NORA'S POV
My phone explodes with texts before I even make it across campus.
CARL: You're written up. Final warning. One more stunt and you're fired.
MAYA: Where did you go??? Are you okay???
UNKNOWN: Run faster. He's following you.
That last one makes me stop dead in the middle of the quad.
I spin around, heart pounding. Students walk past—nobody suspicious, nobody watching. But the back of my neck prickles like invisible eyes are on me.
Who sent that message?
I delete it with shaking fingers and keep walking, faster now. The library. I need to get to the library where it's safe, where I can think, where I can figure out what's happening to my life.
Twenty-four hours ago, I was invisible. Now I'm the girl who kissed Evan Crane and got publicly destroyed for it.
Except—did I kiss Evan?
The thought stops me at the library doors. In the gala's twinkling lights, I was so sure it was Ash. The quiet intensity in those blue eyes. The way he kissed me back like I was precious.
But Evan showed me the photo. Proved it was him.
So why did it feel like Ash?
I push through the heavy doors into the library's warmth. Mrs. Chen, the head librarian, looks up from her desk and frowns. "Nora? Shouldn't you be at your coffee shop shift?"
"I quit," I say, and my voice cracks.
Her expression softens. "Oh, honey. Come here."
I collapse into the chair across from her desk, and suddenly I'm crying—ugly, gasping sobs that I've been holding back since Evan called me charity. Mrs. Chen hands me tissues and doesn't ask questions, which makes me cry harder.
"He said—" I hiccup. "He said I threw myself at him. That I'm desperate. That—"
"Evan Crane is a fool," Mrs. Chen says firmly. She's worked here for thirty years and doesn't take nonsense from anyone, not even campus royalty. "Whatever he said, whatever he did, it says everything about him and nothing about you."
But it does say something about me. It says I'm the scholarship girl who can't even tell identical twins apart. Who kissed a boy who hates her and thought it meant something.
"I need to work," I whisper, wiping my eyes. "Can I shelve books?"
"Of course. But Nora? Don't let cruel boys steal your light. You're worth more than that."
I wish I believed her.
I spend the next hour in the back stacks, shelving returned books. The familiar smell of old paper and dust calms me. Up here on the third floor, surrounded by forgotten stories, I can pretend I'm someone else. Someone who doesn't work three jobs. Someone whose mom didn't die. Someone who belongs at Frost Haven University.
Someone who didn't just have her heart broken by a boy who was only pretending.
My phone buzzes. Maya again.
MAYA: Nora please answer. People are posting videos. It's bad.
I turn my phone off.
I'm shelving poetry when I remember my locker. That weird text this morning said I had mail waiting.
Probably just another overdue notice or scholarship paperwork. But right now, I need a distraction from the nightmare my life has become.
I take the back stairs down to the basement where the student lockers are. It's empty and quiet down here, just fluorescent lights humming. My footsteps echo on the concrete floor.
Locker 247. I spin the combination—right, left, right—and pop it open.
Inside sits a small package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.
My hands shake as I pull it out. There's no name, no mailing address. Someone put this directly in my locker.
I unwrap it carefully. Inside is a book—old, leather-bound, beautiful. The cover reads "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" by Pablo Neruda.
My favorite poet. The one I quoted in Professor Martinez's class last week.
Tucked inside is a note on cream-colored paper. The handwriting is elegant, almost old-fashioned:
"You quoted Neruda in class. I wanted you to have the real thing. You deserve words that match your soul. -A"
My heart stops.
A.
Ash? Or could A stand for something else—anyone else?
No. It has to be Ash. He's the artist, the quiet one who notices things. Evan wouldn't know who Neruda is, let alone remember what I said in a random English class.
I flip through the book with trembling hands. On the title page, someone's written in pencil:
"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."
It's a Neruda quote. One of my favorites. One I mentioned in class.
Someone was listening. Someone cared enough to remember. Someone thinks I deserve beautiful words.
But as I stare at the note, doubt creeps in like poison.
The handwriting is neat and controlled—not messy like an artist's would be. And how would Ash get into my locker? How would he know the combination?
Unless Evan told him.
Unless they're working together.
My stomach twists. What if this is another game? Another way to humiliate the scholarship girl who doesn't know her place?
I pull out my phone to text Maya, ask her what she thinks. That's when I see them—scratches around the lock on my locker door. Fresh ones. Like someone picked it recently.
Someone broke into my locker to leave this gift.
The lights flicker overhead. Once. Twice.
"Hello?" My voice sounds small in the empty basement.
No answer. Just the hum of fluorescent bulbs and my racing heartbeat.
I grab the book and slam my locker shut, ready to run upstairs where there are people and witnesses and safety.
But something's taped to the outside of my locker door now. Something that definitely wasn't there thirty seconds ago.
A photograph.
It's me and Evan under the mistletoe, mid-kiss. But someone's drawn on it with red marker—a heart around us, arrows pointing at our faces, and words scrawled across the bottom:
"WHICH TWIN DO YOU LOVE?"
I rip it down with shaking hands. On the back, there's more writing:
"Careful, Nora. The Crane twins share everything. Including secrets that could destroy you. Choose wrong, and you'll discover exactly how far they'll go to protect each other. The game's just beginning, and you're the prize they're fighting over. P.S. Check the last page of the book. The real gift is waiting."
My fingers fumble as I flip to the last page of the poetry book.
Tucked inside is another note. Different handwriting this time—messier, desperate:
"I'm sorry. For everything. I never meant to hurt you. But you need to stay away from both of us. Someone's watching. Someone's playing games. And you're in danger because of me. Please, Nora. Run. -E"
For Evan.
So the book was from Ash. But the warning is from Evan.
Both twins are contacting me. Both twins are watching me. Both twins are keeping secrets.
And someone else is watching all three of us, leaving photographs and threats in locked lockers.
The lights go out completely.
In the pitch-black basement, I hear it—footsteps. Coming closer.
Someone's down here with me.
And they're not leaving.