Shadows on Campus

CHAPTER 2:

By Monday morning, the noise in Eleanor’s head hadn't quieted down. If anything, the bright autumn sunlight cutting across the Georgia State campus made every sensory input twice as sharp.

She sat in the back row of her political economy lecture hall, pressing the heels of her palms against her temples. The professor’s voice echoed off the whiteboards, but so did the quiet tapping of seventy different keyboards, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum, and the quiet whisper of two students three rows down complaining about their weekend grades.

Amaya slid into the folding seat beside her, dropping a cold iced coffee onto Eleanor’s desk. "Drink up. You look like you’re about to fight a wall."

"Thanks," Eleanor murmured, wrapping her cold hands around the plastic cup. The condensation felt sharp against her skin. "I think I’m coming down with something."

"Or you’re just losing your mind," Amaya said with a quick grin, opening her notebook. "You’ve been jumping at your own shadow since Friday."

"I'm not jumping at shadows."

"El, you nearly threw a book at your roommate on Saturday because she dropped a spoon."

Eleanor didn't have a good answer for that, so she took a long sip of her coffee and tried to focus on the projector screen at the front of the room. But the air in the lecture hall shifted.

The heavy double doors at the back clicked open.

A quiet, subtle hush moved through the room not because the professor stopped talking, but because the students near the aisle naturally cleared a path. Three people walked in late.

In the lead was Ethan Blackthorne.

Eleanor had seen his name on university donor plaques and regional business news feeds, but seeing him in person was different. He moved with a cold, effortless confidence, wearing a tailored charcoal coat over a black sweater. He looked less like a senior in college and more like a man who ran a board meeting before breakfast. Behind him walked his long-time girlfriend, Sienna Sterling, alongside another guy Eleanor didn't recognize.

Sienna was flawless, her sharp blonde hair clipped back, wearing a cream blazer that screamed old Southern money. She slid into a seat in the middle row, but Ethan paused at the aisle, his dark eyes scanning the elevated rows.

When his gaze landed on Eleanor, he stopped.

A strange, physical jolt snapped through Eleanor’s chest—like a faint spark of electricity leaping across the gap between them. Her breath hitched in her throat. Ethan’s jaw tightened, his amber flecked eyes narrowing with a sharp, cold intensity that sent a wave of heat straight down her spine.

"Who is that?" Eleanor whispered, unable to look away.

Amaya glanced over, leaning close. "You don't know Ethan Blackthorne? His family owns half the commercial real estate between here and Savannah. Total corporate aristocracy. That’s Sienna Sterling next to him her dad’s a high level state diplomat. They’ve been together since high school."

"He's staring," Eleanor muttered, her heart thumping uncomfortably against her ribs.

"He stares at everyone like they owe him money," Amaya replied softly. "Just ignore him. The Blackthornes don't mix with regular humans."

Humans. The word hung in the air for a fraction of a second, but Eleanor brushed it off as a figure of speech.

Ethan finally broke eye contact and sat down next to Sienna, who immediately placed a hand on his forearm, leaning in to whisper something in his ear. Ethan nodded absently, but Eleanor caught the stiff posture of his shoulders. He wasn't paying attention to Sienna. He was sitting completely still, as if every nerve in his body was pulled taut toward the back of the room.

For the rest of the ninety minute class, Eleanor couldn't focus. Her skin felt hot, prickling as if she were standing too close to an open flame.

When class finally ended, the students spilled out into the humid afternoon air toward Hurt Park. Amaya pulled Eleanor toward a table on the green where the campus art committee was setting up for an evening showcase.

"Help me unpack these banner stands," Amaya said, tossing Eleanor a roll of heavy mounting tape. "Get your mind off whatever bug you're fighting."

Eleanor took the tape, working in silence, but as the sun began to dip behind the downtown skyline, the pressure behind her eyes returned with a vengeance. Her vision flickered. For a split second, the green grass lost its color, washed out in stark grey, while the heat signatures of the people walking past stood out like glowing embers.

"El?" Amaya’s voice sounded muffled, like she was shouting through water. "Hey, El!"

"I need to go to the bathroom," Eleanor choked out, dropping the tape.

She turned and practically ran toward the library building, her boots slapping against the concrete. She burst through the glass doors, ignoring the quiet warnings of the desk staff, and ducked into the private restrooms down the back hallway.

She slammed the door shut, locking it, and gripped the edges of the porcelain sink. Her body was burning up, a fever spiking so fast her clothes felt like lead weight against her skin. Panting, she lifted her head to look into the mirror above the sink to splash cold water on her face.

Eleanor froze.

The woman looking back at her in the glass didn't look sick.

Her dark pupils had contracted to tiny pinpricks, surrounded by rings of bright, irrefutable, luminous gold. The light hummed in her irises, glowing in the dim bathroom like a predator’s in the night.

Eleanor gasped, stumbling back into the wall, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she stared at her reflection.

What is happening to me?