Rain hammered against the windows of Westbridge Academy as Isla Monroe clutched her sketchbook to her chest like a lifeline. The echo of her boots on the polished floor seemed to mock her; only yesterday, those same boots had been stomping across the stage of her old school gymnasium, her mural displayed behind her for the first time.
And then it had been gone.
Her throat tightened at the memory — the unveiled canvas, the gasp of the audience, the empty frame. Someone had stolen months of her work minutes before the exhibition began, and the administration had chosen humiliation over help. "Plagiarism," they'd whispered, when she swore she had painted it herself. Her parents hadn't even picked up the phone.
So here she was, the girl with the stolen mural, walking into a new school two towns away, determined to keep her head down and her art private.
The hallways buzzed with students carrying instrument cases, sketch rolls, costumes. Westbridge was nothing like her old school; here, everyone seemed to live and breathe performance. The walls themselves were murals — shifting collages of color and texture.
She glanced at the room number on her schedule: Room 304 — Interdisciplinary Arts Lab.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the door.
Inside, the room smelled of turpentine and guitar strings. Students clustered at long tables littered with paint jars, sheet music, clay figures. And in the middle of it all, sitting backward on a chair with a guitar balanced across his knees, was a boy whose presence pulled at the air like a magnet.
Dark hair falling into storm-gray eyes. Fingers moving absent-mindedly over chords, making fragments of melodies. A laugh — low, sharp — when someone said something.
She knew his name before she heard it: Jasper Reed.
Everyone did. The prodigy who'd gone viral last year for an original song and been signed to a minor label at seventeen. He was Westbridge's claim to fame.
He looked up as the door shut behind her, and their eyes met. For a heartbeat, Isla felt the whole room tilt, as if the stolen mural had been a prelude to this moment.
"New girl?" His voice was rough velvet.
She nodded, wishing she could vanish into the floor.
The teacher, a wiry woman with a scarf of paint-stained silk, clapped her hands. "Perfect timing. We're starting the semester's interdisciplinary project. Visual plus performance. Each artist will be paired with a musician."
A groan rolled through the room. Someone muttered, "Another forced duet."
The teacher scanned the list. "Reed and Monroe. You two are partners."
Isla's stomach dropped. She risked a glance at Jasper. He was smirking — not unfriendly, but not welcoming either — as though he'd already written the whole story of her in his head.
She slid into the seat across from him, opening her sketchbook for comfort. He tilted his head. "What's your medium?"
"Paint," she said quietly.
"Figures." His eyes flicked to her hands, flecked still with cobalt blue from her last project. "I'm Jasper. You probably know."
She nodded, cheeks warming.
"Well, Isla-Who-Paints, hope you're not boring." He strummed a chord that cut through the room. "This project's fifty percent of our grade."
She bit back a retort and instead flipped to a fresh page, sketching lines to calm herself. Without thinking, she drew the curve of his shoulder, the way his hair fell across his forehead. She shaded the eyes — storm-gray.
When she looked up, Jasper was watching. His smirk had faded.
"Where did you see that?" he asked softly.
"What?"
"That expression. That's—" He broke off, pushing his chair back with a scrape. "Never mind."
Before she could respond, the bell rang. Students surged toward the door. Jasper slung his guitar over his back without another glance at her.
She stared at the sketch on the page. The look she'd drawn wasn't from today. It was from the photo she'd seen months ago, in the music blog about Jasper's breakout performance — the photo of him just before he walked offstage when someone announced news of his brother's accident.
How had her hand remembered that moment?
Her phone buzzed with a notification. Unknown number. "Stay away from Jasper Reed if you know what's good for you."
She looked around the emptying room, heart hammering. Outside, thunder cracked like a drum.
Isla closed the sketchbook, but the echo of the message followed her down the hall.