L I R A

By morning, the whole school hums with it. The chapel’s frost-mark hasn’t touched the hallways, but the survivors carry it in their skin, in the way we flinch at every bell between classes. Whispers coil through lockers and lunch lines “countdown,” “curse,” “bus kids” while Pia Reyes brandishes her phone like she’s about to crack the case wide open. Ezra keeps close, already drafting plans in neat, sharp words. Callen lingers farther back, silent as shadow. And me? I can’t shake the weight of that single number. One.

Ezra finds me outside the history wing, his stride sharp, like he’s been waiting for me to come out alone. The hallway hums with locker slams and half-heard whispers, but his eyes pin me steady, blue-gray behind the smudge of his glasses.

“Don’t let them get to you,” he says without preamble. “The gossip, the countdown. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

The words should land like a lifeline. Instead, they feel too neat, too sure, like he can box this thing up with logic alone. Still, part of me wants to believe him, to sink into the safety of someone who acts like the curse can be solved with a chart.

Before I can answer, the air shifts. A shadow lengthens at the edge of the lockers, and I don’t have to look to know who it is.

Callen.

He doesn’t walk so much as appear, a storm-gray gaze cutting straight past Ezra to me. “You can’t promise that,” he says, voice low, final.

Ezra bristles. “I can protect her better than you skulking in corners and spouting riddles.”

Callen doesn’t even flinch. “Protection doesn’t exist. Not from this. The bell collects what it’s owed. You can’t bargain it away.” His eyes hold mine, steady, magnetic. “And you can’t save her by pretending she’s not already in its sights.”

My throat knots. Ezra steps closer, close enough I can feel the heat radiating off him, steady and insistent. “You’re not a prisoner of this, Lira. You’re not doomed. We’ll figure it out. Together.”

Callen shakes his head once, slow. “Safe isn’t real. Surviving is.”

The space between them feels like a noose tightening, both of them pulling in opposite directions. My pulse thunders with the weight of it, and for a heartbeat I can’t breathe.

By lunch, Pia’s decided the countdown is her brand. She drags a whole tripod rig into the cafeteria, phone clipped in with neon lights strobing against her cheeks. “Hollowbrook deserves the truth,” she announces, climbing onto a bench like she’s hosting a press conference. Half the room turns to watch.

I want to melt into my tray.

Ezra stiffens beside me, muttering, “This is reckless.” His eyes never leave Pia, like he’s already calculating how fast he can shut her down.

Pia flashes a grin. “See, everyone thinks it’s just rumors, but I was there. I have the footage.” She taps her screen, and the livestream goes live, comments scrolling too fast to read. For half a second, the image is clear, me, the bus, the frost-veined glass, before the pixels fracture into static.

The sound cuts too, a hiss that spikes sharp enough to make me flinch. On-screen, frost veins crawl across the picture like digital cracks. Pia smacks the phone. “Ugh! It worked last night!”

Around us, whispers sharpen. “Fake,” someone mutters. “Clout-chasing.” Another kid laughs, nervous, “Nice special effects.”

But I see it, the way the frost lingers on her phone screen even after she yanks the plug. Real frost. The same veins I saw on chapel glass last night.

Ezra stands abruptly, chair scraping. “Shut it down, Pia. Now.”

She waves him off. “The town has a right to know.”

Then the overhead lights flicker, buzzing like dying bees. Across the cafeteria windows, condensation blooms, a thin breath of frost crawling inward.

Callen is already there, leaning in the doorway, hood shadowing his face. Watching. Silent.

And my stomach twists. The countdown isn’t just a number anymore. It’s circling closer.

The bell hits in the middle of the sixth period.

One moment it’s just the squeak of sneakers on a polished gym floor, the next it’s a sound that doesn’t belong, deep, iron-throated, rattling the rafters. The kind of sound you feel in your teeth.

The whole class freezes. Then chaos.

The bleachers shudder, metal groaning like something alive. The coach shouts for order, but his voice cracks under the toll. Kids scramble down, sneakers slamming wood. The air itself vibrates, thick with frost that creeps up the walls in spiderweb lines.

“Down!” Ezra shoves me behind him, eyes darting, calculating exits like he already saw this coming.

But Callen’s already moving too, pulled forward like a tether yanking his spine. He reaches the base of the bleachers first, gaze snapping upward. I follow, and that’s when I see her.

Not me. Not one of the survivors.

Jess Morales, she’s Pia’s best friend since freshman year, the one who edits her videos, always in the background. She trapped halfway down the stands, frozen, wide-eyed, and  her hands white-knuckled on the railing.

The toll booms again. The bleachers lurch.

I swear I see it, a shimmer across her skin, a frost-mark etching faint letters at her throat. DUE. The word burns white, sharp as glass.

“No,” Pia screams from the floor, her phone raised uselessly. “Jess, move!”

The metal gives way with a deafening crack. One whole section of bleachers buckles, and Jess goes with it, swallowed in splintering wood and shrieks.

Dust and frost explode outward in the same breath. Kids scatter, screaming. The world tilts, sounding muffled like I’m underwater.

Ezra pulls me back hard, his arm solid across my chest, holding me steady against the surge. Callen doesn’t move. He stares at the collapse like he’s seen it before, jaw locked, storm-gray eyes flashing with something raw.

When the dust clears, silence crushes the room. Jess lies twisted beneath the wreckage, phone cracked in her hand, eyes glassy. Frost veining her skin like a second skeleton.

The adults rush in late.. too late. Shouting words like “accident,” “structural failure,” anything but what we saw. But I can’t look away from the mark at her throat, already fading, like it was never there.

Except we saw it. We all saw it.

Pia sobs into her sleeve, still clutching her phone. Ezra tightens his grip on me, whispering, “You’re safe. I’ve got you.” His voice shakes, but his words don’t.

Across the wreckage, Callen meets my eyes. He doesn’t say it out loud, but I hear it anyway.

Safe doesn’t exist.

They try to clear us out fast, shoving students toward the exits while maintenance swarms the wreckage. “Freak accident,” Coach keeps repeating, voice shaking. But no one believes him, not the kids sobbing against lockers, not Pia rocking back and forth with her ruined phone pressed to her chest.

And not us.

Because we saw the frost.

The survivors gather near the side doors, breathless, pale. Mara whispers, “It marked her. Just like the bus. Just like Lira.”

Ryke doesn’t joke this time. He just nods, jaw tight, eyes darting like he can’t decide whether to run or punch something.

Ezra’s hand clamps on my shoulder, steady and firm. “We’re not ignoring this. Not anymore.” His voice shakes, but the determination in it cuts sharp.

Callen leans against the doorframe, shadows making his eyes darker than storms. “You finally understand,” he says quietly. “The bell doesn’t bluff.”

The words sink through me, cold as the frost still veining the gym walls. The countdown wasn’t a warning. It was a promise.

One toll left. One number.

And Jess Morales just paid for it.

I can’t breathe past the weight pressing into my chest. My name still sits heavy in steel somewhere, waiting. If the bell is cashing debts, then mine hasn’t been collected yet.

Outside, a crow taps its beak against the glass. Tink. Tink. Tink.

It feels like a tally.

The bell isn’t just threatening us. It’s killing us. And tomorrow, it will come again.