Cassidy's POV
By the time I stepped into the next class, my shoulders already ached from the invisible weight of whispered stares and the lingering chill of Dante's earlier presence. The memory of his mocking chuckle, the way his eyes had followed me across the hall, was a physical burden I couldn't shake. My jaw felt perpetually clenched, a subtle tremor running through my hands.
Chemistry.
Perfect. Just what I needed – a class filled with volatile substances when my own internal chemistry felt like a constantly shifting, unstable compound.
I'd barely crossed the threshold when my gaze, almost against my will, swept across the lab tables. My breath hitched. The only empty seat… was beside Dante. A sharp, icy dread shot through me, cold and instant. Of course. Of all the damn seats in this enormous, echoing room, fate had decided to play its cruelest trick.
I hesitated, my fingers tightening around the worn strap of my backpack, the cheap fabric digging into my skin. Every fiber of my being screamed to turn around, to find another class, to simply vanish. But there were no other empty tables, only scattered individual seats amidst already established pairs. The classroom buzzed with the low murmur of anticipation, the clinking of glassware, and the impatient shuffling of feet. The teacher—Mr. Gray—a man known for his short fuse and even shorter patience, was already at the front, gesturing vaguely for students to take their places. His eyes, sharp and scanning, landed on me.
"Let's not waste time," he barked, his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged room. "Partner up. You'll be doing today's experiment in pairs. Any stragglers, find a spot now."
My cheeks burned. There was no escape. I swallowed the bitter lump of pride and resentment in my throat, each step toward that cursed table feeling like walking into a trap. My worn sneakers squeaked faintly on the polished linoleum floor, each sound magnified in my suddenly hypersensitive ears.
Dante didn't look at me when I finally reached the table and slid into the empty stool. He was too busy spinning a scalpel, its sharp, sterile blade glinting under the fluorescent lights, between his long, elegant fingers. He handled it with an unsettling casualness, like it was a mere toy instead of a precision lab tool. It was a small, unsettling performance, designed, I was sure, to unnerve.
Bella wasn't in this class. That was the only silver lining, a single, tiny point of relief in the suffocating storm. At least I wouldn't have to endure her performative clinging, her saccharine whispers, her possessive glances.
But that didn't make this easier. In fact, in a strange way, her absence intensified the tension. It was just him and me, isolated at our island of a lab table, a silent, volatile dynamic simmering between us.
Mr. Gray, thankfully oblivious to the silent drama unfolding at our station, began passing out our experiment sheets, his voice droning on about safety procedures and expected outcomes. "You'll be identifying chemical reactions using the test kit in front of you. Observe closely. Results must be labeled and noted with absolute precision. Any mistakes, and you'll start over. Is that clear?" A chorus of muffled 'yes, sirs' answered him.
I focused on the crinkling paper of the experiment sheet, my eyes tracing the lines of text, anything to avoid meeting Dante's gaze, to avoid acknowledging his presence. I read the instructions, mentally ticking off the steps: Add three drops of solution A to beaker 1. Observe color change. Note gas production. My hand reached for the small glass dropper, a fragile, delicate instrument. At the exact same moment, his hand, larger, somehow more imposing, reached for the same one. Our fingers brushed.
I flinched. It was involuntary, a swift, almost imperceptible jerk of my hand, as if I'd touched something searing hot. Every nerve ending flared.
He didn't. His hand remained steady, his fingers brushing against mine for a fraction of a second longer than necessary before he smoothly claimed the dropper. The casualness of his movement was infuriating, the stark contrast to my own recoil.
"You always twitch like that when someone touches you?" he murmured, his voice a low, silken rumble, just loud enough that only I could hear it over the general hum of the classroom. There was no judgment in his tone, only a detached, almost scientific curiosity.
"Only when they act like I'm poison," I shot back, the words escaping before I could censor them. It was a defiance born of pure, unadulterated annoyance, a defense mechanism snapping into place. I instantly regretted the sharpness of my retort. What was I thinking, provoking him?
His gaze, which had been fixed on the dropper, cut to mine, sharp and unreadable. For a moment, his eyes, those dark, fathomless pools, seemed to bore into me, dissecting, analyzing. My breath caught, waiting for the expected sneer, the cutting remark, the familiar contempt.
Then, to my surprise… he chuckled. Just once. A short, abrupt sound, devoid of warmth or kindness. But it was definitely amused. It was a sound that sent a strange shiver down my spine—not entirely unpleasant, but deeply unsettling. It was the sound of someone recognizing something unexpected, something that intrigued them in a dark, twisted way.
"So you do have a spine, after all," he muttered, his lips curving into a faint, almost imperceptible smirk.
My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. But I wouldn't back down. Not now. "I guess you're just used to girls who melt when you blink," I retorted, my voice a little shakier than I would have liked, but still holding its ground. It was a direct hit, a jab at his carefully constructed image, at Bella's unquestioning devotion.
He leaned in slowly, deliberately, the small glass dropper still held loosely between his fingers, almost like a weapon. The proximity was startling, invading my personal space. I could smell the faint, clean scent of his expensive cologne, a stark contrast to the lingering chemical tang in the air. His dark hair, falling slightly over his forehead, seemed even darker up close. "And you don't?" he challenged, his voice dropping to a near whisper, a dangerous invitation.
I turned to face him fully, forcing myself to meet his intense gaze head-on, refusing to lean away, refusing to show any weakness. My chin tilted just a fraction of an inch higher. "No," I said, my voice steady, despite the frantic drumming in my chest. "I don't."
For a second—just one agonizing heartbeat—I swore something flickered in his eyes. Amusement, yes, that cold, detached amusement. But beneath it, a fleeting spark of… curiosity? And then, just as quickly, something else. Something dark, predatory, perhaps even annoyance at my stubbornness. It was like watching a complicated equation unfold, the variables shifting and rearranging with lightning speed.
He looked like he was about to say something else, perhaps to push further, to dismantle my composure piece by piece, when a sudden, jarring crash ripped through the air. One of the larger beakers on the table beside us, precariously perched on the edge, shattered with a sickening crack. Acid hissed across the counter in a frothy, spreading puddle, and students jumped back with startled cries, chairs scraping against the floor.
"Watch it, Miller!" Mr. Gray's voice boomed, sharp with alarm and irritation, as he rushed over to the mess, grabbing a roll of paper towels. "Clean that up immediately—everyone else, stay focused. We have an experiment to complete, not a disaster to manage."
Dante, without a word, reached into the supply drawer beneath our table and pulled out a fresh pair of heavy-duty latex gloves. He handed them to me, his fingers brushing mine again, this time with a deliberate, almost imperceptible pressure. His expression was unreadable, but the small gesture, the unexpected practicality, caught me off guard.
I took them, sliding my hands into the surprisingly snug fit of the gloves. The unexpected normalcy of the action, the shared task, momentarily disrupted the charged atmosphere between us.
We worked in silence for a while after that—droppers carefully measuring, beakers clinking softly, observations meticulously noted on our shared sheet. The scent of various chemical reagents mingled in the air – the sharp tang of acid, the faint metallic smell of certain salts. But the silence wasn't peaceful. It was thick. Tense. A living entity in itself, heavy with unspoken words, with the unacknowledged undercurrent of our last exchange. It was underlined with something… anticipatory. Like waiting for a fuse to burn down.
Then, as I carefully labeled our third reaction – a surprisingly vivid green precipitate forming at the bottom of the test tube – I felt his voice slide down my spine again, a sensation as chilling and precise as a cold blade. He hadn't moved, hadn't shifted, but his presence was suddenly amplified, closer.
"You think you've got me figured out, don't you?" His voice was low, almost a whisper, laced with a dangerous edge, completely devoid of the earlier amusement.
I didn't look up. My hand, holding the pen, froze mid-air above the paper. "I don't waste time trying," I lied, the words tasting like ash in my mouth. It was a pathetic attempt at deflection, and I knew it.
"Liar." The single word was delivered with chilling certainty, a soft declaration that resonated with absolute conviction.
That made me glance at him, my head snapping up. "Excuse me?" My voice was sharp, defensive.
His eyes were on me again, but not like before. This time, there was no detached curiosity, no fleeting amusement. This time, there was something raw in them. Something dangerous. Something intensely personal. Like he saw right through my flimsy defenses, right into the parts of me I kept hidden.
"Don't act like you don't watch me when you think I'm not looking, Cassidy." His voice was still low, but it held a new, undeniable weight, a subtle threat.
I opened my mouth to argue, to deny it vehemently, to unleash a furious torrent of denials. But no words came. My throat felt constricted. My mind flashed back to fleeting moments: a stolen glance in the hallway, a quick observation from across the cafeteria, the way my eyes had lingered on him even earlier today in the first class. The horrifying truth choked me.
Because he wasn't wrong.
He leaned closer again, effortlessly invading my personal space, his scent, that clean, expensive cologne, suddenly more potent. His voice was low and smooth, almost seductive in its dangerousness, a velvet-wrapped steel blade. "If you're going to look, Cassidy… at least admit it. To yourself, if not to me."
Before I could snap back, before I could even formulate a coherent thought, the shrill, jarring sound of Mr. Gray's whistle cut through the air. "Time!" he bellowed. "Pass your sheets forward. Lab's over. Clean up your stations!"
I shoved our completed worksheet toward the front of the table, my hands trembling just slightly, betraying the calm I desperately tried to project. The pen clattered against the surface.
Dante stood up lazily, a picture of nonchalant grace, grabbed his bag from beneath the table, its leather soft and expensive. He slung it over one shoulder, then, just as he turned to leave, he leaned down one last time. His head was close enough for his dark hair to brush my cheek, his breath, warm and strangely intimate, tickling my ear.
"You're not invisible, Cassidy," he murmured, the words a soft, chilling caress. "And you're definitely not off limits."
Then he straightened, a casual shrug of his broad shoulders, and walked out of the classroom, disappearing into the chaotic stream of students.
Leaving me frozen in my seat, the lingering scent of his cologne and the acid of the spilled chemical mixing in the air. Leaving my heart racing for all the wrong, terrifying reasons. And a new, cold dread settling deep in my gut: he saw me. And he liked what he saw. For all the wrong, terrifying reasons.