There were things Eira didn't believe in.
Coincidence was one of them.
So when she noticed the way her dorm window—always left slightly ajar—was fully closed that morning, or how her scarf was folded differently from how she remembered leaving it, a quiet alarm went off inside her.
It wasn't enough to call it a break-in.
But it *felt like one.
She checked her bag.
Her notebooks. Her sketchpad.
Everything was there.
Except...
The handkerchief.
Gone.
No note. No message. Just... gone.
She stood in the middle of her room, fists clenched, heart suddenly too loud for the silence. Someone had been here. Someone had been watching.
And she had no idea when.
---
Meanwhile, Callum was already two hours into dissecting security footage from the main campus hallways.
It wasn't that he was obsessed.
It was that something about Eira's performance wouldn't leave him alone. And now, more than ever, he felt like there was something bigger happening—something just out of frame.
A hidden pattern.
A thread waiting to be pulled.
He was halfway through fast-forwarding a timestamp when he caught it—a glitch.
One frame flickered.
Then stabilized.
He rewound. Slowed it down. Froze it.
A figure, barely visible. Cloaked in black. Masked. Watching from a hallway corner where students weren't allowed to loiter.
Callum's jaw tensed.
He didn't recognize the build. Couldn't tell the gender. But something about the posture… it was too composed. Too calculated.
And then—gone.
He blinked.
Gone again. Like it had never been there.
He checked the logs.
No record of anyone in that part of the building at that time.
That made his skin crawl.
Someone had hacked the school system.
And Callum Vance did not like being outplayed.
---
That afternoon, their paths crossed.
It wasn't planned.
Eira had just finished her Literature class. Callum was walking past the library, earbuds in, pretending to listen to music but scanning faces in the crowd.
She saw him first.
He looked... unsettled.
So did she.
They both slowed at the same moment.
He turned.
She didn't stop walking.
They met halfway.
"You look like hell," she said softly.
Callum didn't blink. "You look like you didn't sleep."
They stood there for a beat too long.
"Was something taken from you?" he asked, eyes narrowing.
Eira paused.
"Why would you ask that?"
"Because you look like someone trying not to panic."
She didn't answer.
He tilted his head, gaze cool. "You still have it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He stepped closer.
Too close.
Her pulse spiked.
Callum leaned in slightly. "I think we're being watched."
Eira didn't flinch, but something in her eyes shifted.
"Then don't give them a show," she whispered.
Then, just like that, she turned and walked away.
Callum stared after her.
And for the first time, he realized something dangerous.
They were no longer the only ones playing this game.
Someone else was holding pieces.
And they had no idea what move would come next.