E Z R A 

The chalk keeps breaking in my hand.
Not because I’m pressing that hard. I’m not Ryke, trying to carve dirty jokes into the desks, but because the board doesn’t want these numbers. Every time I drag another line across Hollowbrook’s erased years, the chalk splinters, dust coating my fingers like frost.

I wipe my hand on my slacks and start again.

On the board: a grid. Toll dates, student names, the accident reports I copied from the archives before the librarian caught me. Yearbook gaps layered into it like missing teeth. It should add up. A rhythm, a sequence. Everything has a pattern, and if I can find the one under the bell, maybe we’re not just waiting to die.

But every time the numbers almost make sense, the lines cross out of sync. Three tolls line up perfectly, then the fourth veers into nothing. It’s like trying to graph an echo.

I snap another piece of chalk. The sound ricochets in the empty classroom.

The others don’t get it. Ryke jokes, Mara chases photos, Lira.. well, Lira looks at me like she believes me, but she doesn’t see the work. She just hears my certainty and thinks it’s enough. It’s not. If I don’t crack this, if I don’t keep her alive..

My phone buzzes against the desk, breaking the spiral. Mara.

ur still in archives? nerd alert
tell ryke i’ll delete the crow meme if he deletes the fart remix

I don’t answer. A second buzz.

from Ryke: bro ur dating the chalkboard rn.

I switch the phone face down. Let them laugh. Every name I’ve written tonight belonged to someone who stopped existing halfway through a semester. People don’t just vanish. Someone remembers, even if the records don’t.

And then there’s her. Lira’s name, stamped on steel like a countdown already started.

My hand trembles, just once, before I force the chalk steady again.

If I can find the pattern, I can break it. I have to.

The door creaks open.

I freeze, chalk mid-line, because no one’s supposed to be here this late. The librarian locked up an hour ago. The council kids all went home.

But of course it’s him.

Callen Roe leans in the doorway like the shadows bent to make him. Hood up, rainwater dripping from the hem even though it hasn’t stormed all day. His eyes find the board before they find me, scanning the grid like he can read my thoughts.

I grit my teeth. “You don’t go here.”

He steps inside anyway, ignoring the sign-out sheet, ignoring me. He moves to the back row of desks, casual, like this is his classroom. Like he belongs.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” I say, sharper this time.

His gaze cuts to me. Calm, unreadable. “Neither should you.”

Heat crawls under my collar. “I’m on council. I have access.”

Callen glances at the chalkboard. “And what good has that done?”

The chalk snaps in my hand again. This time it feels like his fault.

“You think you know something,” I bite out. “But all you do is show up after the fact. Hovering. Stalking. Why are you always here?”

He closes the distance between us, slow but sure, until I have to tilt my head just to keep eye contact. He’s taller. Broader. Every move is calculated to feel like pressure.

“Because the bell doesn’t ring for you,” he says quietly. The words land heavy, like he just named something I don’t understand.

My pulse kicks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

His mouth curves. Not a smile. Not friendly. More like he’s amused that I even asked.

“You wouldn’t get it,” he says, voice low. “Patterns only take you so far.”

I step forward too, refusing to give ground. The space between us shrinks until I can smell the damp on his hoodie, the cold air clinging to him.

He doesn’t flinch. Neither do I.

The silence stretches tight, sharp as glass. A standoff.

The window fogs.

Neither of us moved, but the glass behind Callen smears white, like someone exhaled hard against it. Except it’s cold outside. Too cold for breath to show.

A thin line etches across the frost. Then another. Crooked strokes scratching into letters that shouldn’t exist.

My heartbeat trips. I drop the chalk stub.

The words are right there, but when I squint, they blur, swimming like ink spilled underwater. My brain grabs at shapes, LISTEN? RUN?, but every time I try to pin it down, it shifts. The curse is writing right in front of me and I can’t read it.

That’s impossible. I always see patterns. That’s who I am.

I step closer, my nose almost to the glass. The scribble sharpens for a second, then fractures again, slipping sideways like my eyes refuse to focus. A blind spot.

“What does it say?” I mutter.

Callen’s already staring at it, his jaw set. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” I snapped. “I can’t..” The words choke in my throat. Admitting it feels like handing him a weapon. I swallow hard. “I just need a better angle.”

He doesn’t look away from the window. “Not everything can be solved by staring harder.”

The frost deepens, stretching vein-like cracks outward, crawling across the pane. My skin prickles. I should be cataloguing it, drawing it down in my grid, but all I can feel is the wrongness of not being able to read.

My blind spot. The first one I’ve ever had.

And Callen sees it. I can tell by the way his eyes flick to me, sharp, almost pitying.

I shove the chalk back into my fist. “Stay out of my way.”

He finally turns, shadows shifting with him. “I’m not in your way.” A beat, deliberate. “I’m in hers.”

The frost finishes another warped word I can’t parse. My chest tightens.

I tighten my grip on the chalk until it digs into my palm. He says it so casually, I’m in hers.. like Lira is territory, not a person. Like I’m supposed to just accept that.

“You think hovering near her makes you some kind of protector?” My voice comes out harder than I mean, but I don’t pull it back. “She doesn’t need you watching her every move.”

Callen doesn’t flinch. “She does.”

The certainty in his tone grates like nails on glass.

“She has friends. People who actually belong here. People who know her.” My chest rises too fast, heat building under my collar. “She doesn’t need some dropout ghosting through the hallways like a..”

He cuts me off without raising his voice. “Safer with me than with you.”

The words land like a punch.

I laugh, sharp and bitter. “Safer? You’re the reason half the school thinks she’s cursed already. You show up when things go wrong, and then you vanish before anyone can call you on it. That’s not safe. That’s a suspicion.”

He takes a step closer. The distance between us shrinks until I can feel the cold coming off him, like the frost has claimed him too.

“Suspicion doesn’t matter,” he says. “Survival does.”

My jaw tightens. I want to shove him back, to wipe that calm look off his face, but I force myself to stand still. Because that’s what I do. I hold steady. Except my pulse is racing, and for the first time tonight, I can’t convince myself I’m the one in control.

I think of Lira’s face, the way she looked at me after the bus, like maybe I had answers. Like maybe she could trust me. And then I think of her name carved into steel, her breath fogging as the bell swallowed it, and how Callen was right there. Always right there.

The chalk breaks again in my fist, snapping clean in two.

“Stay away from her,” I say, low, final.

For the first time, his mouth tips in something like a smile. Small. Dangerous. “You don’t get to decide that.”

The frost behind him veins darker, like it’s listening.

I don’t wait for him to add anything else. The frost on the glass crawls higher, filling in words I’ll never read, and if I stay here one more second, I’ll break something worse than chalk.

I shove past him, shoulder clipping his, and stalk into the hall. The air outside the classroom is warmer, less suffocating, but my pulse doesn’t slow. My hand still shakes, dust ground into the creases of my skin.

Patterns don’t lie. Except this one did. And Callen Roe stood there like he understood the rules better than me.

I head for the exit, jaw tight, when movement catches in the corner of my eye.

Through the frosted window of the stairwell, two shapes stand close. Too close.

Lira. Hood tilted back, her hair brushing her cheek. And him.

Callen leans against the railing, angled toward her, the shadows wrapping around like they belong to him. She’s not pulling away. Her head tilts the tiniest bit, like she’s listening to something only he can say.

The world narrows to the glass between us.

My stomach knots. My first instinct is to knock on the window, break the moment, remind her I’m here. But I don’t move. I just stand there, watching the distance between them shrink like gravity decides she belongs in his orbit, not mine.

Trust isn’t supposed to crack this fast.

Not after everything I’ve done to hold the line for her. To make sense of the chaos, to promise we’d find answers.

But the look on her face, quiet, open, like she believes him hurts worse than any toll could.

My breath fogs the glass. I drag it away before either of them notices.

“She was supposed to trust me,” I whisper, the words burning like acid.

I force myself down the hall, each step heavier, louder, until the bell’s silence feels like mockery in my ears.

Because for the first time, I’m not sure if the real enemy is the curse or the shadow who refuses to leave her side.