Chapter 13 Beckett's Warning
Lila left the café an hour later. She stood outside Professor Beckett’s office for a full minute before knocking. The brass nameplate on the door, Dr. Henry Beckett, Department of Philosophy caught the morning light and glinted like a warning.
She knocked twice.
“Come in,” his voice called, clipped.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The office smelled faintly of ink and old paper, the air heavy and still. The blinds were half-drawn, stripes of sunlight slashing across the wall of books. Beckett sat behind his desk, surrounded by papers and a cold cup of coffee.
He didn’t look up right away. “You’re late.”
“Sorry, Professor,” Lila said, setting her bag down. “I..uh..got lost in the library.”
He raised a brow, unimpressed. “The library’s for reading, not hiding.”
She forced a smile, though her palms were damp. “I wasn’t hiding.”
Beckett flipped open a file, her essay. Red ink bled across the pages like a wound. “You have potential,” he said finally, “but potential without discipline is nothing.”
She folded her hands together to keep them from fidgeting. “What’s wrong with it?”
He adjusted his glasses. “You wrote that morality is driven by emotion. That compassion defines right and wrong. You quoted Rousseau and stopped there.”
“Well, I thought..”
“That’s the problem,” Beckett interrupted. “You thought instead of reasoned. Philosophy doesn’t care how you feel, Miss Rowan. It demands logic.”
His tone wasn’t cruel, just cold. Every word felt like a slap meant to wake her.
“I can rework it,” she said quietly.
He leaned back, watching her. “Why philosophy?”
The question caught her off guard. “I like asking questions,” she said. “Even when they don’t have easy answers.”
His mouth twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “You remind me of someone.”
Lila’s chest tightened. She didn’t need to ask who. Everyone whispered about it, how he once dated Serena Rowan, the bright photography student found dead near the art building.
Beckett turned another page, his red pen tracing a line through her paragraph. “You’re not here just for philosophy, are you?”
Her heartbeat stumbled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He looked at her over his glasses, eyes like steel. “You’ve been asking questions. Poking around in places you shouldn’t.”
Lila stared down at the floor. “I’m just curious about what happened last year. That’s all.”
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. For the first time, he sounded almost human. “Curiosity gets people hurt. Stay out of the photography wing after dark, Miss Rowan.”
The words were calm, but the way he said them, sounded measured, deliberate and it sent a cold ripple through her.
“I wasn’t planning on..”
“Don’t.” His voice sharpened. “I mean it.”
Silence stretched between them. Lila’s gaze drifted to the side of his desk, and her stomach knotted.
There, near his lamp, sat a glass jar. Inside, she saw rose petals. Deep crimson, carefully pressed.
Her breath caught. “Are those real?”
He followed her eyes, then gave a low hum. “They were. My late fiancée loved rose petals. She said they reminded her that beauty fades, but memory doesn’t.”
He twisted the jar slightly; the petals shifted like dried blood. “I suppose I keep them because I can’t throw her away.”
Lila didn’t know what to say. Part of her wanted to pity him. The other part, the louder one was screaming.
“Was she…” Lila hesitated. “Was she a student here?”
His hand froze on the jar. For half a second, his eyes hardened. Then he smiled. “That’s not relevant to your essay.”
Lila forced a small laugh, trying to steady her voice. “Right, of course.”
He pushed her paper back across the desk. “Rewrite it. Try again. And stay focused on the living, not the dead.”
She nodded, sliding the pages into her folder. Her fingers brushed against something cold, his desk jar. The lid wasn’t sealed. A single petal had fallen onto the wood.
She wanted to ask about it, but his gaze was fixed on her again, intensely and unreadable.
“You really loved her,” she said softly.
His expression didn’t change. “Love is just another form of obsession, Miss Rowan. That’s what your essay should have been about.”
Her chest tightened. She stood quickly, her chair legs scraping against the floor. “I’ll bring the new draft next week.”
Beckett nodded. “Good. And remember what I said about the photography wing.”
Lila reached for the door handle, eager to leave. Her hand was shaking.
Behind her, his voice came again, lower, almost a whisper. “Not everyone who smiles at you is harmless.”
She turned back to him, uneasy. “What are you talking about?”
Beckett didn’t answer. His eyes shifted toward the office door, as if he’d heard something.
Suddenly, the door handle creaked.
Lila froze.
Someone was standing on the other side.
The door swung wider with a soft groan, and Lila’s breath caught in her throat.
The door opened with a soft creak that cut through the tense air of Beckett’s office.
Professor Mercer stood there, framed in the doorway, a strange calm resting over his face like a mask. His gaze moved from Beckett to Lila, then down to Beckett's hand and back to Lila's face.
“Professor Mercer,” Beckett said, his tone clipped. “Do you mind knocking?”
Mercer didn’t answer immediately. He stepped into the room with the quiet confidence of someone who belonged everywhere. “I didn’t realize you had company,” he said evenly. His eyes softened when they found Lila’s face. “Are you all right, Miss Rowan?”
Lila nodded, unsure. “Yes, I…uh.. I was just leaving.”
But Mercer’s hand came forward before she could step away. He took her hand gently, his thumb brushing her knuckles, steadying her, maybe, or claiming her.
“Henry,” Mercer said suddenly, his voice low and tight, “she’s your next victim, isn’t she?”
The words froze everything. Even the air seemed to stop moving.
Lila’s heart stumbled. “What?”
Beckett rose slowly, his chair scraping across the floor. His face drained of color. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Mercer said, his expression unreadable. “You’ve made a habit of surrounding yourself with girls who look like her. Red hair. Bright minds. And then..”
“That’s enough.” Beckett’s voice was ice. “You’re out of line, Colin.”
Mercer’s hand tightened slightly on Lila’s wrist. “Am I?”
Lila looked between them, pulse hammering. The two men stood on opposite sides of the desk, a storm of old hostility crackling between them.
Beckett’s tone dropped to a near whisper. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mercer leaned in just slightly, still calm. “I have every idea, Henry.”
“Get out of my office.”