Chapter 9 The Philosophy Lecture
The philosophy hall at Halden University was an old, echoing chamber with too many windows and too little warmth.
Morning light slanted across the room, falling in neat squares across wooden desks. The place smelled faintly of dust and chalk, the scent of thoughts that had lingered too long.
Lila sat near the middle row, trying not to draw attention, with her notebook open, and her pen poised. Her pulse still hadn’t settled since last night,the photograph on her phone, and the camera turning on its own.
She hadn’t told Asher about that part. She couldn’t. He already thought she was going insane. Maybe she was.
When Professor Beckett entered, the low chatter dissolved instantly. He was tall, austere, the kind of man who seemed allergic to warmth. His gray suit was pressed within an inch of perfection, his voice carried the precise authority of someone who had never been wrong in his own mind.
He set his papers down, looked up once, and his eyes found Lila.
They stayed there.
Then he turned towards the book. Lila lifted her head and “The Ethics of Desire” were written neatly at the top as the topic of the day, scrawled across the board in Professor Beckett’s precise, angular handwriting.
He turned from the board, chalk still in hand, gray eyes sweeping the rows until they found her.
“Today,” he began, his tone short, “we discuss the ethics of desire.”
Someone near Lila whispered something, followed by a muffled laugh.
“Desire,” he began, “is the root of both creation and destruction. It drives the artist to paint, the scientist to discover, the lover to pursue and sometimes, to ruin.”
His gaze didn’t waver.
He placed the chalk down and continued, walking slowly. “Immanuel Kant believed that desire without reason corrupts moral law. That when we treat people as a means to our desire, rather than end in themselves, we become immoral.”
He stopped directly behind Lila’s desk. The air thickened around her.
“But others like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard saw desire as the very proof of being alive. Passion gives meaning. It gives purpose.” He leaned forward slightly, voice quiet but clear. “The question is, where’s the line between devotion and obsession? Between wanting something and needing to possess it?”
No one answered. The silence was almost reverent.
Then Beckett’s voice softened. “Miss Rowan,” he said, and the quietness cracked.
Every head turned toward her.
She froze. “Yes, Professor?”
“What do you think? You strike me as someone with thoughts on this matter.”
A few whispers broke out behind her. Someone murmured, “Serena’s sister.”
Lila swallowed hard. “I think desire isn’t moral or immoral on its own,” she said slowly. “It’s what we do with it. We all want something. But when you start to see someone as an answer instead of a person that’s when it becomes dangerous.”
Beckett tilted his head. “Dangerous,” he repeated. “Interesting word choice.”
He started pacing again. “Your sister once said something similar.”
The words dropped into the room like a stone.
A cold wave ran through Lila.
Beckett continued, tone detached. “Serena argued that love and desire could be justified by the sincerity of their feelings. That sincerity excused excess. She was brilliant but tragically wrong.”
Someone gasped softly. Another whispered, “I heard he dated her.”
Beckett turned back to the board. “You see, Miss Rowan, the sincerity of obsession doesn’t make it noble. It makes it more dangerous. Because the obsessed always believe they’re right.”
Her pen trembled in her hand. “You talk like you knew her very well.”
He turned slightly, one brow lifting. “I knew her as a student. I know you as another.”
Her lips parted, but she couldn’t find words. The whole class was watching. Beckett’s calmness was a weapon, every syllable was measured, deliberate, like he enjoyed the tension bleeding through the room.
“Take notes,” he said finally. “There will be a paper on this.”
Then he turned his back and continued writing, white chalk striking the board in precise lines.
Lila’s pulse thudded in her ears. Her sister’s name echoed in her head, in his voice, and she hated how it sounded, very cold, owned, and dissected.
When the lecture ended, chairs scraped, notebooks shut, and Beckett didn’t even look up.
Asher caught up with her at the door. “He’s such an ass,” he muttered. “Sorry. But seriously what was that?”
Lila didn’t answer. She kept walking, chest tight.
Asher reached for her arm. “Hey. Don’t let him get to you.”
“He knew her,” she whispered.
He blinked. “Serena?”
“Yeah. More than he admits.”
Asher hesitated. “There were rumors. That he.”
“I know.”
They walked in silence down the hall, the sound of other students’ laughter clashing with the heavy quiet between them.
When they parted ways, Lila sat alone under the old oak tree near the quad. She opened her notebook, flipping through the day’s notes, her pen mark shaky where Beckett had called on her.
The last line she remembered writing was about Kant’s moral law.
But below it, there was something else.
Something new.
A folded note. She stared at it, pulse quickening. Could it be Asher slipped a note into her book? But, he didn't sit beside her, could it be the guy who sat next to her?
She looked around to be sure she was alone, and she wasn't being watched by whoever dropped the note. Then she unfolded the note and saw something that startled her, typed in black ink. “Yes, I did it and you're next.”
She looked around, students walking past, no one close enough to have done it.
Her fingers brushed the typed words. The paper was a bit warm, meaning it was printed a few minutes ago..
Her phone buzzed in her bag. A new message from another unknown number.
“I'm watching you.”
She clutched her chest, feeling her heart race, each beat a thunderous echo as she stood up and looked around again and nobody was looking at her.
.
She looked up at the philosophy building. Beckett’s window was still open, curtain shifting slightly in the wind.
She could almost feel eyes on her again coming from his window.
Another breeze swept across her notebook, flipping the page then back again, as if by invisible hands.
When the pages flipped, she noticed faint pencil marks on the page slightly indented, like someone had written and erased it before. “Don’t trust the kind one.”
The sound of the wind seemed to fade, replaced by the distant echo of Serena’s voice, soft, almost pleading, from somewhere deep in her memory.
“He was kind and sent me roses.
Lila’s hand trembled over the page.
A petal drifted down from the tree above, something soft, crimson, and perfectly cut landed right on the words.
A rose petal. And she knew exactly what it meant. Her sister's killer was watching her and he was close. But, who is the killer?