Chapter 2: Secret Observation

The first rule of spying on someone is that you should not be bad at it. I was very bad at it.

On the first morning of my new career I arrived at macroeconomics twenty minutes early and picked a seat three rows behind Lucas Hale, which I thought was clever. He sat in the same spot every day, left side, aisle, where he could stretch his legs out. I opened my notebook and wrote his name at the top of a fresh page, then felt ridiculous and drew a small box around it so it looked like a task.

By the time the lecture started, I had written four lines. He writes with his left hand. He drinks black coffee from a steel flask, never a paper cup. When he thinks, he presses his thumb against his bottom lip and stares at nothing.

I looked at that last line for a while, then scratched it out.

"Observe subtly," the system reminded me. "Direct staring will reduce your success rate."

"I'm not staring," I whispered into my sleeve. "I'm gathering data."

Twelve seconds later, Lucas turned around in his seat.

He did not look surprised. That was the horrible part. He looked like a man who had found something small and annoying in his kitchen and had been waiting for it to come out of the wall. His eyes went to my face, then to the notebook, then back to my face, and his mouth tilted into a cold little smile that promised a very bad afternoon.

I dropped my pen. It rolled off the desk and across the floor and stopped, perfectly, against the toe of his boot.

He looked at it. He did not pick it up. He just turned back around, slow as a verdict, and spent the rest of the lecture sitting in a way that made it very clear he knew exactly where I was. I took notes about monetary policy for the next hour with my ears burning.

It got worse from there. On Wednesday I followed him toward the gym, keeping a respectful distance of thirty feet, and he stopped to tie his shoe. I stopped too, behind a vending machine, and stood there pretending to read the snack options with the focus of a man deciding the fate of nations. When I peeked out, he was looking straight at me over his shoulder, one knee on the ground, with an expression so murderous I felt it in my teeth.

On Thursday, I tried the library. I hid behind a pillar for almost ten minutes before I realized it was made of glass.

Lucas didn't even look up from his book. He just turned a page and said, loud enough for the whole floor to hear, "Some people have no hobbies."

Three students turned to stare at me, and I left in a hurry.

"Why does he always know?" I asked the system that night, lying face down on my bed. "Every single time. Is he psychic? Is it a gift? Does he have eyes in the back of his head?"

"Insufficient data," said the system.

"You are the worst assistant in the history of assisting."

"Affection level: zero percent."

"I know that, I can feel it!"

The worst part was not being caught. The worst part was Anthony. He still texted me every morning, good morning with three sleepy emojis, and every night, goodnight with a small heart, and I answered every message with a happy face and a lump in my throat. I hated how easy it was to love him. He brought me soup when I skipped lunch. He told me about his sister's wedding plans. He had no idea his sweet new boyfriend was lying to him through a phone screen.

On Friday, the three of us ended up at the same table in the cafeteria, and it was a disaster.

Anthony sat next to me with his knee bumping mine, cheerful as ever, passing me a fry. Lucas sat across from us with a tray he had barely touched. He did not speak to me. He did not look at me. He talked to Anthony about a group project, easy and low, and every few minutes his gaze would flick toward me for half a second and slide away like I was something he wanted to forget.

"You should be careful with him," he said at one point, to Anthony, not to me.

Anthony laughed. "Careful with who?"

"People who show up from nowhere." Lucas picked up his flask and unscrewed the lid. "They tend to want something."

My chest went tight. For one dizzy second I thought he knew everything, the system, the mission, all of it. Then I realized the sentence was only an insult, delivered with perfect politeness over a plate of untouched rice, and I let out a breath I had not known I was holding.

"He's not like that," Anthony said, warm and a little hurt on my behalf.

"I'm sure." Lucas finally turned his eyes on me. They were dark, and steady, and so cold that I forgot what I had been about to say. "I'm sure he's wonderful."

I wanted to be eight hundred miles away. I wanted to be on a small boat in the middle of an ocean with no phone, no system, and no jaw like that one watching me across a cafeteria table.

When Lucas stood to leave, his shoulder brushed the back of my chair. It was so quick I told myself I imagined it.

That night the system finally lost patience.

"Progress report," it said, loud enough to make me wince. "Observation period, seven days. Contact attempts, zero. Target affection, zero percent. Your current strategy is ineffective."

"I'm being careful!"

"You are being cowardly."

"Those are different things."

"Warning," the system continued, ignoring me with real skill. "If no physical contact is made within five days, the penalty clause will activate."

I sat up so fast the blanket slid off the bed. "What penalty clause? You never mentioned a penalty clause!"

"It is mentioned now."

I stared at the dark ceiling, in a body that did not feel like mine, in a world with a man in it who hated me and a deadline that had just gotten shorter. I had five days to touch Lucas Hale without getting killed.