EZRA
I hadn’t expected her to hug me.
Jacqueline had just wrapped her arms around me, and I'd stood there, unsure of what to do with my hands, until the urge to hold her spread through me.
Her warmth and gratitude had caught me off guard. It stirred something I didn’t know was still alive inside me. Something dangerous. Something soft.
I had told myself it meant nothing. That she was just grateful. But the way she had looked up at me… The way I almost leaned in—
Damn it.
That should never have happened.
I shoved the thought away and turned back to my desk. Papers sat in a messy pile, half-marked. Their words blurred together. I didn’t care. They were just tasks. Noise.
But I needed quiet.
My head was too loud.
I opened my laptop instead. Beatrice’s name. That was where my focus belonged. Not on the student who smelled like sunlight and jasmine.
I typed her full name into the search bar. Pictures popped up. Smiling ones. Ones where she looked like a normal girl, not like the creature
