MasukHazel's POVThe lock clicked and I stayed frozen beneath the desk, every one of my muscles aching. For a long moment, I couldn't breathe.The study fell silent except for the frantic pounding of my heart. Darkness swallowed the room as the light outside the hallway disappeared beneath the door.I waited and waited but I didn't hear any footsteps or voices, no sign or him coming back here. Slowly, I lowered the hand covering my mouth."Oh my God," I whispered. The words barely left my lips.Carefully, I crawled out from beneath the desk and stood up. The room was almost completely dark now with only moonlight filtered through the narrow gap in the curtains, casting pale shadows across the bookshelves.I glanced toward the shelf where the shadow reflected. A part of me wanted to go back and find out what was in there but another part of me knew I was pushing my luck.I had already nearly been caught once, what I needed to do right now was to get out of here. I moved toward the door and
Hazel's POV The call ended just like that and I stood paralyzed at the door, breathing shallowly. She? Who was he talking about? A secret from his past? The words echoed ominously in my mind. My stepfather, always so composed, had sounded genuinely afraid.I wanted to leave like I hadn't heard anything but my legs carried on before my brain could stop it,I opened the door and walked up to his desk, when his eyes met mine, he stood up in a hurry.“How long have you been standing there?” I heard him say but my eyes immediately caught some financial documents spread out, like he was studying them.I wasn't wearing my glasses but I caught a glimpse of a bold heading “TRUST FUND”. Before I could get close to see any other thing, he quickly packed them up and put them away in his drawer.“You are still up?” He gave me a tight smile.“Its just 8pm, dad.” “Oh.. I know… you looked quite exhausted when you walked in so I thought you would be asleep by now.”Right, since when did he care this
Hazel’s POVI stared at my phone as my stepdad’s name flashed across the screen for the third time that hour. The sight of it dragged me straight back to that awful night just days earlier, him standing in the doorway with a cold, unyielding expression, pointing at my bag on the porch. “You’ve embarrassed this family enough with all your action and that pathetic livestream,” he had snapped, his voice cutting like ice. “Take your things and get out. Don’t come back until you’ve fixed the mess you made.”This was right after I went live to clear Jaxon's name. He called me to come home, I knew it was bad news already but with Jaxon not taking my calls and everything closing on me. I thought perhaps home would be a better option. But of course, as always that place has lost all it has to be called a home.I had stood there in the rain, bag slung over my shoulder, feeling utterly abandoned. Now here he was calling as if none of that had happened. I finally picked up the phone knowing he
Tiffany’s POVI got an official notice for school delivered in mail. When I got the pop-up notification, I set out my fingers to slide it away because I had developed the habit of skimming subject lines and moving on. But there was something about this particular one that made me pause.“Office of Legal Affairs — Student Conduct Review.”I opened it standing in the middle of my room and read it through twice.The language was different from anything I had seen before. It was precise and formal and listed specific terms I had never seen applied to a student situation, ‘coordinated unlawful entry, documented coercion, potential institutional liability.’“What the fuck is this.” I muttered to myself, reading the mail over again word to word.I walked to my desk and stood very still for a moment.Then I picked up my phone to call Amber.“Have you heard anything? About Hazel. About what she’s doing.”“What do you mean?” Amber’s voice was cautious.“Hold on, let me add Chloe to this call.”
Hazel's POVI opened my eyes and caught Jaxon staring at me from his couch. I was surprised that I'd gotten this much sleep after everything that happened last night. After breakfast, we sat together on his couch, watching the footage Brielle handed over to us four times before I wanted to look away.Each replay made my stomach twist harder. The first time, all I could see was myself. The second time, I noticed the pauses. The third time, I caught the way Tiffany kept stopping the recording and making me start again.By the fourth, I couldn't ignore it anymore.My eyes moved toward the left before every retake. My voice sounded flat whenever I repeated a line. Every hesitation, every restart, every correction was right there on the screen.Anyone paying attention would know I wasn't speaking freely. Jaxon set down his phone on the table, disrupting my thoughts."This is enough to stop her." He spoke upI wrapped both hands around my mug. "Stop her, how?""She's been sitting on her ve
Jaxon’s POVI knew Hazel’s stay in the dorm was out of the way. I looked at Hazel sitting in the passenger seat with her arms still wrapped around herself and decided without overthinking it.“I am taking you home with me.. You can't stay here tonight.,” I said.She looked at me. “Jaxon…”“Don’t.” I put the car in drive. “You can argue with me tomorrow.”She didn’t argue. She turned back to the window and watched the campus move past us and said nothing.When we got home, she sat on the couch and pulled her knees up the same way she had done in the car. I went to the kitchen and made tea because it was the most useful thing I could think of that wasn’t talking.I set the mug on the table in front of her.She looked at it, then at me. “Thank you.”“Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “I’m still figuring out what I’m doing.”Something moved at the corner of her mouth. Not quite a smile but close enough that it loosened something in my chest.We sat in silence. I wasn’t going to push it. Whatev
Hazel’s POVI checked my phone after the buzz and it' was a message from an unknown number:["Enjoy tonight while you can. Tomorrow, I will ruin you in front of everybody."]I stared at the screen for a long moment, waiting for the familiar spike of panic to hit me but I felt nothing at all.I let
Jaxon’s POVI caught up to Hazel just as she pushed through the apartment doors holding tightly on her small duffel bag.“Hazel...wait.” But she swung the door shut behind her with a bang that echoed too loud in my chest. She kept walking without turning to look at me. So I jogged after her, and h
Hazel’s POVI didn’t wait around after Coach called Jaxon to his office. The air in the hallway felt poisoned with Tiffany and Trey. I didn’t trust myself not to say something reckless if I stayed, so I walked away and went straight home.Home.The word slipped into my mind so naturally that I actu
Hazel's POV Morning came too fast.I woke up with that hollow feeling in my chest, last night was an horror I hadn't hope to witness. Jaxon was still asleep beneath me, his arm heavy around my waist, his breathing slow and even. The morning sunlight was casting a little glow across the room from







