*Trigger warnings* Insomnia, despair, grief. Possible possessed fridges????
I've stopped sleeping again.
Not just the usual shallow, blink-and-it's-morning kind of insomnia—I mean truly not sleeping. Three, four days deep. My bones buzz. My thoughts rot at the edges. Everything tastes like copper and regret.
She's been sitting beside me in third period all week.
She never says a word.
Doesn't look at me unless she thinks I'm not paying attention. And maybe I'm not. Not fully. It's hard to focus when your stomach's in freefall every time she shifts in her seat.
It's subtle—what she does. Like the air around her is slightly off-tune. Wrong in a way you can't describe. A breath too sharp. A shadow too long.
The heaviness hits as soon as she walks in. It clings to her like static, seeps off her skin and folds into the spaces between my ribs.
Every time she gets close, it's like falling face-first into grief you didn't earn. Like watching something terrible happen and realizing you're the only one who can feel it.
And the worst part?
No one else notices.
They don't see how people fidget when she walks past. How their smiles falter. How they blink too hard, trying to remember what they were just thinking.
They don't see the way she watches people—like she's cataloging the damage.
I've scoured every corner of the internet now.
Psychic energy fields. Bioelectrical interference. Cursed lineage. Russian military experiments in the '80s. Carrion Touch.
I know it sounds insane. Trust me, I want it to sound insane. But once you see the pattern, it's hard to unsee it. The theories overlap. Stories line up. Places. Symptoms. People like her—if they're even people at all—tend to disappear. Change schools. Change names. Leave cold trails behind them and ruined kids in their wake.
And somehow… she ended up here.
In this fluorescent-lit hellhole of a school with mold in the ceiling tiles and underpaid teachers and students who don't ask questions as long as you leave them alone.
The hallway after third period feels like it's pressing in on itself. Kids flood out of classrooms like they've just escaped prison. The floor squeaks under wet shoes. Lockers slam open and shut in uneven rhythm. The world keeps moving like it has somewhere better to be.
And there she is.
Her locker's near the end of the hall, right under a flickering light. Of course it is. She's methodical with the combination, like she's counting something in her head. Copper hair tucked behind one ear. Leather jacket stiff at the shoulders. Like armor.
I hesitate. Two lockers down. Then one. Then I'm just standing there, unsure of what exactly I thought I was going to say.
She doesn't look up.
I clear my throat. Pathetic.
"Hey," I start, my voice sounding like I haven't used it in weeks. "I'm Dorian."
Nothing for a beat. Two.
Then she turns, slow. Eyes heavy-lidded, dark brown and too still. Like she's looking through me. Like she already knows me and isn't sure she likes what she sees.
"Ardere," she says.
That's it.
Not 'nice to meet you.' Not 'hey back.'
Just her name, delivered flat. But there's weight in it. Like she's testing whether I can hold it.
I nod once, trying to look unfazed. "Cool name."
Her lips twitch like the idea of smiling got halfway there and gave up.
The silence that follows is long enough to become a second language. Her locker stays open. My heart does something stupid against my ribs. I think about saying something else. Something funny. Something sarcastic. Something that might get her to talk more.
But I don't.
Because whatever invisible thing coils around her—the thing that presses against my chest every time she's near—is already tightening.
And I get the sense that the longer I stand here, the harder it's going to be to breathe.
I should've walked away.
That would've been smart. Self-preserving. Normal.
But I linger. Like a moth too stupid to recognize the burn before it hits the flame.
She turns back to her locker. Doesn't say anything else. Doesn't need to. The silence is too thick now. Like molasses in my lungs. But I press on anyway.
"So…you're new here?" I offer, like an idiot. Like I haven't already done a full deep dive through every public record I could find.
She nods.
That's it.
I press my thumbnail into my palm to stay grounded, but my skin feels numb. The air's changed again—subtle, sour, cold around the edges. A headache blooms behind my eyes. Something low and slow, like a bruise forming in my brain.
And still, I keep talking.
"Where'd you transfer from?"
Another pause. Too long. Like she had to run the question through some kind of internal firewall.
"Up north," she says.
Her voice is low. Smooth. Like static on a vinyl record. And if I were thinking clearly, I might notice how careful she is with every word. But thinking's getting harder.
I nod like that explains something. Like anything about this makes sense.
"You like it here?"
She looks at me for the first time. Not through me. At me.
There's something in her eyes I can't pin down. Pity, maybe. Or warning.
"No," she says.
And then—salvation, or maybe the opposite—he appears.
The tall one.
The one she's always with.
He's already walking up before I hear him. Like he stepped out of the cracks in the floor. Broad shoulders. Cold eyes. Expression blank in that way that's too practiced to be neutral.
His hand doesn't touch her, but it's close. Like even he knows better.
"Ardere," he says, voice low. Like a command cloaked in velvet.
She glances at him. Then at me. And then without another word, she shuts her locker and follows.
Just like that.
Gone.
I stand there for a second too long, trying to remember how to breathe. The headache's worse now. The kind that presses behind the eyes and flattens everything.
All for a name.
All for nothing.
But the worst part?
Even as they walk away, even as the pressure lifts, I can still feel the ghost of it—the way she looked at me. Not curious. Not cold.
Like she knew.
Like she's seen this before.
Like she's already mourning the ending.
****
The fridge's hum is louder tonight.
Not physically. Just…in the way it seeps into everything. It buzzes through the drywall and under my skin, vibrating in my teeth like a warning I'm too tired to interpret. I haven't slept in—I don't know. Two days? Three?
Time feels sticky.
I lie on the floor in the kitchen, head tilted toward the fridge like I'm waiting for it to say something. It doesn't, obviously. Just keeps humming, steady and low. Comforting, if I pretend hard enough. Maddening, if I don't.
I close my eyes and picture her.
Ardere.
Her face is still carved into the inside of my skull. Not pretty, not in the way people write songs about. But vivid. Real. Like she exists in a higher resolution than the rest of us. Too sharp around the edges.
The ache behind my eyes pulses. I can still feel it—the emotional chokehold that kicked in the second I got too close. That moment in the hallway. That look she gave me.
I open my laptop. The screen's too bright in the dark. I squint through the burn and dive in again.
Symptoms of sudden depression
Electromagnetic sensitivity
Spiritual energy transfer
Aura poisoning
Psychic vampirism
My search history reads like the diary of someone halfway into madness. I scroll, click, skim. None of it fits. Or maybe all of it does.
I tap my fingers on the countertop. The rhythm syncs with the fridge.
Tap-tap-hum. Tap-tap-hum.
She's not normal. And neither is that guy.
The way he moved between us. The way she followed without hesitation.
I don't think he's her boyfriend. I think he's her leash.
Or her cage.
But what does that make me?
A bystander? A witness? A target?
The headache crests again. I shut the laptop. Hard. It echoes through the kitchen like a shot.
The hum doesn't flinch.
I sit there in the dark and let it buzz through me.
It's all unraveling. School, sleep, basic brain function. I think something's wrong with me. Or maybe something's finally been knocked loose enough to see clearly. Like the fridge—ancient, unreliable, always running.
Always humming.
I've got my hood up, head down, one ear tuned to the droning lecture and the other chasing the rhythm of my own pulse. I don't even notice the seat beside me fill until the smell hits—faint, like smoke clinging to fabric long after the fire's gone out.
Ardere.
I don't look at her. Not right away. Eye contact with her feels like it might knock something loose in my skull. But I feel her. Not in a normal "there's-a-person-next-to-me" way. It's heavier than that. Like gravity tilts slightly in her direction, just enough to make my insides lean toward her.
Then, quietly, like she's not sure if she's talking to me or just thinking too loud:
"You always look like you haven't slept in a week."
I blink. Turn. Meet her gaze.
Brown eyes—dark, tired, but focused. There's a flicker in them I haven't seen before. Not apathy. Not avoidance. Curiosity.
Or maybe concern.
"Maybe I haven't," I murmur.
She lifts an eyebrow. Not mocking, not surprised—just taking it in, like she's collecting data.
"No dreams?"
I blink again. That wasn't the question I expected.
"No sleep," I correct.
A pause. Then:
"Hm." She glances down at her desk. "Sounds worse."
"It is."
Another pause. The hum is back, not from the fridge this time, but from her. The echo of that weight she carries. That she gives off. I shift in my seat, instinct screaming to retreat. I don't.
"I've seen you watching," she says suddenly, not looking at me. "The others don't notice. But I do."
I open my mouth. Close it.
She turns just slightly, eyes still averted, as if eye contact might be dangerous.
"You should stop."
She doesn't talk again the next day.
But she sits beside me.
No one else does. No one ever does, actually. People have always had a way of knowing when to keep their distance from me—even before I stopped sleeping, before the fridge started humming like it was trying to keep me alive.
But Ardere doesn't flinch. She doesn't speak, doesn't look at me. She just exists there, a constant weight beside me, familiar now in its strange, awful comfort.
On Thursday, I catch her fidgeting with a silver ring on her thumb, spinning it like it's the only thing tethering her to the present moment. I say nothing.
Friday, she cracks first.
"I like your handwriting," she says, out of nowhere, eyes still on the board. "It's...angry."
I look down at my notes. My pen's ripped halfway through the paper. Again.
"That supposed to be a compliment?"
"Supposed to be an observation."
I glance at her. Her copper hair is a little tangled today, like she rolled out of bed and didn't care enough to fix it. Her eyeliner's smudged. She smells like ash and leather and something faintly medicinal, like antiseptic or burnt herbs.
"You do this a lot?" I ask.
"Do what?"
"Talk to guys and then ghost them for a week."
Her mouth twitches—almost a smile. "Only the ones who stare at me like I've eaten their dog."
I huff something like a laugh, low and involuntary. "That's a weirdly specific analogy."
She shrugs. "You're a weirdly specific person."
Silence. Then, softer:
"You feel it, don't you?"
That stops me.
I don't say anything. But she doesn't need me to. My hesitation answers for me.
Her gaze drifts toward my hand, where I'm gripping my pen like it owes me money. She doesn't reach for it—of course she doesn't—but I see the thought flicker through her.
"I don't mean to," she says, barely above a whisper.
"I know," I reply, just as quiet.
Another breathless second of eye contact, and then she sits back, folding into herself like a closing book.
The bell rings. We both stay seated until the room is half empty.
She speaks without looking at me.
"If you're smart, you'll keep your distance."
"If I was smart, I wouldn't be here at all."
That gets a real smile—wry and sharp, like it cuts coming out of her.
And then she's gone again, swept into the tide of students and swallowed by the hallway.
But something's different now.
She's not just a mystery anymore.
She's a warning I'm already ignoring.
She's at her locker again.
Same one. Second floor. Left hallway. Just after third period, when the hall starts to thin out and time slows down like it's holding its breath.
This time, I don't hesitate.
"Hey," I say, approaching her like she's a skittish animal. Careful. Controlled. Like getting too close will spook her—or worse, wreck me.
She glances up. Her brown eyes catch the light wrong. For a second, they almost look gold.
"Hi," she says, clipped but not unkind.
I offer a half-smile. "You eat lunch with a cult, or is that just a style choice?"
That earns me a huff of a laugh, short and surprised. "You always start conversations like this?"
"I'm sleep-deprived. And socially stunted."
"I can tell."
She doesn't walk away, though. She lingers, brushing hair behind her ear with a flick of her fingers, subtle and nervous. Her ring spins on her thumb. That same restless tic.
"So…" I lean against the locker beside hers, trying to look casual. "What's your deal?"
"Deal?"
"You know. Transferring halfway through the semester, dressing like you fight demons for a living, making people feel like death when you get too close. The usual stuff."
She freezes. Not like she's angry—more like I've opened a door she wasn't ready to acknowledge was even there.
But before she can respond, a shadow stretches over both of us.
He appears like he's been summoned. Always in black. Always too quiet for someone his size. His jaw is sharp, his cheekbones sharper, and his eyes... too light. Too still. They don't look at me—they look through me.
"We've got to go," he says to Ardere, not even sparing me a glance.
"I'm talking," she replies, but there's no real protest in it. Her voice folds in on itself.
"You're done talking."
And just like that, the moment's gone. She snaps her locker shut. Doesn't look at me as she leaves.
He does.
Just once, as he passes.
It's not a threat.
It's a promise: You won't get close.
On wednesday, she sits beside me again.
Third period is predictable like that—like some unspoken agreement passed between us. Never confirmed, never acknowledged, but there all the same. Some days she doesn't say anything at all. Others, she'll pass a dry comment about the teacher's awful handwriting or how the projector hums like it's chewing glass.
Today, it's quiet.
She's wearing a leather jacket even though the room is sweltering. Her fingers are bandaged. Small white strips across her knuckles.
"Rough morning?" I ask, before I can stop myself.
She doesn't look up from her notes. "I fell."
"Off a building?"
A corner of her mouth lifts. "You're not funny."
"I've been told that before."
She pauses—barely a heartbeat—then finally glances at me.
There's that weight again. Not her stare—what comes with it. That faint, gut-sinking feeling that my body doesn't recognize but my brain wants to catalog and dissect. It's less like depression and more like… grief. Quiet and unnamed. A sorrow without context.
"You always watch people like that?" I ask. "Like you're waiting for them to break open."
"I watch people who ask too many questions."
"That's fair." I lean closer—testing. Just a few inches. Her eyes narrow slightly. "But I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just—curious."
She studies me in return. "Curiosity can be dangerous."
"Yeah. So can silence."
Something shifts in her face. Not a change in expression—just a flicker. A tension I can't name.
"You're tired," she says instead.
"Insomnia."
"Since when?"
I blink. "I don't remember the last time I slept through the night."
Her voice drops, quieter than it should be. "You should stop sitting near me."
I raise an eyebrow. "Why?"
"You're unraveling."
The bell rings.
She doesn't wait.
Just gathers her things, stands, and walks out the door like she hadn't just peeled back something raw and nerve-deep.
I wasn't following her.
That's what I tell myself as I lean on the edge of the vending machine across the hallway. I had an excuse. I needed caffeine. Maybe sugar. Maybe just a reason to stand here and exist.
But it's her locker I'm facing.
Ardere's alone for once. The hallway buzz has thinned to a distant hum, mostly empty now except for the soft clatter of her lock turning and the tired squeal of fluorescent lights. She's moving slower than usual—like every movement costs her something. Copper hair pulled into a loose braid down her back, leather jacket creaking with the weight of silence.
I should leave.
I don't.
She's digging in her bag when he rounds the corner, his footsteps unnervingly soft for someone with that kind of presence. A shadow in motion. His eyes are already on her, something hard set into his jaw.
"There you are," he says.
It's not possessive exactly—but it presses.
Ardere straightens, but doesn't face him right away. "Didn't realize I had a curfew," she says. Her voice has teeth this time. Not loud. But pointed.
My brows lift. That's new.
He takes a few more steps. Close now. He doesn't seem to notice me—or maybe he does and just doesn't care. His hand lifts toward her shoulder.
That's when it happens.
A soft flicker.
The air around his fingers bends slightly. Like heat off pavement—but colder. Wronger. There's a shimmer there, barely perceptible, and for a second—just a second—I swear his skin cracks, tiny fissures like glowing lines of silver beneath the surface. Like his body can't quite contain what's inside.
Ardere notices too.
She steps back, spine taut. "Don't."
His hand freezes midair. His mouth tightens.
"I'm fine," she adds. "You don't have to keep checking."
"That's not what it looked like earlier," he says.
Ardere's eyes flick sideways. Not toward me, but close.
He saw her talking to me.
He doesn't move any closer, but the space between them shrinks anyway. That invisible gravity he carries, always demanding proximity. Control.
"I can handle a conversation, Lys."
"Sometimes conversations lead to mistakes."
Ardere slams her locker shut. The sound is louder than it needs to be—deliberate. She stares at him now, defiant. It's the first time I've seen her look like she might actually fight him.
"Maybe," she says. "But maybe I'd rather make my own."
Silence.
His jaw clenches. That strange shimmer creeps along his collarbone—like cracks in marble just beginning to web out.
And then—
Gone.
He exhales slowly. Smooths it all over. The mask returns.
"If you need me, you know where I'll be."
He turns. Walks away.
Ardere exhales, shoulders slumping the second he's gone. She looks drained. Not from fear. From exhaustion. Like she's been holding herself too tightly for too long.
I step forward before I think better of it.
"Hey," I say, leaning slightly on the locker next to hers, arms folded like I don't feel like I'm dying inside. "You ever, uh... you ever hear of object resonance?"
Ardere raises a brow. "No."
"I think my fridge is haunted," I tell her, straight-faced.
Silence.
"The humming—it's been constant. Nonstop. Same pitch every night."
More silence.
"It hums in A sharp," I clarify, because obviously that matters.
She blinks once. "You think I cursed your fridge."
"Not cursed," I say. "Activated."
That gets a reaction. A slow blink. A breath. "Are you okay?"
"No. Absolutely not."
I scratch the back of my neck, trying to sort the words before they come out sounding worse than they already do. "I haven't really slept. Like, at all. And every time I close my eyes, I hear it. This... low hum. It's louder at night. It's like it's echoing in my chest."
She's staring now. Not unkindly. Not like I'm crazy. More like she's trying to decode me without the instruction manual.
"It gets louder," I go on, "when I think about you. Or when you're near. Like my brain's trying to warn me. Except instead of doing something useful, like running away, I decide to casually bring this up to you in a hallway. Like a normal person."
She exhales through her nose. That almost-laugh again. "So now I'm a fridge demon?"
"Maybe. Or maybe you're the only real person here, and I'm trapped in some extended fever dream narrated by a possessed KitchenAid appliance."
Her lip twitches. It could be a smile, but she kills it before it lives. "You're weird."
I grin. "You're still standing here."
"I'm debating fleeing."
I lean closer—just a little. Not enough to touch her. I've learned that line the hard way.
"You ever feel like something's watching you?" I ask. "Like the universe is one long hallway with flickering lights, and something's just out of view, waiting?"
She doesn't answer right away. Just looks at me. And for a second, I swear the air shifts. Not cold, not hot—just heavy. Like something pressing down around us.
Then her voice cuts through it, low and steady. "All the time."
We stare at each other, both pretending that didn't mean more than it should.
Then the bell rings. She shuts her locker. "Later, fridge boy."
She walks off before I can come up with a better nickname.
The humming starts up in my head again. And I swear—I swear—it sounds smug.
***
At 12:47 am, the fridge starts screaming.
I stare at the ceiling.
The cracks in the paint have started to look like veins. Or maps. Or maybe fracture lines in my skull. I've been tracing them for over an hour, but they haven't taken me anywhere.
Then I hear it.
The fridge.
It starts the same way it always does—low, even, that constant hum pulsing through the floorboards like a dying heart. But tonight... it's different.
It's louder.
I sit up, slowly. Blanket tangled around my legs. My room's dark except for the thin blue light bleeding in from the streetlamp outside. My phone's dead. Again. Not that it matters—I stopped keeping time by clocks a while ago.
Now I keep time by how loud the fridge gets.
And right now, it sounds like it's trying to say something.
I move quietly down the hall. Bare feet on cold wood. The fridge is humming like it's alive. Or angry. Like it's holding in something it can't quite release. Like the same pressure in my chest every time Ardere gets too close.
I stop in the doorway to the kitchen.
There it is—white, old, reliable, monstrous. Just humming away like it's been assigned to guard something sacred and no one told it the temple was gone.
I stare at it for a long time.
"You win," I mutter. "You outlasted me. I've officially lost it."
The fridge hums louder.
My fingers twitch.
I cross the kitchen, press my palm flat to the door. It's warm. Not hot. Just enough to make me feel like there's something breathing inside.
I wait. Nothing.
Then I whisper, "Is it her?"
The hum doesn't change. Of course it doesn't. Because fridges don't talk. And people don't give off psychic waves of despair unless they're, I don't know, cursed or half-dead or radioactive or something out of one of those late-night forums I promised myself I'd stop reading.
I lean my forehead against the door. Close my eyes.
The hum is inside me now. It's not just noise—it's a resonance. A frequency I've somehow tuned into ever since she showed up.
And I can't get it out.
I don't want to.
I keep my head pressed to the door.
It's a stupid thing to do—like maybe if I stay close enough, I'll hear a voice inside it whispering answers.
The fridge thuds.
I flinch.
Just once. A quiet knock from the inside, like something shifting. I tell myself it's the compressor. The ice tray. A can of soda settling.
Then it thuds again.
No. Not settling.
Shifting.
I yank my head back. Step away. Watch.
The hum grows higher, then dips low, like it's inhaling through a closed mouth. And then, right in front of me, the light in the kitchen flickers. Just once. The air gets colder, like a draft slipped out of nowhere.
And the fridge door creaks.
Not all the way open. Just a twitch.
Like it's thinking about it.
I stare. "Nope," I whisper, shaking my head. "Nope, we're not doing this."
It creaks again.
I take a step closer, not because I want to, but because I need to know. I reach out, fingers hovering just above the handle.
Then—click.
The door pops open an inch.
And inside, the light isn't that usual warm yellow glow. It's white. Blinding. Like a hospital hallway. Like static.
I slam the door shut so fast the suction nearly pulls it back out of my hand.
It doesn't hum anymore.
It purrs.
I back away slowly. My heartbeat's loud in my ears. The fridge—my fridge, the one that used to just hold expired yogurt and leftover takeout—is breathing.
Breathing.
"Right," I mutter, dragging a hand down my face. "Ardere shows up. I start dreaming while I'm awake. And now my fridge has a pulse."
There's a silence.
No hum now. Just that eerie quiet before something breaks.
I whisper, "I'm losing it."
But I don't believe it.
Because somewhere, beneath all the sleep deprivation and panic, is the smallest flicker of belief—something in me that knows it isn't just in my head.
Because that light inside the fridge?
It looked just like the light I saw ripple across Ardere's skin when her hand brushed against him.
And I haven't been able to forget it since.
—
The second I see her by the lockers, I make a beeline.
She hasn't noticed me yet—her copper hair's pulled back in this haphazard bun like she slept on it weird and didn't care, and she's fiddling with a leather cuff around her wrist, probably pretending to be normal.
Too bad I'm done pretending.
"Ardere," I say.
She looks up, slow and unreadable as always. "Dorian."
Her voice is smooth. Calm. Too calm.
I glance down the hallway—empty enough. No Lysander in sight. Just us. And the unbearable itch crawling behind my eyes that hasn't let up since the fridge lit up like a cursed MRI machine.
"I need you to be straight with me," I say. "No cryptic looks. No evasive locker slamming. Just honesty."
She raises an eyebrow, barely blinking. "About?"
I lower my voice like I'm about to confess to murder. "The fridge."
That gets me a full blink. "What?"
"You heard me," I say, leaning a little closer. "My fridge. The humming one. It's not just noise anymore, Ardere. It's… communicating."
She stares.
"The light changed," I go on, breath quickening. "It turned white—not normal white, like the sun-through-your-eyes white. And it knocked. Like, literally. From the inside. And it opened. By itself. And now it's… breathing."
"Breathing."
"Yes."
A long pause. She doesn't say anything. Just watches me like I'm unraveling in real time—which, to be fair, I probably am.
I gesture vaguely. "I know how it sounds. Trust me, I know. But ever since you showed up, it's like reality's on a tilt. Like I fell into a different version of the world where appliances are sentient and eye contact gives me intrusive thoughts."
She tilts her head slightly. "Are you asking if I did something to your fridge?"
"No. I'm asking if you're the reason it's acting like it's possessed by the ghost of a failed science experiment."
Something flickers behind her expression. Not quite surprise. Not quite denial.
More like… consideration.
And that terrifies me more than anything.
She doesn't deny it.
She just leans against the locker and says quietly, "You haven't been sleeping, have you."
"...What does that have to do with anything?"
"That's when it gets worse, doesn't it? The noise. The thoughts. The way the air feels heavier."
My mouth goes dry.
She glances sideways down the hallway. "Dorian, if I were you, I'd stop staring so hard at the symptoms and start thinking about the cause."
I blink. "That—no, no. That's not how conversations work. You can't just drop a cryptic one-liner and leave."
But she already has. Shoulders brushing past me, her presence fading like a cigarette burn in reverse.
And I'm just left there, under the buzzing hallway light, wondering whether I've finally lost my grip on reality…
It's always the places no one's watching.
No cameras. No teachers. Just chain-link fences and cigarette butts in the gravel.
Which makes it perfect.
I don't really plan on following her. But Ardere slips out of third period early—again—and I see him cut across the hallway not five seconds after. So I do the dumb thing. The completely irrational, clearly sleep-deprived thing.
I follow.
They're standing behind the gym. She's got her arms folded, head tilted like she's arguing something. He's standing close, looming, the sun glinting off that unnaturally perfect jawline like it's trying to blind me into submission. And for a split second I think I should just turn around.
Then Ardere flinches.
Barely. But enough.
I step forward.
"Hey!" I call, louder than I meant to. "She say you could touch her?"
He turns first. His expression is all kinds of neutral—disturbingly so. "Excuse me?"
Ardere's eyes flash to me, wide. Not pleading exactly. Not welcoming either.
I ignore the look. "She looked uncomfortable. So unless you're, like, her psychic twin, maybe give her some breathing room."
He doesn't move. Just studies me like I'm some scuff on his shoe he can't remember stepping in.
"Dorian," Ardere says, softly. Warningly.
But I'm past warnings. Past logic. The fridge. The lack of sleep. The way she looked at me like I was onto something. I step in closer.
"What even are you people?" I ask. "You and your matching existential auras. You show up, and now reality's bending sideways. My fridge is having a spiritual awakening. She's touching people and making them cry for no reason, and you—you're always there. Watching. Controlling. What are you trying to keep hidden?"
His eyes go cold.
And then he's right in front of me.
Not walking. Blink. Just… there.
"How about I give you one shot," he says, voice low and dangerously calm, "to walk away before you find out the answer to that question the hard way."
I swallow. My body knows something my brain refuses to accept: this guy isn't normal. None of them are.
Ardere steps between us. Not touching either of us—smart—but just enough of a barrier to stall whatever the hell Lysander might've done next.
"That's enough," she says, sharp but quiet. "He doesn't know anything."
"He's trying to," he mutters, eyes still locked on mine. "Which makes him a problem."
Lysander's shoulder brushes past mine like a blade. But I don't move.
I should.
I really should.
Instead, I take a step after him. "Go ahead. Show me what you are."
He stops. Doesn't turn. Just freezes. Like something ancient pressed pause.
"You want a show?" he says, low. "Alright, freakshow it is."
The air folds in on itself.
There's a pressure, heavy and humming. Not heat. Not cold. Just weight. Like gravity forgot the rules. The shadows around him start to slither, peeling up off the pavement, not like mist—but like limbs. Moving with intention. Hunger.
My pulse thuds in my ears. My breath knots in my throat.
Then he turns. Slowly.
And his eyes—
They fracture. Not glow. Not change color. Fracture. Like someone dropped a mirror behind his pupils and the pieces didn't quite settle.
"You ever think," he says, "maybe your fridge isn't broken, Dorian. Maybe it's warning you. Maybe it hums louder every time we're near because something inside you recognizes what's coming."
He takes a step closer. The air feels thinner.
"You keep digging, and this ends badly for everyone."
And then—
"Lysander."
Ardere's voice cracks through it all, and when her hand touches his arm, it's like someone yanked a power cord out of the wall.
The shadows snap back like startled animals. The air clears. The pressure evaporates.
But it's Lysander's face that hits me hardest.
He doesn't look angry anymore.
He looks—wrecked.
Like something inside him cracked in half the moment Ardere touched him.
Like she didn't just stop him—she undid him.
Eyes wide, jaw slack for a heartbeat too long, his fury gone in an instant. All that anger and menace wiped clean, replaced with the kind of broken expression you only ever see on someone who's just watched something—or someone—die.
He jerks away from her touch like it burned, but not out of pain.
Out of grief.
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't let go until he's fully backed down.
"Go," she says softly.
He doesn't argue. Just leaves. Silent. Shattered.
And when Ardere turns to me, there's no victory in her face. Just the echo of something ancient and tired. Something I don't have words for.
She doesn't move right away.
Even after Lysander's shadow disappears down the hall, Ardere just stands there, still as frost. Her hand is still half-raised, like she's unsure whether to reach for something—or brace for impact.
Then I see it.
She swipes at her face so quickly it could be mistaken for brushing hair away. But it's not. Her fingers come away damp.
She's crying.
Not sobbing. Not breaking down.
Just a few silent tears she doesn't seem to realize are there until they fall. She wipes them fast—furious with herself for letting it show.
I should say something. I want to.
But I don't. Because the way she looks at me next—like I'm both the cause and the consequence—it pins the words in my throat.
She's already turning to go.
But this time, it's not like before. It's not cold, or dismissive.
It's hollow. Like she's retreating into herself before the cracks show too much.
Her boots echo down the hallway. Soft but steady.
She doesn't look back.
And I just stand there in the quiet, the silence behind her feeling louder than anything else.
Except the fridge.
The damn fridge is still humming in my head.
Low.
Persistent.
Like a warning.
Or a heartbeat that doesn't belong to me.
She's gone, but it doesn't feel like she left.
It feels like she unraveled in front of me and stitched herself back together just enough to walk away without falling apart.
And I'm still standing there like an idiot, replaying that moment when her fingers brushed tears off her face—fast, practiced. Like it wasn't the first time. Like it wouldn't be the last.
Ardere had always carried herself like glass wrapped in steel. Sharp, guarded, untouchable. But now?
Now I'm haunted by the look in her eyes.
Not when she looked at Lysander. Not when she grabbed him and shattered whatever ego he thought made him bulletproof.
But when she looked at me.
That flash of guilt. Of apology. Of something breaking beneath the surface.
I keep thinking about the way her hand hovered in the air after he left, fingers twitching like they didn't know what they wanted. Like she didn't know how to exist without someone else's pull.
It's stupid how much that image sits heavy in my chest.
I've seen girls cry before. Hell, I've watched entire relationships detonate over nothing in this school. But this wasn't that.
This was quiet.
Devastating.
And personal in a way that made me feel like I had no business witnessing it.
And I hate that I care. That I keep thinking about her hands. Her eyes. Her silence.
That even now, in the back of my skull, that goddamn fridge won't shut up. That low, endless hum—like something ancient and exhausted that still refuses to die.
Maybe it's not the fridge.
Maybe it's me.
Maybe it's the part of me that recognizes something in her I've been trying to ignore in myself.
The silence. The weight.
The way it's easier to break apart in private, piece by piece, where no one can call it a collapse.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, hard enough to see sparks.
Get it together.
This isn't your problem.
Except now it kind of is.