I sit there for a second longer than I should, a familiar, hollow ache spreading in my chest. This is how it always goes. Short and uncomfortable, like we’re both trying to meet somewhere in the middle yet missing each other by just enough that it never quite works.
After dumping the half-drank coffees into a nearby trash and paying the tab, I make my way outside. I pull my phone out as I step onto the sidewalk and fire off a text to Hawk.
On my way.
I pocket the phone and start walking toward Anderson Hall, letting the job push its way to the front of my mind. Work is easier. Clean. Work makes sense.
Hawk is leaning against the wall just inside the entrance, arms crossed, and watching the flow of students coming in and out like he’s been there for hours instead of minutes. He straightens slightly when he sees me. “I’d ask how coffee went, but based on your face, I’m going to make assumptions. You okay?”
“Fine,” I grumble with a sigh, clearly indicating that I am not, in fact, fine.
He studies me for a second, then nods. “All right, let’s retrieve the asset and get to the airport.”
I push through the heavy wooden doors, the smell of chalk dust and old paper hitting me like a wave. Inside, a professor drones about molecular binding affinities in a voice dull enough to flatten the room. Hawk follows immediately behind me. Our heavy bootsteps echo on the polished floors as we make our way down the steps of the stadium toward the front of the lecture hall. Toward the waterfall of dark, wavy hair, sitting three rows from the front. I don’t need to see her face to know it’s her.
The professor falters, his words dying as he takes in our faces. Following his gaze, heads turn inquisitively toward us. She turns, her wide, umber eyes are filled with confusion—then fear—when they find mine. Not dropping her stare, I bark, “We need Mackenzi Bradenburg.”
The lecture hall is a cathedral of controlled chaos. Professor Albright’s low, melodic voice weaves through the complexities of molecular binding affinities and receptor-ligand interactions, dissecting the invisible forces that govern cellular behavior. He’s halfway through deriving the finality of the last step, the chalk moving quickly across the board, his handwriting neat but fast enough that most of the class is struggling to keep up.
I’m not.
I’m not just hearing it; I’m absorbing it. My notebook is already a step ahead, my pen moving steadily as I work through the last line on my own. My pen flies across the page, a frantic dance of symbols and shorthand. This is my language. This, I understand.
School has always been the easy part. It’s navigating the terrain of social interactions that I’ve always found difficult. For as long as I can remember, I was always the youngestperson in the room. Advanced placement classes in middle school, college-level programs before I could even drive, seminar tables filled with students two or three years older than me, discussing theories and experiences I could understand academically but never personally. I learned early on how to keep up, how to sound older, sharper, and more composed than I felt.
But there was always a divide I couldn’t quite cross; while everyone else was sneaking into parties, falling in and out of love, and making reckless mistakes, I was buried beneath coursework and expectations, too busy trying to prove I belonged toactuallybelong anywhere. College was the first place that gap finally started to disappear. For once, I wasn’t the kid everyone underestimated or patronized. I was surrounded by people who spoke the same language as me, who challenged me and understood the obsession of wanting to know more just for the sake of knowing. And then I met Gabe. The first person who didn’t look at me like I was a novelty, but someone he genuinely understood.
At least, I used to think he understood me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, a silent and insistent vibration that I ignore.Again.It’s probably Gabe, sending another string of passive-aggressive texts about how I’m prioritizing my education over our relationship, and how he’s getting tired of feeling like I keep him at a distance whenever things start becoming physically intimate.
I get it. I really do. I’m years behind my peers in ways that matter outside of classrooms and research labs, and now I’m finally with someone who cares about me enough to want to get to know me and want more with me. Part of mewants that, too—wants to stop overthinking every touch, every kiss, and every moment where his hands linger just a little longer, like he’s waiting for me to finally let go.
But whenever things start moving in that direction, something in me tightens instead of softens. A quiet, persistent sense that we’re slightly out of sync, like I’m trying to force myself into a box that is too small. I don’t know what that something is, only that it’s there, sitting heavy in my thoughts, no matter how hard I try to ignore it.
I can deal with Gabe later. Right now, he needs to be at the back of my mind so I can focus on Dr. Albright’s lecture.
The heavy oak doors at the back of the hall groan open, a sacrilegious interruption to class. A collective rustle of annoyance ripples through the two hundred or so students. I don’t bother turning; it’s probably just some latecomer, trying—and failing—to be inconspicuous.
Dr. Albright stops mid-sentence, his mouth slightly agape at the distraction. I finally turn to find two men who look profoundly out of place. They aren’t students, and theydefinitelyaren’t faculty. Both are dressed in dark, tactical-style clothing, which is a stark contrast to the soft flannels and worn denim of the student body. One is slightly graying, with the kind of severe, sculpted features that look carved from marble.
The other looks far rougher around the edges. He has dark hair hastily twisted into a loose man bun and a thick beard shadowing the hard line of his jaw. Tattoos disappear beneath the sleeves of the black Henley, which is shoved up his forearms, and more ink winds over the backs of hishands. His eyes are dark, unreadable, and fixed on me with an intensity that immediately puts me on edge.
“We need Mackenzi Bradenburg,” the dark-haired man orders. It’s not a request but a statement of fact, delivered with the flat finality of a judge’s gavel. Every single head turns, and two hundred pairs of eyes find me. A prickling wave of heat washes over my entire body, yet simultaneously, the blood drains from my face.
This is worse than that dream where you’re naked in class.
“What is this?” Dr. Albright asks, his voice firm but edged with confusion. “You can’t just?—”
“It won’t take long,” the same man interrupts. His tone is calm and controlled. It’s not rude, but not apologetic, either.
My heart, which moments ago was beating in a steady rhythm, is now frantically battering against my ribs. I slowly close my notebook, and theclickof my pen is unnaturally loud in the dead silence. I stand, feeling the weight of two hundred pairs of staring eyes on my back as I gather my things with shaking hands.
I hate that they’re shaking.
I walk the long aisle to the back of the hall, my footsteps echoing in the tomb-like quiet as heat now burns over my cheeks. I keep my head up, my expression a carefully constructed, rehearsed mask of indifference. I will not let them see me crumble. I will not be the ambassador’s fragile daughter.
The dark-haired man steps to the side when I reach them, giving me space to walk toward the door. I pass him andhead out into the hallway. The doors swing shut behind us, cutting off the whispers already beginning to bloom in the lecture hall.
