Chapter 79 A class in shadows
The hallways felt heavier than they had that morning, as if the death near Beckett’s car had thickened the very air. Students moved through the corridors in tight clusters, whispering behind their hands or glancing over their shoulders as though expecting shadows to peel away from the walls. Every red-haired girl, the few who remained, kept their dyed hair tucked into beanies or tied beneath scarves, as if hiding the color could hide the fear under their skin.
Lila walked alone.
Her red hair, more vivid than ever beneath the white fluorescent lights, drew stares that slid quickly away the moment she looked back. Some students stepped aside to give her space, as if proximity might tie them to danger. Others stared too long, with fascination or pity or quiet judgment. She ignored them all, her gaze fixed ahead, forcing herself toward her first class of the day.
Beckett’s class.
A knot of dread coiled low in her stomach.
Even before the murder near his car, there had been suspicion clinging to him like smoke. Students whispered that he was too quiet, too charming, too young to be in his position. They said he was secretive. That he had enemies. That he was somehow connected to every tragedy on campus, simply because tragedy always seemed to find him.
Now, with a dead red-haired girl found near his vehicle, the rumors had multiplied like spores. Students had stood outside the taped-off crime scene earlier, whispering his name with wide eyes. Lila heard some of it. Enough to know he was being judged long before facts surfaced.
Still, she walked into his lecture hall.
She forced herself to ignore the sensation that everyone was watching her make that choice.
Inside, the room was dim, the blinds half-closed against the morning sun. The lights hummed faintly overhead.
A few students already sat scattered across the seats far more spread out than usual, leaving gaps as if the space between their bodies could provide safety. Whispered conversations drifted like dust.
“Did you hear they found the girl right next to his car?”
“Why was he even on campus so early?”
“No,he’s on sick leave, isn’t he?”
“Then why was his car there?”
“Maybe he staged it.”
“Or maybe someone’s framing him.”
“Do you really trust him that much?”
Lila kept her head down and took a seat in the third row. Not too close to him. Not too far away. She placed her notebook on the desk, though her hands trembled faintly as she did.
A few more students trickled in. Most of them stared at her for half a second longer than necessary. Only one other student with formerly red hair entered, her dyed black strands unevenly covering streaks of copper.
She refused to meet Lila’s eyes.
When the door finally opened again, silence swept through the room.
Beckett stepped inside.
He looked different today not drastically, but enough for Lila to notice immediately. His posture was stiffer than usual, shoulders pulled tight beneath his coat. His face held traces of sleeplessness, faint shadows beneath his eyes that no amount of composure could hide. His expression was controlled, but it was clear that he was bracing himself for something.
The entire class watched him the way prey watches a predator not because they feared him, but because they feared the idea of him.
He set his briefcase on the desk, then paused. Just the smallest hesitation, barely a second long, but unmistakable. As if the weight of every whisper in the room had pressed down on him at once.
Lila felt something twist in her chest.
He wasn’t a man immune to emotion. He wasn’t an untouchable figure. He was tired, strained, and possibly fighting a losing battle against the rumors that painted him guilty before evidence could defend him.
The room remained completely silent as he gathered a stack of papers and placed them neatly on the podium. Even those who normally chatted or played with their phones sat still, as though waiting for him to slip,to confirm their fears or absolve them.
Beckett lifted his gaze at last.
The class straightened unconsciously, as though his presence demanded attention even without a word.
When he spoke, his voice was calm. He began with the day’s lesson, launching into his explanation of the topic with practiced ease. He wrote on the board, outlined critical points, and referenced the textbook. But there was a stiffness in the way he moved, a subtle tension in the way he avoided looking at the windows that overlooked the parking lot.
Students pretended to take notes. Many did not. Their eyes flicked between his face and their phones, as if waiting for breaking news confirming what they already feared.
Beckett noticed. Lila could tell he did, though he tried not to show it.
He continued teaching anyway.
Half an hour passed in uneasy quiet. The weight of what had happened that morning seeped into the room like cold air. Every time footsteps echoed in the hallway outside, several students jumped. No one asked questions. No one participated. No one breathed too loudly.
Eventually, Beckett set his marker down and faced the class fully. For a moment, he simply observed them,every stiff posture, every darting gaze, every flinch when he shifted his weight.
Then he announced an assignment.
A complex research project. Multi-layered, demanding, and time-consuming. His tone remained professional, but the strain in his voice was impossible to miss. He insisted the work be turned in quickly within a tight deadline that caused several students to stiffen.
A few exchanged nervous glances. Others sank lower in their seats. The assignment had no softness in it, no leniency. It was the type of work requiring focus, thought, and emotional stability, something many of them no longer had.
But no one complained. No one dared to.
Lila felt the tension settle into her shoulders as she wrote down every detail. She didn’t think Beckett assigned the project to punish them. She didn’t think he was even capable of such petty cruelty. Instead, she sensed something else in the decision, some effort to regain normalcy, to anchor the class to structure and purpose, even as chaos seeped between the cracks of campus life.
When his finally ended, the silence broke but not with chatter.
Only scraping chairs, quick footsteps, hushed murmurs.
Students fled the room as if escaping something dangerous. A few lingered near the door, whispering about the body again.
“She was found right by his car.”
“Isn’t that too much of a coincidence.”
“How can she still attend his class?”
“She’s the only redhead left.”
“Maybe he likes that.”
Lila kept her back to them.She packed her notebook slowly, deliberately, focusing on the simple mechanical motions of sliding her pen into its slot and closing her bag. Her hands still trembled a little.
She didn’t want to look at Beckett, but she also couldn’t stop herself from noticing the exhaustion etched into his expression as he gathered his papers.
He didn’t meet the eyes of a single student.
A few stray whispers drifted from the doorway.
“Did you see him?”
“He looks guilty.”
“No, he looks stressed.”
“Same thing.”
“Maybe he killed her and went back to class like nothing happened.”
“Or maybe someone’s setting him up.”
The last voice was quiet and uncertain. But uncertainty wasn’t enough to drown out suspicion.
Beckett paused when he overheard them. He didn’t react outwardly not with anger or sadness or defensiveness but something in his posture shifted, a slight tightening of his shoulders that betrayed a ripple through the calm facade he fought to maintain.
He finished packing his materials and stepped away from the podium.
As he walked past Lila’s row, she lifted her head. For a moment, just a single breath his gaze brushed hers. He didn’t speak. He didn’t linger. But in that fleeting second, she saw everything.
The exhaustion. The pressure. The awareness that the campus saw him as a threat. The sinking weight of suspicion he couldn’t shake.
And beneath it all, something like quiet resignation, the type born from being powerless in the face of fear.
Lila stood slowly, adjusting the strap of her bag. The classroom felt colder now, emptier. The shadows in the corners seemed to stretch longer as students hurried out.
When she exited the room, she caught the final ripple of whispers behind her.
“He shouldn’t be teaching.”
“Not after this morning.”
“What if he’s dangerous?”
“What if he’s innocent?”
“Does that even matter anymore?”
Outside the classroom, the hallway buzzed faintly with leftover tension. Lila walked through it quietly, head down, but not fast. She felt the eyes on her, and she knew what they were thinking not just about Beckett, but about her.
The girl with the red hair.. The girl who refused to change. The girl who attended the class of the man everyone whispered about.
She kept walking.
The lights above flickered slightly, humming as though echoing the unease buried in the walls. And for the rest of the morning, the sense of something dark hovering at the edge of every corridor refused to
fade.
Class ended, but its shadows lingered.
And Lila, more than anyone, carried them with her.