Page 8 of Breaking Isolde
I take Casey’s photo, hold it up to the light, and make her a promise.
I’m not leaving this place until I burn every secret to the ground.
Chapter 2: Rhett
I’malreadywaiting,watching,when the sun starts rising. I want to watch her. Study her.
The chill of impending winter is brutal, knifing through the quad and into the east windows, but she stands at the edge of the steps like she doesn’t even feel it. Auburn hair unbound, blazer worn loose, eyes hard. She’s faster than the staff directory gave her credit for—most transfers stumble through orientation for a week before they learn the geography of this place, but she’s mapped it in under a day.
I watch from the library’s glass, mirrored from inside. She never glances up. Not once.
She’s moving down the path, towards the building, slow at first and then faster. Soon she will be out of sight and I can’t have that.
I keep the first approach slow. Subtle. She has too many eyes on her—faculty, the curious, a few of the legacies sniffing for gossip—but I am patient. For now, I watch her movements with the interest of a man building a case file: note the clipped pace, the way she keeps her weight on her toes, the preference for keeping her chin up, even when she’s being stared at.
But the real tell is in the micro-expressions. I chart every one of them, committing each to memory. She makes the rounds—Registrar, Office of Student Life, the records window. Getting the lay of the land. By mid-morning she’s learned which floors are safe, which elevators run slower than the stairs, which staff members are neutral about her and which are simply disgusted.
She ignores the whispers, but her skin is traitorous: a faint flush under the collar when she passes a group of seniors, jaw locked tight enough to fracture. Her eyes are blue-gray, the kind of color that looks like nothing in particular until the light finds it, then turns to cut glass. Casey’s were the same, but softer. There’s nothing soft here.
Around the third hour, she discovers the shortcut through the honors lounge to get to the library. I stake out the upper balcony, careful to blend with the architectural shadows, the same way I used to watch my father dismantle a roomful of attorneys without raising his voice.
She doesn’t see me, not directly, but twice she stutters at the end of the passage, as if sensing something off. She checks over her shoulder. Her gaze skims past mine, pupils narrow, then she squares her shoulders and keeps moving.
The pulse in her throat betrays her. I want to count the beats, but that would mean getting close enough to taste her.
And I’m not sure I’m as strong as Cai was with O. Holding out as long as he did.
The first day back to class unfolds with predictability: class schedules, orientation, the pre-lunch tour. She never speaks unless spoken to. Her posture never slouches. When she sits for the intake interview, she keeps her hands visible on the table, but the left is always flexed, knuckles raised, as if already preparing to break something. The administrator tries for small talk, and she kills it with two sentences.
Later, she’s back in the library, tracing a line across the spines of the dead languages shelf. She pulls two volumes—Latin, then Old Norse. She doesn’t check them out. Instead, she copies down a single phrase from each, then puts the books back exactly where she found them.
Interesting.
At lunch, she takes the back corner of the study room, facing both doorways, and opens a notebook. She eats nothing but an apple and one of those disgusting meal bars they sell in the Student Union and vending machines. Halfway through thehour, three girls from the music department drift over to the table next to hers. The one in the center—the obvious leader, all teeth and highlights and future eating disorder—turns to say something about “Casey’s ugly sister.”
She’s not. At all. She’s beautiful, if hardened. Like the way icicles form and grow until the spear is long enough that it could pierce your heart and kill you before disappearing entirely. And yet in the moment the icicle falls, it catches the light and all you see is the way it forms patterns in the ice.
Beautiful.
Deadly.
My type to a T.
Isolde doesn’t react, but the leader’s smile falters under her gaze. There’s something about her stare that clears the air of small talk. Eventually, the trio leaves, laughing too loud to be real.
She waits another five minutes before packing up.
It’s almost disappointing. I thought there would be more drama, some shattering of glass or a scream, but she’s colder than the room. In another life, maybe she’d have been an axe-murderer. Or a lawyer. The steady eyes. The disregard for boring chit-chat.
I follow at a respectful distance when she leaves, tracking the subtle signs that she knows I’m there: the hitch in her breath atthe corner, the way she takes the long route around the sculpture garden, the studied nonchalance of her footsteps. She’s made me, but she doesn’t know which shadow to punch.
Down in the student archives, she’s less careful. She’s studying everything, observing it all. Probably has a little journal in her room to document what she sees.
The basement is empty except for an archivist with hearing aids and a row of broken microfilm readers. The lights here are halogen, sick and flickering, and the only sound is the dull grind of the ventilation. She moves fast, checks the indexes, pulls files. Her hands are quick and sure. She finds what she wants and snaps a shot of it with her phone. When the archivist clears his throat, she puts the folder back without looking up.
Don’t know what she’s looking for. All they have down here are rewritten pieces of history. The truth is in the Admin Building. In the real archive room.
I wait until she’s back at ground level before retrieving the folder. The title on the tab: “Incident Report, 4/8.” The date is one year ago today.
