L I R A

The frost doesn’t fade. It clings to the bus windows like it’s thinking, deciding what to do with us. A thin crack crawls across the glass with a soft, horrible sigh. My brain refuses to catch up; it’s like I’m still trapped back inside that bus, staring at DUE / 3 burned across the glass.

Kids are yelling. Someone cries. Phones flash everywhere. I’m shaking so hard my teeth click, and the strip at my feet twitches again like it’s breathing. Ezra’s hand finds my elbow—steady, warm, too calm. Callen stands a few steps back, hood dripping, eyes fixed on me like nothing else exists. I don’t know why, but I feel like both of them are waiting for me to do something, and I have no idea what.

A crow lands on top of the bus. Taps twice. Tink. Tink. The frost pulses in time with it. No one but me notices. Or maybe I’m losing it. Sirens start wailing down the road.

Ezra turns toward me, jaw set like he’s already carrying a plan. “You shouldn’t be alone after this,” he says, quiet enough the others won’t hear. “We stick together. All of us who saw.”

“We?” My voice catches. His expression softens, just a fraction. “I’m not letting you deal with this without backup.”

It should calm me, but it just tightens something inside my chest. Everything’s happening too fast, too sharp, Ezra talking like this is normal, Callen watching like he expected it, and me just… here.

The strip rattles softly. Ezra pretends he doesn’t hear it. Or maybe he really can’t. There’s a moment where his hand almost brushing mine before a shout cuts through the rain.

“Police incoming! Move back!” I feel him before I see him. Callen. That strange pressure in the air, like the moment before thunder. He stands at the edge of the crowd, hood low, eyes locked on me. The metal band on his wrist catches a flash of blue light, maybe from the police car, maybe not.

Ezra follows my stare and mutters, “Why is he still here?” Callen doesn’t answer because he’s not close enough to hear, or because he doesn’t need to. His whole attention is on me, like he’s waiting for a signal only I can give.

The space between us tightens. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong boy—yet my pulse stutters like it recognizes him. Ezra shifts closer. Callen straightens. And I’m caught between them again. Another vibration jumps through the pavement and into my shoes. I suck in a breath, staring down.

“You didn’t feel that?” I whisper to Ezra. He shakes his head. Callen’s entire focus snaps to the metal like a magnet just flipped on. For one second, his mask slips. He looks afraid.

“It’s reacting to her,” he says under his breath. Ezra hears that. I feel him tense beside me. Reacting. To me. I don’t know what that means, but it crawls under my skin like a warning. I take a step back without meaning to. The strip seems to lean forward. The police car screeches to a stop, and the gossip detonates instantly.

“That’s the girl the bell called.”
“No—her name moved.”
“My aunt said this happened years ago—people disappeared.”

Their words are knives. Ezra moves subtly closer, like he can block the noise. A swirl of chalk dust drifts off someone’s backpack and I swear it freezes midair, turning to frost crystals before dissolving. No one else even pauses.

The frost on the bus twitches again, almost like it’s listening. Whispering back. The cold feels exactly like the cold on the bus window, a wrong temperature, buzzing with intent. Callen shifts his weight, eyes narrowing. Ezra clenches his fist. And I can’t stop shaking.

Sirens, whispers, frost, it all buzzes together like the whole parking lot is one giant warning. Mr. Voss barrels out of the school, coat half on, eyes wide. “Back away from the bus! Now!” His voice cracks halfway through, which is not comforting. He sees the frost. He freezes.

“Voss,” Ezra says tightly. “We need..” 

“Not out here,” Voss snaps. His gaze flicks to me. “Inside. All of you. Especially her.” My stomach drops. Why me?  Ezra instinctively shifts like he’s going to walk right beside me. Callen doesn’t move, but the tension around him spikes, like he’d rather drag me in the opposite direction.

“What’s inside?” I manage. Voss glances back toward the building. “Answers. Maybe.” His voice sounds scared, like this isn’t the first time he’s seen something like this. Teachers herd kids inside, but Voss’s gaze never leaves the frost or me. Like he recognizes something he hoped he’d never see again.

Fog curls low to the ground behind us, thin fingers brushing my ankles. And like an idiot, I follow him inside. The archives smell like old paper and cold metal, like a basement that forgot it belonged to a school. Voss flicks on a single lamp. It buzzes once, dim, like it’s afraid of whatever we just dragged in here with us.

“Stay close,” he mutters. Ezra and Mara flank me automatically. Callen doesn’t come in, but he stands in the doorway, one shoulder braced against the frame like he’s physically keeping something out. Or himself in.

Voss digs through a drawer and pulls out a stack of yearbooks so old the covers crumble at the edges. He flips open to a memorial page. Every face looks washed-out, like the ink drowned. Names blurred. Some are outright missing.

“What happened to them?” I whisper.

“Officially?” He shrugs. “Nothing. Records got corrupted.” But the corner of one obituary is stained with frost. Actual frost. It spiderwebs across the page the second my fingers hover near it. Ezra jolts. Mara gasps. Callen goes very, very still.

“Don’t touch that,” Ezra blurts, grabbing my wrist before the frost can crawl farther. His grip is gentle, but his pulse is an earthquake. “It reacts to you.” The words hit harder than they should.

Callen finally steps inside, slow and careful. “It didn’t react,” he says quietly. “It recognized her.”

My stomach flips. “Recognized?” Why does that sound worse? Neither boy meets my eyes. Voss pretends to shuffle papers, but I see the sweat on his forehead. “Sometimes old ink reacts to humidity,” he lies badly. “Let’s… try another record.”

But when he opens a second book, a breath of cold rolls out. The ink brightens under my shadow, like it’s waking up. Ezra swears. Callen murmurs, “Pull back.” I can’t tell who I’m supposed to listen to.

Voss excuses himself to “call the principal,” which is a joke because he basically sprints out of the archives like we infected the air. We’re alone before I can blink. Ezra rubs a hand down his face, then looks at me. “Lira, whatever this is? It’s targeting you. We need rules. We need a plan. A pact.”

Mara nods shakily, camera still clutched like a lifeline. Ryke mutters something about not dying on a school night. Ezra steps closer, soft but serious. “We stay in pairs. No one splits up. We check in every hour. And you don’t go anywhere without one of us.”

It sounds rational. Safe. Like him. And right now I want to be safe more than anything. Callen, though, he lets out this quiet, humorless exhale. “Plans won’t save you.” Ezra glares. “And what will? Walking around like a storm cloud? You don’t even go here.”

Callen meets his stare without blinking. “But I’m the only one who can hear it coming.” The tension spikes, electric and inevitable. And I’m the one caught between them. I don’t want either of them close, but I don’t want either of them far.

A faint hiss pulls my attention toward the floor. At first, I thought it’s the air vent. But then the fog curls under the archive door, thin, pale, sliding along the tiles like fingers spreading out to grab ankles.

“No,” Callen whispers, stepping in front of me so fast I stumble. His wristband pulses once under his sleeve. “It followed us.” Ezra moves on my other side, fists tightening. “Voss said nothing about fog.”

“Because he doesn’t know,” Callen snaps. “None of them do.” The fog twines around the table legs, brushing Mara’s shoe. Frost blooms along its path. She jerks back with a small gasp, camera shaking in her hands.

My breath shudders out of me. The cold coming off that fog is the same cold from the bus window—the same wrongness, the same whispering hunger. I swear I hear something inside it. A hum. A distant, broken note trying to form a word.

Callen hears it too. His jaw locks, eyes flicking to mine like he’s bracing for impact.
Ezra grabs my hand. His palm is warm but shaking. The fog thickens, lifting, curling, reaching— Then two voices slice through the air.

“Don’t move.”

I twist around just as Alma and Vio Sorell, our choir twins—stand in the hall, framed in the doorway like something out of a dream or a threat. Their faces are pale, eyes too bright in the flickering light. Alma raises a hand. Vio mirrors her. Then they hum.

It’s one single note, thin, perfect, sharp enough to make the air vibrate. Not loud. Not even musicals. But the fog recoils instantly, peeling away from us like it’s been slapped. The frost on the floor melts backward, the veins sealing themselves.  Ezra stares, mouth slightly open.  Ryke whispers, “No way. No freaking way.”  Callen watches the twins with something that looks a lot like recognition. Or fear.

The sound burrows through my ribs, vibrating my teeth. I feel it in the strip still stuffed in my pocket, where it pulses once, in rhythm. Alma’s voice cracks when she lowers her hand. “It was writing again.”

“What was?” I whisper. Vio just points behind me. Slowly, because I already know it’s bad—I turn. On the center tile, where the fog last touched, a small patch of frost clings stubbornly to the floor.  Inside it, carved deep like a blade of cold etched each letter, is one word:

THREE. Not DUE / 3.  Not a number.  A message. My heartbeat thrashes. Ezra steps closer, breath hitching. “It’s counting again.” 

Callen’s voice is low, hopelessly certain. “It never stopped.” The twins take a synchronized step back. Mara lowers her camera, for once speechless. The frost pulses, once like a heartbeat syncing with mine. My name echoes inside my skull again. Not spoken. Ticked. Tallied. And I swear, just for a second—the frost whispers back:

Three.