LOGIN"Stop it, Jess." I feel the heat climbing up my neck before she's even finished the sentence.Jess grins wider. She has always had the specific gift of finding the exact pressure point and pressing it with absolute precision and zero remorse. "I'm just saying — the CEO's wife, using the staff elevator, no announcement, no entourage — very mysterious. Very romantic." She sighs theatrically. "He's in a meeting, by the way. Probably another hour.""I'll wait in his office.""Of course you will."I move through the open floor plan — the long rows of desks, the familiar hum of keyboards, the particular concentrated energy of a floor full of people who are extremely good at pretending they aren't looking at me while looking directly at me. I've walked this space before. Spent a month navigating it as an intern, invisible and unremarkable, learning the rhythms of this building from the bottom.I am not invisible anymore.Every hea
Felicity stares at Adam like he just spoke in a language she doesn't have the capacity to process."What did you say?" Her voice comes out cracked at the edges, all that carefully reconstructed composure fracturing in real time.Adam doesn't repeat himself. He doesn't need to. He turns to Director Harmon with the clean, unhurried certainty of someone who made this decision before he walked through the door and has no interest in being argued out of it."I'll take the role," he says. "Give us the two weeks."Director Harmon looks between us — me, Adam, Felicity, the wreckage of whatever just happened in this office — and makes the calculation that a woman in her position makes when the most magnetic student on campus hands her exactly the outcome that's best for the school's centennial event."Done," she says. "Rehearsals start tomorrow. Don't waste the time."We file out.The hallway outside the administrative offices is w
Felicity lunges.Not at me. At Chloe — hand raised, fury past the point of calculation, moving with the blind momentum of someone who has stopped caring what happens next as long as something breaks.She doesn't get there.My hand closes around her wrist in the same half-second her arm swings, and muscle memory — ten years of Taekwondo, ten years of early mornings and bruised knuckles and my body learning to move before my brain catches up — takes over completely.One pivot. One pull. One clean, practiced throw.Felicity hits the auditorium floor on her back with a sound that echoes off every wall.The room goes absolutely silent.Even I'm briefly surprised at myself.Felicity lies there for three full seconds — stunned, winded, staring at the ceiling with the expression of someone whose brain hasn't caught up with what just happened to their body. Around her, everyone has gone perfectly, identically sti
I grab Julian's hand and we run.Through the wings, past the lighting rig, into the backstage corridor where the noise from the auditorium chases us like something alive — four hundred voices compressed into a single desperate frequency, crashing against the walls and the ceiling and every surface between us and escape.I snatch a coat off the rack as we pass — props department, dark wool, anonymous — and shove it at him without slowing down. "Hood up. Now."Julian pulls it on without argument. For a man who has probably never worn anything under three thousand dollars in his adult life, he does not complain about the costume rack coat. This is why I genuinely like him.We hit the back door at full speed and burst out into the daylight.Behind us — nothing. No one. The back exit of Aldridge opens onto a service path that runs behind the science buildings, and it's empty, and for one full second we both just stand there breat
Eight fifty AM.Ten minutes to curtain.I'm standing in the wings of Aldridge Auditorium looking out at the seats, and I'm counting.Fourteen people.Fourteen — including our stage crew, Chloe's study group friends who came as a loyalty gesture, and one freshman who wandered in thinking it was a different event and hasn't figured out his mistake yet.Chloe appears at my shoulder, close enough that I can hear her without her having to raise her voice. "Felicity's souvenirs worked," she says quietly. "She had people stationed at every path leading here. Anyone who even glanced toward Aldridge got intercepted and handed a gift bag with directions to Harmon."I exhale slowly through my nose."How bad is Harmon?""Standing room. Line out the door." She pauses. "I'm sorry, Allie."I look at those fourteen faces scattered across three hundred seats and feel something hollow open in the center of my chest — not defea
The moment the costume rack rolls under the stage lights, everything shifts.I watch it happen in real time — my team, who forty minutes ago looked like soldiers standing in a bombed-out field, transforming into something else entirely. Tyler lifts a doublet from the rack and holds it up against his chest and lets out a low, reverent whistle. One of the stage crew runs her fingers along a prop sword hilt with the focused attention of someone cataloguing something beautiful. Chloe moves through the costume rail methodically, checking each piece, and I can see from the set of her shoulders the exact moment she realizes these aren't just replacements.They're better.Everything Felicity destroyed was borrowed school inventory — old, worn at the seams, serviceable but faded. What George sent over is production quality. The fabric has weight. The detailing is hand-stitched. The costumes look like they were built for this exact play, for these exact people
“Allie, what’s going on with you?” Scarlett leaned in, gently patting Allie’s flushed face.Allie’s skin was burning, and Scarlett quickly realized something was seriously wrong.“Allie, you’ve got a fever—a bad one,” Scarlett murmured, her voice tinged with worry.Earlier that day, an offhand comm
Allie’s heart pounded as Liam’s sharp gaze bore into her. The intensity in his eyes made her uneasy, though she’d never admit it.Her skin was dotted with an embarrassing rash, covering more than she cared to mention. The idea of asking Liam for help? Out of the question. Yet, here he was, standing
Julian Ford shut the car door with a casual grin. "What’s wrong with me this time, Allie?"Allison "Allie" Brooks folded her arms, trying to steady herself. She wanted to tell him to leave her alone once and for all, but she knew Julian well enough to know that wouldn’t work. He wasn’t the type to
Allie watched as Liam leaned in closer. His warm breath brushed against her ear, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine.Her voice trembled as she closed her eyes tightly. “Stop it, Liam! Get away from me! Just leave me alone!”Liam smirked, his amusement barely concealed. He was deliberately







