Page 5
Julian gives Mathias a two-fingered salute from his temple. “Lead the way, Professor. I’m all ears.”
The moment Mathias turns back to the board, I feel Julian’s eyes settle back on the side of my face with the patience of someone who has decided to bide his time. He is terrifyingly good at that—at making waiting feel like a silent threat to my survival.
I last exactly four minutes. It isn't his staring that breaks my fuse. It's the suffocating weight of the last year. It’s watching him glide on privilege, treating the rules like suggestions, and the lack of consequences like a joke.
Consequences do not apply to a Thorne. Not when your father’s checkbook carries more weight than the board of directors. The sheer audacity of the way he treats this place… this opportunity that so many others would give everything for. It's so hard to tolerate and turn a blind eye.
The eye roll happens before I can stop it, and the accompanying huff sounds in the perfect silence of the lecture hall. Several heads turn to look around to find out where it has come from.
Double shit.
I go very still as I casually turn my head, pretending that I too am trying to find the source. Nobody appears to have identified me as the culprit. Phew.
Julian leans in. “Careful.” He pauses. “If you keep rolling your eyes and making those sounds like that, Bow-Peep, people might think you’re actually enjoying yourself.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I whisper back, which is a mistake because it's exactly the acknowledgement he has been waiting for. I hate myself a little.
“Always so violent.” He grins. His eyes trace the tight line of my jaw with an attention to detail that is not helping. “Does the bow keep the crazy inside, or is it purely decorative?”
“The bow is none of your business.” I keep my voice low. “Shut up and listen before Mathias throws us both out.”
And then he pulls the bow from my hair.
I feel the knot give before I fully process what is happening—the silk loosening and tension releasing in one deliberate tug, and then the ribbon is gone—sliding from my hair and landing somewhere on the floor between us.
“There,” he murmurs against my ear. “Breathe.”
His hand moves to the desk—right into my space.
Not this, not today.
Something snaps. Not gradually, not with any of the careful or controlled warning signs I've been trained to recognise in myself. I'm on my feet before I've made any conscious decision to stand.
My palms hit the desk. Both of them. Flat and hard as the sound ricochets through the space like a gunshot. My chair scrapes against the wooden floor as I push myself up onto my feet.
Every head turns and looks directly at me.
“Are you finished?” My voice comes out cold, much steadier than I would have thought, given my hands are shaking against the desk and my heart is doing something violent in my chest. “Because while you are busy performing your little routine, some of us are here on merit.” The words are coming, and I cannot stop them. “Some of us do not have the safety net of our father’s money to catch us when we fall. So move your hand, Julian, or I'll move it for you. And I promise I won't be gentle.”
The silence that follows is the loudest thing I have ever heard.
Professor Mathias has stopped speaking entirely. The chalk is still in his hand, hovering somewhere near the board as he stares at me with utter shock.
Across the aisle I see Maddie’s face, wide eyes and mouth slightly open.
I become aware, in stages at the severity of what I have just done.
Triple shit.
The heat drains from my face so quickly that I feel slightly faint, and realise I need to sit back down and try to gain some composure. Every single person in this room is looking at me, and the only one that I have not looked at is the one sitting right next to me.
“Miss Vance.” The longest pause, ever. “Mr Thorne.” Another pause.
Breathe, Ellise.
“My office. Tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock. Both of you.” He resumes writing on the board. “Do not be late.”
I close my eyes for a second, hoping that this is all a bad dream. But it’s not. It is very real.
