entire door frame. I made out their broad shoulders in the school blazer, the way their chest heaved in and out from the struggle.

The office was dark enough to hide me, but the illuminated phone screen in my hand probably highlighted every expression on my face. They couldn't just see me now; they could see who I was.

I assumed if I stayed frozen long enough, they would overlook me.

I was so fucking wrong.

They moved before I did, and the door between us flung open with a screech. The next thing that followed was a deep voice bellowing in the dark, "Hey!"

I didn't even wait to see who it was.

I turned on my heels and ran like the hordes of hell were right behind me.

I broke clean into the hallway while Wren squealed through the speakers of my phone in an endless, continuous loop: "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD!"

"Hey… you, wait!" the person yelled again.

I didn't wait.

I rounded the corner so fast my right shoulder rammed into the wall, and a grunt escaped my lungs. Before I could even swallow the pain and keep moving, I slammed straight into a rock-hard body that sent me bouncing backward into the hall I'd just tried to escape.

Everything happened so fast.

My phone fell with a clatter to the floor.

My breath hitched in my lungs.

Wren was shouting endlessly into the phone. "Maddy… are you there? Are you there…?" I heard the shuffle of her movement right before the call hung up with a panicked, "I'm coming to meet you—"

"No!" I said a second too late.

The sound of blood rushing in my ears was all I could hear. I knew one thing for sure: I’d just been caught. Not by a teacher, not even by the principal. I’d been caught by someone who had been in that office for the exact same reason I was. Manipulating their results, changing them—I wasn’t certain, but I knew it couldn’t be anything good based on the aggression with which they’d chased me down the hallway.

Not one, but two boys circled me like sharks in the water tracking the scent of blood.

My fingers were shaking, and my eyes went wide as they ping-ponged from the toned boy on my right to the lanky one on my left.

...Stefan Williams, the one who bumped into me, was Stefany’s twin brother. He watched me with a nasty smirk on his face that made me want to melt into a puddle on the floor. It was a predatory gaze. He looked as if he was calculating how to peel the layers of skin off my bones with just a stare.

Chills ran down my spine. I thought it was the most condescending, demeaning look you could give someone to make them feel like dirt beneath your shoes—until I looked to my right, and the breath completely vanished from my lungs.

On my right stood Lucas Hale.

Stefany’s boyfriend. Aldrich High’s golden boy. Co-captain of the team and the reason half the student body instinctively stepped aside when he walked down the hall.

He didn’t share Stefan’s nasty amusement.

He was dead still.

It was a kind of stillness that made me freeze.

When my eyes locked onto his gray ones, I hit a wall of suffocating hostility.

There was no panic in him over almost being caught. It was pure, volatile rage.

He wasn’t looking at me like a girl who had stumbled into the wrong place. He was looking at me like an obstacle. The brutal look in his eyes told me exactly what I needed to know: he wasn’t mad simply because I was in the hallway. He was furious because I was the reason he had to leave that office empty-handed.

He took a single, heavy step toward me.

With his massive, athletic frame, he easily blocked out the dim overhead light, casting a long, intimidating shadow over my face. The air in the narrow corridor suddenly felt too thin to breathe.

The muscle in his sharp jaw ticked. He closed the distance between us without hesitation, crowding my personal space until my back hit the cold wall behind me. He leaned down, his face inches from mine, and his voice wasn't a yell. It was a low, raggedy drop in pitch that scraped straight down to my bones.

"What. Did. You. See?"

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