CHAPTER 30
This is genuinely great, Mackenzie. You set up the motion blur as war smoke. That's not typical."
Nate grinned across the tiny café table, pushing the corner of my photo print with a single ink-smeared finger. He looked like every indie film director I secretly made fun of—beanie, wire-rim glasses, too much flannel—but he talked like someone who'd devoured Light and Shadow front to back.
I gave him a cautious smile. “It’s kind of a favorite trick. Makes everything feel like it’s already fading.”
“Fading but not forgotten,” he said with a wink. “You’ve got the war-journalist vibe. Dangerous, haunted, brilliant.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s dramatic.”
“So’s your work.”
He leaned across the table and grazed my hand with his fingers along the back of mine as if we were something more than classmates. As if we were figures in one of his dark art films.
I didn't pull away.
Not because I wanted him.
Because I had to know if I still had the power to make someone want me without fear.
And that's when I experienced the tilt.
The weight in the room changed, like someone had opened a door and let a storm crawl in behind me.
Nate’s eyes darted upward, his face paling slightly. “Uh—”
I didn’t have to turn to know.
Tony was here.
\---
His footsteps were silent, but the air warped around him. He was all shadow and sharp lines, dressed in black again, shoulders tense beneath a leather jacket I’d never seen before.
"Tony—" I started to say, rising, but he was already there at the table.
He didn't look at me. He looked at Nate.
Who was regretting every single charming word he'd uttered.
Tony's hand closed over Nate's shoulder—casual, almost friendly, but the kind of casual that leaves a bruise.
"Problem?" Nate said, trying to laugh, though it cracked at the end.
Tony leaned in. "No. Just making sure you know something."
Nate's grin slipped. "And what's that?"
Tony's fist clenched.
"I didn't know she was yours," Nate stuttered, eyes wide. "Chill, man."
Tony let him go.
"Now you do," he said.
\---
I grabbed his arm before he could turn away. "Outside. Now."
He didn't struggle. Just came, quiet as a loaded gun.
Behind the café, the alley was quiet. Empty. My heart wasn't.
What the hell was that?" I spat, shoving him the moment we were alone. "You don't get to manhandle people like some possessive animal!"
He didn't flinch. "He touched you."
I laughed—loud and sharp. "He brushed my hand, Tony. We were talking about photos, not an elopement!"
He stepped in closer. "You didn't pull away.
"Because I didn't have to!" I yelled. "Because I can speak to people without being strangled by your jealousy."
His jaw worked. "I'm not jealous."
"Bullshit."
He scowled at me, eyes dark, face unreadable.
"You don't get to claim me like I'm property," I spat. "I'm not your trophy. I'm not your pet. I'm not your goddamn property."
"I didn't say you were."
"You didn't have to."
Silence.
The alley crackled with tension.
Finally, he said it.
"Don't pretend you didn't like it."
I froze.
Because I hated how right he was.
\---
I didn't go in.
I took the long way back to my dorm, white-knuckling my phone, still vibrating from Arizen's latest unanswered text.
My body was still vibrating from the fight. Not with fear. Not with anger.
With adrenaline.
With heat.
And I hated myself for it.
\---
I lay in bed that night, eyes wide open, gazing at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to my ceiling since move-in week. My chest felt tight. My mind was louder than it had been in weeks.
I couldn't quit replaying it—Tony's hand on Nate's shoulder. Nate's laugh dying in his throat. The glint in Tony's eyes, not anger, but warning.
I remembered the weight of Tony's body when he stood in front of the sun on the football field that day. The way he held my waist at the bonfire. The way he kissed me like I owed him silence.
And I remembered my own heart.
The way it fluttered.
The way it welcomed him in.
\---
Arizen found me the next morning in the hallway, backpack slung over one shoulder and anger in her walk.
You made it onto The Watchlist," she said, without hello.
"What?"
"The campus gossip page. Somebody videoed the Tony-Nate moment. Blurred face, but everybody knows."
I shut my eyes.
Arizen didn't sympathize. "What did he do?"
"He grabbed Nate's shoulder. That's all."
"That's not all," she barked. "It's never just that. It's always a start."
I rested against the wall. "It's complicated."
"No, Mackenzie," she said, voice cracking. "It's toxic."
I had no response.
Because even when she was right, something in me had to defend it.
\---
In photo class, Nate avoided me. I didn't blame him.
Tony didn't show.
Maybe he was giving me space.
Maybe he was watching from somewhere I couldn't see.
I hated that I missed him.
\---
That night, I walked the campus alone. Camera in hand. Hoodie up. Trying to drown myself in the safe click of the shutter.
I shot shadows between buildings.
Leaves curling in the wind.
A couple kissing behind the library.
And a boy sitting on the edge of the fountain—head bowed, hood up, hands clasped together as if he was praying.
Tony.
I didn't record him.
Not then.
Because some things don't belong on film.
\---
Later, I pulled up the footage.
The one from The Watchlist.
I watched it three times.
The moment his hand came down on Nate's shoulder.
The fear. The control.
The claim.
And I felt it again—that cold, electric thrill in my chest.
The one I couldn't acknowledge.
The one that said, He'd go to war for you.
The one that answered, But would he burn you to ashes in the process?
\---
I didn't block his number.
I didn't call him either.
But I slept with my phone in my hand.
Waiting.
Wanting.
Afraid of the next line he'd cross.
And the one I might beg him to.
\---
"You've been quiet lately."
Arizen's voice drifted to me as we stood in front of the vending machine outside of our dorm. I hadn't realized she was there, hadn't even noticed I'd paused in front of the machine too long, frozen with my finger hovering over B3 like I'd forgotten the taste of chocolate.
I turned to her and pretended a smirk. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
She gave me that look. The one that wasn’t sarcastic or clever—just full of sharp, surgical care. “With you? It usually is.”
I dropped my hand, let it fall back to my side. “I’m just tired.”
“Right. Tired. Not haunted or torn or hiding up on rooftops with your camera like some gothic batgirl.”
I blinked. “You been spying on me?”