Chapter Text
The first thing I notice is the sound.
Not footsteps. Not voices. Not my own breath.
Whale song.
It thrums through the room in low vibrations, a sound too big for the walls to contain, mournful and alien, like it drifted in from another planet. It feels ancient, oceanic, like something calling out from a depth I’ll never touch.
I blink, staring up at a ceiling I don’t recognize. Off-white. A faint crack in the corner. Too clean to be one of the Blackwell dorms I’ve been in.
My head is a fist pounding against itself. My tongue tastes metallic. My stomach rolls every time I move.
Hungover, I think. Except it doesn’t feel like any hangover I know. This isn’t just tequila and bad decisions. This feels chemical, invasive, like something still in my blood.
My heart slams once in my chest.
Nathan Prescott’s room.
I know it before I want to. It’s in the weight of everything—the smell of expensive cologne and stale smoke, the faint hum of electronics, the curated neatness that feels too intentional. I shouldn’t know him well enough to know this, but I do.
I peel myself off the couch. My head still feels like it’s been hollowed out and packed with broken glass, but my legs work. Sort of. The couch leather sticks to the back of my thighs.
The room is spotless. Too spotless. Like a showroom, or a photograph of what a room should be. A black leather chair, a desk sharp enough to cut yourself on, shelves with books arranged for display rather than reading. Everything in straight lines. No warmth. No life.
On the walls: photographs. Not landscapes or portraits. Not even artsy still lifes. They’re people—blurred faces, distorted angles, bodies twisted in ways that make me feel like I’m intruding on someone else’s suffering. Not gore. Not explicit. Just… off. Like he hunted down the ugliest truths and pinned them to the wall like trophies. My stomach twists.
There’s a stack of DVDs tucked under his stereo. I crouch, fingers brushing their spines. Old horror films. Foreign arthouse. Titles I half recognize, others I don’t. The covers alone are enough—men screaming into voids, women tied in ropes, shadows devouring rooms. “Entertainment,” apparently.
I pull away, unsettled.
On the nightstand: pills. Bottles lined up like little soldiers. Antipsychotics. Mood stabilizers. Benzos. Half are empty, others half-full. Sharpie scribbles over the labels, dosages corrected in messy handwriting. A bottle of whiskey shoved behind them, cheap but not cheap enough, amber catching the dim light.
My fingers shake as I pick one bottle up. Rattling. Heavy. I put it down fast. Like it might go off in my hand.
I move to the desk. A laptop glows faintly, lid cracked. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But the curiosity outweighs the fear.
The inbox is open. Unread emails.
The first is from Sean Prescott.
You’ve been given every resource. Blackwell. Jefferson’s mentorship. The family name. I won’t tolerate another failure. Do not embarrass me again.
My chest tightens.
You’re a disgrace. Your sister already surpasses you. I expect results, Nathan. Enough excuses.
I shut it, then open it again. I don’t know why. The words sting, and they’re not even mine.
Another email sits below it. From Mark Jefferson.
Nathan, I know it’s difficult, but this is the path you chose. Greatness isn’t for everyone, but it can be for you—if you listen. No one else will understand you the way I do. You can’t afford another slip-up, not if you want to keep my trust. We’ll talk soon.
My skin crawls.
It’s written like encouragement, but it isn’t. It’s a leash. Sweet words with barbs inside them. Creepy.
I close the laptop, harder than I mean to. The sound cracks across the room.
My thoughts churn, heavy, uneven. The photographs, the drugs, the emails—they all stack into something unbearable. Something that makes sense of him in ways I don’t want to admit.
Nathan Prescott, with his sharp edges and sharper moods.
Nathan Prescott, everyone’s favorite monster.
Nathan Prescott, trapped in a cage so clean it gleams.
I rub at my temples, fighting the nausea crawling up my throat.
This isn’t a dorm room. It’s a glass box. A perfect display of someone who’s coming apart.
And I can’t decide what scares me more—how much of him is in the room, or how much of the room is in him.
⸻
I make it to the door before catching my reflection in the hallway mirror.
I look wrecked. Mascara smeared, hair wild. I smell like alchohol, like cigarettes, like the party.
No way I can walk into class like this.
The showers. If I cut across the courtyard, I can wash this off, hide it, pretend none of this ever happened.
I left Nathan’s dorm before the sun was even fully up.
The hallway was still, the kind of silence that clings to early mornings in places meant for noise. My footsteps on the tile echoed louder than they should have, too loud, like they were announcing me. Every door I passed looked like it might swing open and catch me red-handed: the new girl, hair a mess, last night’s sweater hanging off one shoulder, tiptoeing out of Nathan Prescott’s room.
God.
My chest was a vice of shame and panic, but I kept moving. No one could see me. If no one saw me, it didn’t happen. That was the rule.
The air outside bit cold against my damp skin, sharp enough to wake me but not enough to clear the fog behind my eyes. The quad was empty—mercifully empty—but I still hugged the shadows, crossing like I was dodging spotlights.
When I slipped into the girls’ dorm, my hands were shaking.
I didn’t breathe until I reached my door. Inside, my room was still and untouched, bed neatly made, desk stacked with notebooks and pens, my sweater folded on the back of the chair. The normalcy of it, waiting for me like nothing had happened.
I tossed my shoes under the bed and grabbed the essentials: my shower caddy, clean jeans, a sweater, underwear, socks. I stuffed it all into a tote bag like I was stealing my own belongings. Then I checked the hallway again—empty—and hurried toward the showers.
⸻
The dorm bathroom was thick with steam, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead. I claimed the farthest stall, set my things down, and stepped under the spray.
The first hit of hot water almost knocked me down.
It wasn’t relief. It was punishment. The scalding stream beat down on my head, my shoulders, the sore spot along my temple I didn’t remember earning. I pressed my palms against the tile and let the water run over me until the sting blurred into something numb.
I tried to reconstruct last night, but the pieces wouldn’t fit.
The party came back in fragments: Dana laughing as she pulled me into the crowd. Music like a second pulse, heavy enough to drown my own. Someone shoving a red cup into my hand, the burn of liquor sliding down my throat, another drink I hadn’t asked for.
After that—it was static.
Faces blurred. Voices warped. I remembered sitting down because the floor felt safer than the air. I remembered someone’s hand on my arm. Nathan’s? His voice maybe. Low, sharp, threading through the fog. Then—the dorm guard’s flashlight, slicing across the lawn. The sick drop in my stomach when I realized I couldn’t go back.
And then Nathan’s room.
The hum of his laptop. The faint smell of weed and something chemical underneath. Whale songs, of all things, filling the silence.
I squeezed my eyes shut. My stomach flipped.
What had happened between the gaps?
I scrubbed at my skin until it stung, until it looked raw. No amount of soap could wash away the not-knowing.
When I finally shut the water off, I was dizzy, my head heavier than before. I wrapped myself in the scratchy towel, wiped the mirror clear, and forced myself to look.
Bloodshot eyes. Wet hair clinging to my temples. A faint bruise by my hairline.
Never again.
The words felt hollow in my mouth, but I repeated them anyway as I pulled on my clean clothes, stuffed my wet hair into a bun, and packed my caddy. Jeans, sweater, sneakers. Invisible. Just another student heading to class.
The hallway outside was alive now—voices, laughter, the clatter of doors shutting. I kept my head down, moving fast, hoping no one noticed me. Hoping I could make it back to my room before anyone—
“Jackie.”
I froze.
Victoria stood by the door to the showers, arms crossed, eyes sharp even in the washed-out dorm light. She looked flawless, of course. Hair smooth, eyeliner crisp, blazer tailored within an inch of its life. Like she’d slept twelve hours and not attended the same party I had.
My heart stuttered.
“Where were you this morning?” she asked. Not sharp, not cruel—concern disguised in her even tone.
My throat tightened. “There was—” My voice cracked. I cleared it. “There was a security guard I guess. I couldn’t get back inside. I had to… go with Nathan.”
Her brows lifted, but not in surprise. Like she already knew.
“Prescott,” she said, flat.
“Yeah.”
She didn’t answer right away. Just studied me, gaze too steady, too knowing. I braced for the smirk, the daggered remark she wielded better than anyone.
Instead, she sighed. “You don’t remember much, do you?”
The words scraped something raw in me. I forced myself to meet her eyes and shook my head. “Not really. It’s all… blurry.”
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You were roofied, Jackie.
“I—what?”
“I saw it happen. One second you were fine, the next you were gone. I couldn’t take you back here. Nathan was there. He carried you out.”
My skin crawled, every hair on my body standing on end.
“I—was I—” My throat closed. “Was I bad?”
“You weren’t yourself,” she said, tone softer now, almost careful. “But Nathan didn’t touch you. He just got you out.”
Relief crashed into me so fast it made me sway. My knees nearly buckled.
“I—thank you,” I whispered, voice breaking.
Victoria’s mouth curved, not quite a smile but close. “Don’t thank me. Just don’t let it happen again. The Vortex club isn’t forgiving. You can’t afford to be careless.”
I swallowed hard, nodding. “I know. I won’t.”
For a beat, we just looked at each other. No barbs, no games. Just a thread of something quieter—respect, maybe. Or recognition.
Then she stepped aside, her tone brisk again. “Go. You’ll be late.”
I clutched my bag tighter, straightened my sweater, and forced myself forward—toward class, toward normalcy, toward daylight.
But her words echoed after me with every step: You were roofied.
⸻
The clock was merciless.
Every tick seemed to echo against the hall as I bolted down the corridor, shoes slapping the linoleum. My notebook dug into my arm, the strap of my bag sliding off my shoulder no matter how many times I yanked it back up.
It was already past noon. Way past the time Jefferson expected his students—his artists—to be sitting pretty and prim in their desks, poised like mannequins waiting to be posed.
My stomach churned as I shoved the classroom door open.
Thirty pairs of eyes flicked toward me, every head swiveling like I’d just dragged a megaphone in with me. My hair was still damp, clinging against the back of my neck; I’d rushed through drying it, pulling it into something resembling neatness, but I could feel strands sticking. The lavender scent of the showers clung sharp on me, too clean, like I was trying to wash the night off.
Jefferson stopped mid-sentence at the front of the class. His gaze cut clean across me. The corners of his mouth tugged into that small, rehearsed smile that wasn’t a smile at all.
“Well,” he said smoothly, hands sliding into his pockets like a model on a magazine cover. “Glad you could finally join us, Miss Harlow. I was starting to think Blackwell’s rules didn’t apply to you.”
A ripple of laughter rolled across the room. Quick, sharp.
Heat seared my face. My throat was dry, my head still foggy from whatever had been in my drink last night, and all that came out was a thin, embarrassed:
“Sorry.”
Jefferson let it hang a beat too long before nodding toward the only open seat. “Don’t worry. We’ll catch you up. Have a seat.”
My pulse was a drum as I scanned the rows. Of course it had to be near him.
Nathan Prescott sat slouched in the middle row, his body taut with a jittery energy that made the air around him feel unstable. His leg bounced restlessly under the desk, rattling it against Hayden’s beside him. He wasn’t even pretending to take notes—just drawing erratic lines on his paper, scratching too hard. His face was pale, his jaw clenched.
Hayden spotted me, waved with that laid-back grin that always seemed permanently plastered on him. “Hey, Harlow,” he whispered loudly enough for a couple heads to turn. “We saved you a seat.”
Saved me a seat. Like I belonged. Like it wasn’t the last seat available.
I forced a smile and slid into the desk beside Hayden, acutely aware of Nathan right there, radiating static. He didn’t look at me. His eyes were locked on Jefferson, unblinking, a glare sharp enough to cut.
Jefferson started pacing again, picking up his lecture like the interruption had been part of the performance all along.
“Photography,” he said, gesturing dramatically toward the screen behind him, where black-and-white prints filled the projection, “isn’t about replication. It’s about translation. About seeing. About choosing what truth to put in the frame. Every shot is a confession of the photographer, not the subject.”
He prowled the room with practiced elegance, his words rolling out like a sermon.
“You think you’re documenting life? Wrong. You’re shaping it. Editing it. Presenting a story of yourself every time you click that shutter.”
Pens scratched across notebooks. Fingers tapped on keyboards. I tried to keep up, my own pen poised, but my brain felt like sludge. Normally, I’d be cataloguing every word like scripture. Now, it all sounded like static.
Nathan’s knee kept thumping the underside of the desk. Thump-thump-thump. My pen jittered across the page every time.
Jefferson’s eyes swept the room again, and they landed on me. Too sharp.
“Miss Harlow,” he said. “Since you’ve made such a dramatic entrance, why don’t you contribute? Tell us—what’s your take on today’s reading? You did read it, didn’t you?”
The blood drained from my face. Of course I’d read it. I always read everything. But the fog in my head, the leftover haze of last night’s drugged blur, made the words vanish.
“I—” My voice cracked. A few students chuckled under their breath.
I forced it steady. “Yes. I read it. The author was saying… that photographs aren’t neutral. They always reflect the photographer, not just the subject. That… we’re always choosing what story to tell.”
A safe answer. True. But Jefferson’s smile tilted in that way that said he wasn’t impressed.
“Adequate,” he said simply, before gliding on with his lecture.
Adequate. Like I was a half-finished assignment.
A sharp crack split the air. I jerked. Nathan’s pencil had snapped in two between his hands.
Jefferson didn’t even look at him. But I did. His face was stone, his eyes still locked on the teacher with something burning behind them. Rage. Or something worse.
⸻
The lecture dragged on, every word dripping with Jefferson’s trademark blend of charm and condescension. He pointed at images on the screen: war photography, portraits, landscapes. Every photo an excuse to wax poetic about “integrity” and “vision.”
When the bell finally rang, it was like air returning to a suffocating room.
Chairs scraped, bags zipped. Students filed out in little clusters, voices rising again now that Jefferson wasn’t hovering over them.
Hayden stretched so hard his hoodie rode up a little, then slouched back in his seat like the dismissal hadn’t applied to him. He glanced over his shoulder at me, his grin crooked but softer than usual.
“Hey, Harlow,” he said, like he was testing the ground. Then his voice dropped, the joking edge stripped away. “About last night—shit got outta hand. I didn’t realize people were passing around… whatever the hell they were. Shouldn’t have been like that. Sorry you had to deal.”
The words were casual on the surface, but Hayden wasn’t looking at me like it was casual. His eyes flicked over me—checking, gauging.
I managed a tired smile, though my stomach was still knotted. “It’s fine. Really.”
It wasn’t fine. Not at all. But what was I supposed to say? Yeah, I think I was roofied, thanks for hosting?
My hand stilled on the zipper of my bag. I hesitated, then forced myself to look sideways. Nathan was still at his desk, hunched, stuffing his notebook into his bag with jerky, angry motions. His leg bounced, heel hammering the floor.
“And…” My voice felt too loud. “Thanks. For helping me back to the dorms. I don’t remember much, but—”
Nathan’s head snapped toward me so fast it startled me.
His eyes were bloodshot, glassy but sharp at the same time, like a fever that refused to break.
“Don’t,” he cut in flatly. His voice cracked at the edges, low but vibrating with some raw current under it. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”
I blinked. “I just—”
“Seriously.” His tone sharpened, defensive, almost biting. “Don’t make it a thing, alright? You don’t… you don’t need to thank me. Just—leave it.”
The silence that followed was brittle.
Hayden frowned, leaning forward between us like he was trying to smooth it over. “Dude, relax. She’s just saying thanks. Normal people do that, y’know.”
Nathan shot him a glare, jaw tight. “Shut up, Hayden.”
“Jesus, man,” Hayden muttered, raising his hands in mock surrender, though his eyes lingered on Nathan with something closer to unease. “Didn’t mean to set you off.”
Nathan exhaled sharply through his nose, shoving his chair back like it had offended him. The metal legs screeched across the floor.
I watched him, my words stuck somewhere between my throat and my chest. He wouldn’t look at me again.
The dismissal was sharp enough to sting. My mouth opened, ready to argue, but Jefferson’s voice slid in before I could breathe a word.
“Nathan. Stay a moment. We need to talk.”
It wasn’t a request.
Nathan stiffened, the way a cornered dog might — twitchy, dangerous, half-ready to bite. For a heartbeat, I thought he might pretend he didn’t hear. Then, with jerky, angry movements, he shoved his notebook into his bag, nearly tearing the spiral, and stalked toward the front of the room.
I lingered. Pretending to shuffle papers, to gather my things, to exist in that vague student limbo after class. But really, my ears were straining.
Jefferson’s voice dropped, pitched low, but his smoothness carried through the empty room. That voice — practiced, warm on the surface, but with something metallic underneath. “We’ve talked about this, Nathan. You need to stay in control. No more outbursts.”
Nathan’s reply was too quick, too low for me to catch, a string of angry syllables swallowed before they reached me.
Jefferson leaned in. I couldn’t see his eyes clearly from where I stood, but I could feel the way they sharpened. His tone was silk, but silk stretched over steel. “You want to stay in this program, don’t you? Then prove you can handle it. Otherwise…” He let the pause linger, like a blade held just above skin. “You’re wasting my time.”
My skin prickled. The fluorescent lights hummed loud in the silence that followed.
Nathan’s fists curled at his sides, knuckles white. His shoulders were wound so tight it looked painful. For a split second, I thought he might actually swing at Jefferson — that raw, twitching violence crackled off him.
Instead, his head dropped. He muttered something I couldn’t hear.
Jefferson didn’t flinch. Didn’t soften. He just straightened his tie with an unhurried grace, as if disciplining Nathan Prescott was no different than adjusting a camera lens.
“That’s better,” he said, so quiet it almost wasn’t meant for me. Then, louder, pleasant again: “Remember, Nathan, art is discipline. Without it, you’re just noise.”
The words dripped with the kind of calm that made my stomach turn. A teacher’s advice dressed up neat — but underneath, it sounded like control. Ownership.
Nathan stalked past me, shoulders still tight, face pale with fury. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t look at anyone.
I stood frozen, papers limp in my hand, as Jefferson’s eyes finally flicked my way. He smoothed his tie again — a tiny, needless gesture — and smiled like nothing had happened.
“See you tomorrow, Miss Harlow,” he said, cool as glass.
I nodded automatically, my throat dry.
By the time I slipped out the door, my heart was hammering.
And for reasons I couldn’t name, the look on Nathan’s face stayed burned in my mind all the way across campus. Not just the anger — but the defeat. The way it seemed like Jefferson had taken something from him in those few minutes, and Nathan hadn’t even realized he’d handed it over.
⸻
The air outside was crisp, the kind of thin coastal autumn chill that slipped under collars and made your lungs sting when you breathed too deep. Sunlight cut across the courtyard, bright but cold, casting long shadows of students streaming between classes.
I hugged my notebook to my chest and tried to shake Jefferson’s voice out of my head. Adequate. That smug tilt of his smile, the way the word had landed like a stain I couldn’t scrub out.
But there wasn’t time to wallow.
Because they were all there—my so-called circle, the Vortex orbit—clustered near the fountain like they’d been waiting for me.
Taylor spotted me first. She was perched on the fountain edge, blonde glossy hair perfect as ever, phone in hand, her sharp eyes cutting up from the screen. “Well, look who finally emerges from the Prescott dungeon.”
My stomach clenched. She didn’t mean it cruel, not entirely—it was Taylor’s way. Half-joke, half-needle, testing for weakness.
Dana turned immediately, her brows lifting. “Jackie!” She got up, ponytail swishing, crossing to me like she was ready to wrap me in a hug. “Oh my god, are you okay? Last night—you scared us.”
Zach was there too, leaning against the fountain with his basketball tucked under one arm. His grin was practiced, lazy, the kind that never quite reached his eyes. “Yeah, Harlow. You just ghosted. One second you’re fine, next second—poof.”
Courtney hovered a step back, hands clasped around her binder, looking guilty. “Victoria said you weren’t feeling well. I didn’t know if—”
“—If you’d, like, died,” Taylor cut in, arching a brow.
“Taylor,” Victoria’s voice sliced across, cool and commanding. She stood a little apart from the group, arms folded, her expression unreadable. “Not funny.”
They were all staring at me. Waiting. And suddenly I was back under Jefferson’s scrutiny, only this time it was worse—these weren’t teachers. These were my friends, the people who defined whether you mattered at Blackwell.
I forced a smile, the polite one, the armor. “I’m fine. Really. Just… too much last night. I didn’t realize some of those drinks were stronger than they seemed.”
“Uh, understatement,” Dana muttered, eyes soft with concern.
Taylor gave me a once-over, sharp and assessing. “You don’t look fine. You look like…” She stopped herself, then shrugged. “You look like you had a night.”
I laughed lightly, like it was no big deal. “Didn’t we all?”
“Not like you,” Zach said, smirking. He tossed the basketball between his hands, casual. “You were gone. Like, spaced. Prescott had to drag you off before you faceplanted.”
Heat prickled at the back of my neck. I glanced at Victoria, but she was already shaking her head, hair gleaming in the sun. “Nathan took her back because I asked him to. The guard was making rounds. She couldn’t go back to the girls’ dorms without risking trouble. It was the only option.”
The way she said it—firm, almost protective—made something in my chest loosen.
“Yeah,” I said quickly, nodding. “Exactly. I didn’t want to, you know, get written up or whatever. So… thanks, Vic. Really.”
Her eyes softened a fraction. “Don’t thank me. Just be smarter next time.”
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I fished it out, and the name on the screen made my heart lurch. Mom.
“Sorry, one sec,” I muttered, stepping a few paces away before swiping to answer.
“Jacqueline.” Her voice came crisp through the line, carrying that Monterey sharpness even from miles away. “I’ve been calling. How are you? How’s Blackwell?”
I swallowed. “Good, Mom. Busy. Classes are… intense, but manageable.”
“You sound tired.”
“I’m fine.” The word was automatic.
A pause. Then: “You’re not overextending, are you? You know how you get, trying to do everything perfectly. You need to take care of yourself.”
My throat tightened. “I’m fine,” I repeated, forcing brightness. “Really. Just—late night. Group project.”
Another pause, heavy with things she wasn’t saying. Finally: “Alright. Call me later this week. I want to hear more. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
The line clicked dead.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket and rejoined the group, pasting on another smile.
“Mom check-in?” Dana guessed, tilting her head.
“Yeah.” My voice came out flat. I cleared it. “Anyway—what were you saying?”
Taylor leaned forward, smirk tugging at her lips. “We were saying tomorrow night, lowkey bonfire at the beach. Nothing crazy. Just… chill. You in?”
Zach grinned. “Yeah, you gotta come. Make up for bailing last night.”
Courtney added quickly, “It’ll be fun. Like, actual fun, not just Vortex mandatory fun.”
My gut twisted. The last thing I wanted was another night like last night. Another chance to lose control, to wake up in someone else’s room with gaps in my memory.
But their eyes were all on me. Expectant. Waiting to see if Jackie Harlow could keep her place in orbit.
“Sure,” I heard myself say. “I’ll be there.”
Taylor smirked knowingly. Dana looked relieved. Zach winked. Courtney practically beamed.
And Victoria—Victoria just studied me, unreadable, before giving the faintest nod.
That was it. Decision made.
I smiled like I wasn’t already regretting it.