MasukLiam's POVShe nodded once when I asked her if she had gotten the recording.That was all I needed."Come on," I said.She fell into step beside me without a word. In the stairwell I glanced at her once and she was looking straight ahead, jaw set, bag strap in her hand. I did not ask how she was. I knew how she was. She was doing what she always did, holding it at arm's length long enough to finish the job.Tate was already waiting in the corridor outside the dean's office on the ground floor, standing with his hands in his pockets and a look on his face that was the careful neutral expression of someone who had been here for twenty minutes and had been keeping it together. When he saw us coming he pushed off the wall and nodded once."Administrator Hargrove is inside," he said quietly. "She's been very receptive.""Good," I said. "Did she ask any questions?""A few. About the timeline. About who else might have been involved." He glanced at Avery. "I kept it general. Thought it was b
Avery's POVThe morning lectures were the longest of my life.I sat at the back of the statistics room with my notes in front of me and my hand moving across the page and absolutely none of what the Professor was saying going in. The recording device was against my ribs under my jumper, taped in place. I had tested it three times at home before I left and I had checked it again in the campus bathroom at half past eight and I had made myself stop checking after that because checking it a fourth time was not going to make this Friday afternoon go differently.Liam had texted at nine: 'device is working. I tested it on the way to your place last night. You are good.'I had not replied because I did not have anything to say to that.Priya was beside me in the statistics lecture and she spent the whole hour in what I could only describe as deliberate normalness, asking me before it started whether I had done the reading, telling me something about the biology seminar boy, not asking me any
Avery's POV We stood in my hallway with the door closed behind him. He reached into his jacket pocket and put a small device on the hall table between us. "Tate got it," he said. "It records up to four hours. You just press the button on the side and keep it in your pocket or tucked into your clothes somewhere. He will not see it." I looked at it for a moment. It was smaller than I expected. About the size of a USB drive. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand. It was strange that something this small could be the thing that changed everything. Or nothing. Depending on how tomorrow went. "You go in at the agreed time," Liam said. "You let him run the session. Whatever he says, whatever he does, it goes on tape. Then you walk out and we take it to the dean's office together. That is all you have to do." "Okay," I said. He looked at me. "That is it? Okay?" "That is it. It is a good plan. It is the right plan." "I thought you would argue with me more." "Why would I do that
Liam's POVIt was getting late. So I told Avery I would think of a solution and let her know before tomorrow. I went back to my house and sat on my bed and was even more angry than I was when she told be about the situation.It was funny to me that what she was going through got to me. This was because I was getting close to Avery just to piss Jade off. But here I was, getting properly angry at a plight she had. I knew I should have been angry that she tried to change me from being her project partner, but I knew she was doing it then to please her bestie Jade. Unfortunately, Jade was not appreciative of her sacrifices.Frankly, I was also pissed at Jade, because if she didn't come up with the whole territorial nonsense, Avery wouldn't be going through this case of sexual harassment. Now Avery was in trouble and Jade was still nowhere to be found to help her out of it.I knew exactly what the problem was. Avery had laid it out clearly. There was no evidence. There were no witnesses. I
Avery's POVThursday morning I walked past the dean's office on my way to the library.I stopped on the pavement outside and stood there. The steps going up to the entrance were eight steps. I had counted them. I had been counting them in my head for a while without going up them.I thought about walking up. I thought about sitting across a desk from an administrator and starting the sentence that needed starting, and I could not find the beginning of it because it all circled back to the same dead end.No evidence. No witnesses. His word against mine.I walked to the library.I walked past it again in the afternoon. Nothing had changed. I kept walking.Thursday evening I was sitting on my bed with my coursework open in front of me and going nowhere when the doorbell rang. My mum was at work. Dean was wherever Dean was. I looked at the coursework for a second longer, knowing I was not going to get any further with it, then went downstairs and opened the door.Liam was standing on my f
Avery's POVJade was sitting at the far end of the table with her bag on the chair beside her and a cup of coffee in her hands, looking at us like she had not been sure which one of us was going to come through the door first."What are you doing here," Liam said."I just came to see how the project was going. I was on campus anyway.""You study at the other building," he said."I know that. I am allowed to walk to this one." She looked at me. "Is it okay? I am not trying to be in the way. I will go in five minutes.""It is fine, Jade," I said.She stayed for about fifteen minutes. She did not ask about the project. She did not ask much at all, really. She sat with her coffee and made small talk about nothing in particular. The library being overcrowded, a seminar she was behind on, and the whole time she was doing it I could feel her watching. Not obviously. Not the way she had watched me at the cafe. Just a quiet, careful attention to the space between me and Liam. The way our eyes
Avery's POVFor a moment nobody said anything.Jade stood two steps below us on the library steps with her shopping bag in her hand. I wondered how she knew where we were. Either way, the look on her face was not the quiet, contained version of hurt she had worn all afternoon at practice. This was
Avery's POVBrianna definitely had it coming and I wasn't going to let her get away with making me look bad this time.“I'll see you later.” Priya said and I watched her walk away.I took deep breaths to pace myself before springing into action that definitely would have consequences.I stood at th
Avery's POVI was driving.Jade had offered but I had the keys already and we both knew the real reason was that I needed something to do with my hands on the way to cheer practice that afternoon. She sat in the passenger seat with one earbud in and her chin resting on her hand and she watched the
Avery's POVI sat in the car for a moment.He had not moved. He was still on Jade's front step with his elbows on his knees and his eyes on me through the windscreen. Technically it was his home too because he lived there now. The headlights were still on and they brightened the atmosphere a bit an







