L I R A

By morning the frost still hums under my skin, a phantom pulse counting down. I tell myself it’s just adrenaline, but every tick of the cafeteria clock sounds like the toll waiting to drop. Ezra hasn’t said much since the loft, his jaw clenched like silence might solve equations. Callen? Absent, as usual. Which would almost feel normal if his absence didn’t feel louder than everyone else’s presence.

The twins are pale across the room, heads pressed together, too quiet for once. Their hum broke last night, and I don’t know if it’s fear or failure keeping them from trying again. Either way, we’re all brittle. Which is probably why Pia Reyes decides today is the perfect stage for her one-woman circus.

She climbs onto a lunch table like it’s a podium, pink cat-ear headphones glowing, her phone rig propped in selfie mode. “Attention, survivors!” she crows, and the entire cafeteria pivots like trained dogs. “Who wants proof the bus wasn’t a fluke?”

My stomach sinks.

Her screen flickers static with white noise crawling across pixels like frost veins. She smacks it with the heel of her palm. “It was crystal-clear last night! I had the whole thing, the strip, the frost like, Pulitzer-level content! But…” She spins the phone for the crowd, only for the footage to glitch into warped shadows and ghosted lettering that never settles.

Whispers spread like wildfire. Fake? Clout-chasing? Someone snorts, “She’s editing in filters.” Another hisses, “Why would a bus spit out a murder coupon?”

Ezra pushes to his feet so fast his chair skids. “Shut it down, Pia.” His voice carries, not loud, but sharp enough to slice the noise. “You don’t know what you’re playing with.”

Pia rolls her eyes. “Relax, Vice President. Truth wants to be free..”

The lights overhead buzz and flicker. At first it feels like Hollowbrook’s usual dying wiring, but then the air chills. My tray fogs over. And on Pia’s livestream, in front of everyone’s eyes, the feed warps, not into static, but into ink. Names. Pages shifting as though a book is being flipped open through the screen.

The ledger.

If this made the news, parents would’ve stormed the gates. But Pia’s stream glitched out like always, and teachers were already rehearsing the word ‘hysteria.

Gasps ripple through the cafeteria. Someone screams. The footage jitters, but the words hold: frost-ink names crawling, rearranging right there in real time.

And for the first time, it isn’t just us survivors seeing it. It’s the whole school.

The cafeteria explodes into chaos. Screams, scraping chairs, phones snapping up to record. Some kids run for the doors, others just stand frozen, staring at Pia’s glitching stream as the ledger bleeds across her screen like it’s alive.

My own breath locks. I can’t move, can’t blink. The names are sliding, reordering themselves, letters smearing into new sequences as if the ink is deciding in real time who matters more.

Then, heat. A hand closes over mine under the table. Firm, steady.

I whip my head and there he is, hood half-shadowing his face even in fluorescent light. Callen. I don’t even know when he slipped in.

His grip isn’t casual. It’s like he’s anchoring me to the floor while the world tips sideways. His palm is rough, warm in a way that burns through my skin, through the frost buzzing underneath. My instinct should be to pull back, but I don’t. I can’t.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs, so low it might just be in my head.

The ledger’s ink keeps crawling across Pia’s livestream. Kids gasp as familiar names shuffle higher, lower, like invisible hands dragging strings. One girl shrieks when her cousin’s name blinks to the top, and a chair topples as she bolts.

Callen’s hand doesn’t move. He doesn’t let go.

Across the table, Ezra sees.

His eyes snap to our joined hands, then to Callen, and back to me. His jaw works like he’s grinding down words he doesn’t trust himself to say here. I can feel the heat of his stare almost as much as I feel Callen’s grip.

“Let go of her,” Ezra snaps finally, voice low but lethal.

Callen doesn’t even flinch. His storm-gray eyes stay locked on mine. “She needs steadying,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like an excuse. It sounds like the truth he refuses to apologize for.

And the awful thing is, he’s right. My knees are shaking, my chest is too tight, and his hand is the only thing holding me together.

The ledger’s glow sharpens on Pia’s phone, names scraping into new order like a clock striking down.

Ezra’s voice cuts again, sharper this time: “Callen. Now.”

But Callen’s hand doesn’t move.

Not until I do.

The cafeteria feels like it’s breathing too fast. Phones out, kids shouting over each other, the noise curdling into panic. Pia’s stream jitters, pixels bending, but the ledger’s words don’t blur. They sharpen.

Names crawl across the frost-ink screen, reshuffling in jagged motions like something alive is dragging them into place. Rows reorder, top to bottom, as if deciding who deserves the noose first.

I know half the names. Kids I passed in the hallway this morning, ones still sitting at nearby tables. Whispers sharpen into screams as people spot their own families, their own friends flickering higher on the list. Someone hurls a tray at the wall. Another bolts for the door, shoulder-slamming against the frame like escape is even possible.

Ezra shoves his way to Pia, trying to wrestle the phone out of her grip. “Stop showing them! Don’t give it more fuel!” His voice is all command, steady even in chaos, but no one’s listening. Not even Pia, who clutches the rig tighter like her life depends on it.

Through all of it, Callen’s hand is still on mine.

Too long. Too much. The heat of it crawls past my wrist, into my chest, where the frost hum tries to answer back. His thumb presses just enough that I almost lean in, almost forgetting there’s an audience of a hundred people breaking around us.

Ezra sees it. Really sees it.

His glare slices between us like a blade. Not at Callen but at me, for letting him. His voice drops low, dangerous, barely audible over the cafeteria’s roar: “You think he’s steadying you? He’s pulling you under.”

I flinch, because maybe he’s right. But Callen doesn’t let go. His jaw tightens, storm-gray eyes never leaving mine, like he’s daring me to believe anyone else could hold me this steady when the world is cracking apart.

The ledger scrolls one final time, ink smearing into order. The names freeze, and the air stills like it’s waiting.

Ezra steps closer, his hand brushing my arm, an almost-touch heavy with accusation. “Lira.” My name in his mouth is a warning, a plea, and something sharper.

The phone in Pia’s grip shakes. The screen flashes white.

And then the page flips on its own.

The white glare blinds half the cafeteria. Everyone stumbles back like the phone just exploded, but Pia doesn’t drop it. Her eyes are huge, frozen, while the livestream shakes in her grip.

Onscreen, the ledger’s page lifts as if caught by an invisible hand. The whole crowd goes silent, every shriek swallowed into a held breath as the iron-bound book turns itself.

A new page blooms in frost-ink.

Names etch themselves in one by one, carved with deliberate slowness, each letter like a knife stroke. Not old records this time. Fresh. Present tense.

Kids in the room.

The first name scratches into place. A sophomore gasps, clapping a hand over her mouth. Another follows. And another. The ledger is writing its hit list live, feeding on our panic.

“Enough,” Ezra snarls, finally ripping the phone from Pia’s hands. The screen doesn’t stop. The ledger keeps writing even without her lens. He slams it face-down on the table, but the glow bleeds through the cracks, casting frost patterns across the wood.

Beside me, Callen’s grip tightens. Too tight, almost painful, like he knows what’s coming. “It’s choosing,” he says, voice low enough for only me. “Right now.”

I can’t breathe. Because the next line of ink curls into letters I almost recognize, my throat tightens before the last letter finishes, before I know if it’s me, or Ryke, or anyone I can’t stand to lose.

Ezra’s hand clamps onto my other arm, grounding me, pulling me a step back from Callen. His voice is steady, steel-edged: “Don’t look.”

But I do.

The ledger isn’t done. Its pages ripple like a heartbeat, hungry, relentless. And when the final name etches itself onto the fresh page, the glow spikes bright enough to sear the walls, freezing us all in place.

The bell tolls once, just once,like a promise.

The page waits, daring us to read.