All Chapters of My Professor’s Obsession: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

"The satellite dish on the roof is dead, Sera, so stop staring at the static and come away from the window before someone sees the light from your phone," Caspian said.He was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his silhouette framed by the peeling wallpaper of the hallway. He looked tired. Not just 'didn't sleep on the drive' tired, but the kind of tired that gets into your bones when you realize the world is smaller than you thought. He held a bottle of lukewarm beer in one hand and a burner phone in the other."I’m not looking for news, Caspian. I’m looking for a signal," I said, holding my phone high toward the cracked ceiling. "I need to tell Vane’s doctors where we are. He’s upstairs shaking under a wool blanket in ninety-degree heat. He thinks the trees are talking to him.""Vane is fine. He’s coming down from a week of being a hostage. Let him sleep it off," Caspian replied, his voice flat. He walked over and gently took the phone out of my hand. "No signals. No pings. If

"Sit down, Sera, because if you keep pacing that floorboard like it’s a jury box, you’re going to fall through the rot and I’m going to have to call a local sheriff I’d rather not meet," Caspian said.He was sitting on the edge of the oversized, moth-eaten sofa in the parlor. The only light came from a single lantern he’d placed on the floor, casting long, skeletal shadows against the walls. He was cleaning his glasses with a piece of silk, his fingers moving with a precision that felt too calm for a man whose face was currently a national emergency."I can't sit down," I said, stopping by the window to peer through the heavy velvet drapes. "Every time a cricket chirps, I think it’s a drone. Every time the wind hits the moss, I think it’s someone stepping onto the porch. How are you so still?""Because being still is the only thing I have left that they can't take," he replied. He put his glasses back on and looked at me. "Come here. Please."I walked over, but I didn't sit on the sof

"Answer it, Sera, because if that phone vibrates against the floorboards one more time, I’m going to throw it into the swamp and we’ll never know who’s trying to sell us out," Caspian said.He was leaning against the mahogany banister, watching me with eyes that looked like bruised glass. He hadn't touched the files on the floor yet. He just stood there, letting the weight of my father’s signature hang between us like a thick, poisonous fog.The burner phone—the one Elias had smuggled to us—was buzzing near my foot. The caller ID was a string of zeros, but I knew the rhythm of the person on the other end. It was the third time in ten minutes."I'm not supposed to talk to anyone," I whispered, my hand shaking as I reached for the plastic casing. "You said every call is a breadcrumb.""It’s Sloane," Caspian said, his voice flat. "I recognize the area code prefix she’s using to bounce the signal. She’s been calling me, too. If she’s this desperate, the breadcrumbs don't matter anymore. T

"Pack your things and get out of this room, Sera, because I can’t look at you and the ghost of your mother at the same time without wanting to set this entire house on fire," Caspian said.He was standing by the window of the study, the morning sun hitting the silver in his hair and making him look older, harder, and entirely unreachable. The ledger was still open on the desk, the names of our ruined families staring up at us like a list of casualties. He hadn't slept. I could tell by the way his shoulders were hiked up to his ears and the way his hand was white-knuckling the back of a chair."I'm not going anywhere until you stop talking to me like I’m a student who failed a test," I said, my voice echoing in the stale air of the library. "We just found out our parents were friends. We found out Arthur Calloway is a thief. Why are you pushing me away now?""Because you're a liability!" he roared, turning on me so fast I flinched. His eyes were bloodshot and wild. "Do you understand w

"Two coffees, black, and if you touch that sugar caddy one more time, Vane, I’m going to make you pay the tip with your own allowance," I said, sliding into the vinyl booth of a diner that smelled like old grease and new beginnings.Vane looked at me like I’d grown a second head. He’d never seen me like this. Not this sharp. Not this loud. "I don't have an allowance anymore, Sera. We don't have anything. Why are you acting like we’re on a lunch break from a job you don't have?""Because I’m going to have one by three o'clock," I told him, tapping my knuckles against the laminate table. "And you’re going to stay in that library down the street and finish your GED prep. No more 'accidental brides.' No more hiding in penthouses. We’re going to be boring, normal people who pay rent in cash."The waitress came over, her name tag saying Martha. She looked at my cheap gas-station dress and then at the way I was holding myself—shoulders back, chin up, eyes scanning the room like I was looking