Chapter 17: Something in the Locker Room.

The knock startled both of us.

It was sharp but soft, hesitant—the kind that comes with caution and worry. I shifted back from Aiden instinctively, though we weren’t touching anymore.

The blanket was pooled around our hips, the soft blue glow of his lamp still casting sleepy gold across his wall.

He blinked toward the door, his body going still.

“Aiden?” It was his mom’s voice, low but firm through the wood. “If you two are staying in there together, I need that door open. I can’t afford to deal with teen pregnancy on top of a murder investigation.”

My lips parted in a stunned breath. Aiden’s eyes widened like someone had hit him in the face with a wet towel. I tried not to laugh.

He groaned quietly, dragging a hand down his face. “Jesus Christ.”

“Door,” his mom reminded.

“I got it,” he called back, voice loud enough.

He threw the blanket off and crossed the room to crack the door. Light spilled in, catching on the outline of his shoulders. His mom lingered just outside, her arms crossed, her expression a tight line of love and fatigue.

She met my eyes briefly. I didn’t flinch or look away.

“Thank you,” she said to him—softer this time. Then disappeared back down the hall.

Aiden closed the door again but left it ajar, as instructed, before dragging himself back to the bed. He dropped onto it with a sigh and a muttered, “Kill me.”

I watched him in the low light, the way he flopped back and stared at the ceiling. He looked like a boy trying to make sense of a world.

A boy who didn’t know the girl in his bed wasn’t even human.

“You okay?” I asked quietly.

He turned his head toward me, gave me a tired half-smile. “I don’t think I’ve been okay since they found Ash’s body in my yard.”

I didn’t answer. I wanted to talk about something else. Forced a smile even.

“Maybe your mom’s right. We should keep things rated PG until this case isn’t hanging over your head.”

He laughed—genuine, if short—and turned toward me. “You’re staying, right?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, curling my legs beneath the blanket again. “Just sleep.”

“Okay.”

He got up and arranged blankets something on the floor beside the bed and placed a pillow.

“I’ll be on the floor, just in case.”

He hesitated a beat longer, then pushed the blanket off and stood. I watched as he pulled an extra blanket from the closet and grabbed a pillow off the bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Being smart,” he muttered, tossing the pillow to the floor beside the bed. “I’ll sleep here. Just in case my mom walks by and decides I’m officially grounded until I’m thirty.”

He gave a half-hearted grin, trying to play it casual, but I caught the flicker of guilt in his eyes. Like he thought it was wrong to even want comfort right now. Like being close to me might be one more thing he didn’t deserve.

I didn’t argue. Didn’t offer to pull him back up.

Instead, I sat quietly on the edge of the mattress, legs tucked to my chest, watching him spread the blanket on the floor like it was penance. His shoulders were stiff. He was trying too hard to look okay.

When he finally settled in, he exhaled—slow, deliberate. I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, pretending I was drifting.

I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, pretending I was drifting.

Seconds turned to minutes. Minutes crawled.

Then I heard his voice, quiet from below:

“Noah?”

“Yeah?”

He didn’t say anything for a second.

“Thanks for staying.”

I closed my eyes, pulse thick behind my teeth.

“Always.”

Morning came quicker than I expected.

The sky outside Aiden’s window had barely shifted from indigo to ash, but the tension in the house was already rising—voices low but urgent behind closed doors. His mother knocked softly around six, telling him to get ready. I didn’t move from where I sat curled on the bed, but I could feel the weight of the day settling in already.

We didn’t say much as we got dressed.

There was nothing left to say that hadn’t already been said in silence.

Aiden’s eyes were heavy, his body moving like every step cost him something. But when his parents called for him, he straightened—put on the version of himself that could survive a police station and two furious parents. I watched him tug on a hoodie, glance once back at me.

“I’ll call you,” he said quietly.

I nodded. “I know.”

And just like that, we parted ways—he slipping into the car with his parents, headed for the station to prove he hadn’t killed someone. And me?

I went to school.

It felt ridiculous even as I walked through the gates. Kids were laughing, pushing each other around in the parking lot, sipping iced coffee, talking about whatever show dropped last night like the world wasn’t bleeding in the cracks. Like someone hadn’t died.

Ash’s absence was a silence no one knew how to name.

I walked through the halls and could feel the eyes. Some curious, some cautious. Some are pretending not to care. I didn’t meet any of them. Just kept moving, one foot in front of the other, as if I wasn’t a storm barely held together by skin and discipline.

I was starving. But not for actual food.

The craving lived beneath my ribs now, deep and patient. It whispered in the scent of passing bodies, pulsed behind every heartbeat I could hear too clearly. My jaw ached from clenching it. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

A teacher called something after me—maybe about class, maybe about where I’d been yesterday—but it was all static. I nodded without stopping.

Just make it through the day, I told myself.

Just long enough for Aiden to get through his questioning. Long enough to figure out what the hell comes next.

But something was wrong.

I turned the corner by the lockers near the back stairwell and—

He was there.

Sebastian.

Leaning against the lockers like he hadn’t smiled with blood behind his teeth and told me Aiden was already dying.

Like he hadn’t pulled me close and made me question everything I thought I could control.

He looked up, met my eyes instantly—like he’d been waiting. Like he knew I’d be here, at this exact moment, threading the needle between composure and collapse.

“Noah,” he said smoothly, voice too calm for this hallway. “You look… drained.”

I stopped walking. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t blink.

I didn’t move. I couldn’t—not because I was afraid, but because I didn’t trust myself not to react.

“Don’t you think…”—he tilted his head, eyes dragging across me—“you need a snack?”

My jaw tightened. “You need to back off.”

I scanned the hallway. A few students lingered down the corridor, oblivious. The bell hadn’t rung yet. I had time—but not much.

“I’m not playing this game with you,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Not here.”

He stepped closer—too close. His presence curled around mine like smoke. “It’s not a game, Noah. It’s a choice. You can keep pretending you’re not what you are. Or you can start thinking about who you’ll be when the mask slips.”

He tilted his head, and for a split second, something ancient flickered in his expression. Hunger. Pride. Possession.

“You’re starving,” he whispered. “I can help you.”

I stepped forward too, my voice dropping into a growl. “If I wanted help, God knows you’d be the last person I’d ever turn to, Sebastian.”

His eyes sparkled. He liked the edge in my voice too much.

“Even if there’s a fresh snack waiting?” he said, with a smirk that curled like a hook in my ribs.

But before I could speak—before I could even think of how to react—

A scream ripped through the hallway.

Sharp. Human. Real.

Every head turned toward the sound. A girl—a sophomore, I thought—was stumbling out from the stairwell that led to the gym.

Her face was bone-white. Her eyes stretched wide.

“There’s a…” she stammered, voice shaking. “There’s a body in the gym locker room!!”