"Are you going to follow me forever?" I asked on Tuesday afternoon.
Rook kept walking. His heavy sneakers crunched the gravel exactly ten paces behind me.
"This isn't funny," I said, spinning around to face him. "If you think this is some kind of hazing ritual, you can stop."
He halted. His eyes fixed on the dirt path.
"Say something!" I demanded.
Silence.
"Do you even know where you're going?"
He pointed a finger down the trail.
"That leads to the Omega district," I snapped. "No one from school lives down there except me. Why are you doing this?"
He lowered his hand and waited.
I groaned and turned back around, marching all the way to my front porch. I slammed my front door shut. Through the living room window, I watched him stand at the edge of the woods. He didn't leave until I locked the deadbolt.
On Wednesday, the lunch bell rang. I grabbed my brown paper bag and hurried to the old physical education storage room.
When I pulled the heavy metal door open, Rook was already there.
He sat on the floor right outside my hideout. He unwrapped a foil-covered sandwich.
"You can't sit here," I told him.
He took a bite of his food.
"This is my spot," I insisted. "Go to the cafeteria. Go to the library. Anywhere but here."
He chewed quietly.
"If Raven sees you with me, she'll make you a target," I warned. "You don't want that."
He flipped a page in his notebook.
"I'm trying to help you," I huffed.
He didn't look up.
I gave up and sat inside the room, leaving the door cracked open. We ate in complete silence.
Thursday was exactly the same.
"Are you mute?" I asked when he took the desk next to mine in AP Calculus.
He pulled out a pen.
"Fine," I muttered. "Ruin your own high school life."
During passing periods, he walked two steps behind me. When I went to my locker, he leaned against the adjacent bank of metal doors. He never spoke a single word. Three days of absolute, maddening silence.
Friday lunch arrived. I sat on the blue gym mats, eating my apple. Rook sat in the hallway, his broad back resting against the doorframe.
I finished my fruit and pushed the door open to toss the core into the hall bin.
A camera shutter clicked. A bright flash blinded me.
"Caught you," Raven sneered.
She stood in the center of the corridor. Her phone was raised high. A massive crowd of students blocked the hallway, their screens all pointed directly at Rook and me.
"Delete that, Raven," I demanded. My hands began to shake.
"Why?" She laughed, tapping her screen. "The whole school needs to see how the defective Omega spends her lunch breaks. I just sent it to the main group chat."
"We aren't doing anything!" I stepped forward.
"Sure," Mark called out from the back of the crowd. "Just two pathetic runts hiding in the dark. How much are you charging him, Elowen?"
My face burned hot. "Shut up, Mark. We don't even talk."
"Slut," a girl whispered loudly from the front row.
An empty juice box sailed through the air. It smacked hard against my collarbone. I flinched, stumbling backward into the doorframe.
"Stop it!" I shouted over the rising noise.
"You expect us to believe your innocent act?" Raven stepped closer, her phone still recording. "You're desperate. You finally found a male weak enough to tolerate you, and you dragged him into a closet to hook up."
"That's a lie!" I yelled. "Leave us alone!"
A half-eaten orange slammed into my shoulder. Sticky juice splattered across my white shirt.
"Gross," Chloe mocked. "She's practically begging for attention."
"Stop!" I covered my face with my arms.
A crumpled ball of foil bounced off my forehead. An apple core hit my knee. Someone threw a handful of wet paper towels.
Laughter echoed off the lockers, deafening and cruel. The crowd surged forward, boxing me in. The smell of rotting fruit and sour milk filled the air.
"Look at her," Raven taunted. "Can't even defend her own fake boyfriend. What a useless Omega."
I squeezed my eyes shut. The sting of the citrus juice mixed with the sharp ache in my chest. I opened my mouth to argue, but my throat closed up. The unfairness of it all choked me. I was just trying to survive the year. I just wanted to be left alone.
A sob fought its way up my throat.
The metal hinges of the storage door shrieked.
Rook stood up.
The temperature in the hallway plummeted. A suffocating, crushing weight slammed into the corridor. It shoved against my lungs, forcing me to my knees. The air grew so thick it felt like breathing water.
The laughter died instantly.
Phones clattered to the linoleum floor.
Mark grabbed his throat, his face turning purple. He dropped to the ground, gasping for air. Chloe whimpered, pressing her back against a locker, sliding down until she hit the floor.
Raven stumbled backward. Her eyes widened with absolute terror.
"You're... you're an Alpha," she choked out.
Rook didn't yell. His voice was dangerously quiet, cutting through the silence like a blade. "Delete the pictures."
Raven froze, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
Rook took one step forward. The pressure in the air doubled. The metal lockers rattled. "I said, delete them. Now."
Raven fumbled with her phone. Her fingers shook wildly as she tapped the screen. "Done. They're gone."
"Now fix the rumors you just posted," Rook ordered.
"I... I will," she stammered, tears pooling in her eyes. "I promise."
"If you ever bother her again," Rook tilted his head, his tone entirely flat, "I will stop holding back. Do you understand?"
Raven nodded frantically. She spun around and bolted down the hall. Her lackeys scrambled after her, abandoning their dropped garbage and fleeing as fast as their legs could carry them.
The hallway emptied in seconds.
The crushing weight vanished from the air. I stayed on the floor, my fingers clutching the hem of my juice-stained shirt. My shoulder throbbed where the orange had hit me.
I looked up at Rook.
My vision blurred. A single tear escaped, but I wiped it away fiercely.
"Thank you," I whispered.
He looked down at me. His expression didn't change. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't ask if I was hurt.
He just turned around and walked toward the exit.
"Wait," I called out.
He didn't stop. The heavy double glass doors swung shut behind him.
I sat alone among the scattered trash. The physical pain lingered, but beneath it, my heart hammered a frantic, chaotic rhythm against my ribs. A strange flutter bloomed in my chest, entirely foreign and terrifying.
Why did an Alpha protect me? And why did my skin still burn where his gaze had landed?
