Page 31 of Shattered Ice
A soft ripple of impressed sounds moves through the nearby seats. Zoë’s fingers cover her mouth, her glittery nails shaking with the urge to laugh. Genny’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, almost a warning.
Beside me, Adrian leans back, projecting an air of pure indifference, but when I catch his eyes in my periphery, they are winter-cold and locked on mine.
Lansing doesn’t break stride. “Mr. Hale,” he repeats, his voice bland with impatience. “Tradeoffs?”
Adrian’s jaw flickers. He doesn’t open his book or look at the handout. He answers anyway, his voice clipped and precise. “Federal legitimacy versus federal enforcement. You make a show of national order to keep investors calm. You pull out the troops and pretend that means stability. It doesn’t. It just means the consequences move off your balance sheet and onto someone else’s.”
Lansing stares for a beat that registers as genuine surprise. “Your language is… modern. But accurate. Next point—poll taxes. Ms. Harrington?”
The lecture shifts into discussion. He keeps pointing at me because I’m prepared and the others have learned that silence reads like confidence. The Titans talk when they want to perform. I talk because information is currency I can actually afford.
Next to me, Adrian is silent. He doesn’t fidget. He watches. I feel his attention like a low-grade heat source—controlled, steady, inconveniently specific. When I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, his gaze follows the movement. When I underline a date, he tracks the pen. When I shift for my water bottle, his focus dips to my mouth as I take a sip. It’s clinical, not kind. He’s collecting data points. And my body, the traitor, answers his stare with a jolt in my pulse.
Half an hour in, Lansing writes a block quote on the board and asks for a volunteer to read. No hands go up. He calls on Adrian. A stillness pins my shoulders. He doesn’t reach for the page. He answers the follow-up question instead—accurate, crisp, not a single word read. I see the barest flicker of relief in his eyes as Lansing moves on, a crack in the mask so small I’m sure I’m the only one who saw it. In the corner of my notebook, I quickly jot down:Refuses to read aloud → pattern.The ink trembles.
“Last five minutes,” Lansing says, closing his folder. “If you’re behind, don’t make me watch you drown.”
Zippers rasp as students start packing up. The Titans move like a tide. Rylan leans across the aisle as I stand. “You free after class, Scholar? We can work on your curve.”
I don’t give him a full turn. “Your math is as bad as your reading. Hard pass.”
Zoë makes a delighted noise like a cork popping. Calder adds, “You could come help Hale study. Maybe teach him to hold his pencil like a big boy.”
It’s cheap. It still lands. Before I can answer, the air beside me goes colder.
“Talk to me, not across her,” Adrian says. Not loud. The kind of final that closes doors.
Calder laughs anyway. “What? I’m being helpful.”
Adrian’s gaze cuts across me, a clean, lethal diagonal to Calder. “You’re being noise.”
Calder lifts his hands in mock surrender, still grinning, but he slides out of the row a half-step slower than usual. Adrian isn’t protecting me; he’s protecting his territory. The game between us. I don’t look at him. It wasn’t for me.
At the aisle, he lingers for half a beat, blocking my path before shifting aside—a pause deliberate enough to force a choice.
“Clara!” Zoë sings, latching onto my elbow. “You fed the Titans their teeth and I am living for it.”
Genny arrives without a sound. “We’re leaving,” she says, as if she owns the hallway. We push through the tide at the door. Behind me, a shadow keeps pace. I refuse to look, but I know the weight of it. Adrian moves last, his attention dragging across my shoulder like a shadow with sharp edges.
Zoë keeps talking. “Please tell me you saw his face when you told him curves can’t save the lazy.”
“I saw the part where he made sure Calder shut up,” Genny says, low enough that only I hear her. “He’s changing tactics. He’s marking territory.”
“Or he’s moody,” I mutter.
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
A whisper cuts from behind us as two students pass—“Hale’s got a tutor on a leash.”
We hit the daylight like a splash. The sky is a pale blue scoured clean by wind. At the café doors, Zoë peels off. Genny lingers, her gaze cool. “You’re rattled.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re rattled,” she repeats, not unkindly. “He’ll keep testing. Don’t let his silence read as safety.”
“I know what it reads as,” I say, my voice too even. “Control.”
Genny nods once. “Good.” She adjusts her cuff and leaves.
