The espresso machine at the campus library's ground-floor café hissed like an angry cat. Elara stood before it, a monument to frustration. Her alias, Elara Green, had just hit its first major snag: the student ID card linked to her coffee account wouldn't scan. The bored-looking barista had already sighed twice.
"System's glitching. Cash or card?" the barista droned.
Elara's hand froze halfway to her pocket. Her wallet contained only the crisp, traceable bills her father's accountant provided for "operational expenses." Using one here, for a latte, felt absurdly risky. But the caffeine was a necessity; the dense reading on tort law reform was like mud in her brain.
"I… I think I—" she began, flustered, a rare and dangerous loss of composure.
"Let me get it. Consider it an investment in continued spirited debate."
The voice came from just behind her shoulder. Low, firm, and familiar. She'd heard it only once, pitching arguments with airtight logic in the lecture hall. Kai Sterling.
She turned. Up close, he was taller than she'd registered. The storm-grey eyes were even more disconcerting, especially when they were focused on her with amused curiosity. He wore a worn leather jacket over a simple grey henley, and he held his own phone, payment app already open.
"I can't let you do that," Elara said automatically, the Costa pride—never be indebted—kicking in.
"You can. The alternative is you passing out on your Prosser & Keeton and learning nothing about negligent infliction of emotional distress." A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. "Which would be a tragedy. You were the only one in section three who didn't confuse duty of care with a moral obligation."
He'd noticed her. Not just her argument, but her presence. A flush, unwelcome and warm, crept up her neck. This is the target. The opposition. Do not engage. But he'd quoted her favorite torts treatise.
"Fine," she conceded, her voice tighter than she intended. "Thank you. I'll repay you."
"Next time." He nodded to the barista, completed the transaction for two coffees, and handed her the steaming cup. "Black, right? You strike me as a 'no distractions' purist."
He was right. Another unsettling data point. "How did you—?"
"Lucky guess." He took his own cup and nodded toward the crowded atrium. "I was just heading out. Walk with me? I'm parked in the west lot."
It wasn't an invitation to the study group. It was a casual, off-the-cuff offer. A coincidence. The exact kind of unchoreographed moment her life never allowed. Every instinct screamed to refuse, to melt into the stacks. But to refuse would be suspicious, out of character for a normal student. Normal students didn't run from helpful, moderately attractive classmates.
"Alright," she said, falling into step beside him.
They walked in silence for a moment, navigating the river of students. The silence wasn't empty; it was charged with unasked questions.
"So, Elara Green. You argue like you've seen the system break someone," he said finally, his tone conversational but his gaze sharp, glancing at her profile. "Most first-years are still quoting their high school civics teacher."
Her grip tightened on the paper cup. He sees too much. "I read the news. And history. Systems break people every day. It's their primary function."
A low chuckle escaped him. "Cynical. I called it. You're in the wrong study group. You should be with the world-weary grad students chain-smoking behind the philosophy building."
"Maybe I prefer the company of idealists," she said, surprising herself. "It's a novelty."
He stopped walking, just outside the library's grand glass doors. The chill night air hit them, a shock after the building's stuffy warmth. "Is that what I am? An idealist?"
She turned to face him, the campus lights catching in his eyes. "Aren't you? The son of the man who wants to clean up the city?" The words were out before she could cage them, a deliberate, testing needle. A reference to the public persona of Warden Sterling, not the private son.
Kai's expression closed off, just for a second. A shutter slamming down. "My father's work is his own," he said, his voice cooling several degrees. "I have my own opinions."
"Which are?"
"That the law is a scaffold. It can support justice or injustice, depending on who builds it." He took a sip of his coffee, watching her. "And you? Why are you really here, in this program? 'Fresh start' is what everyone says. It's what I said. But you… you have a different energy. Like you're not just studying the scaffold. You're looking for a weak point in the foundation."
The accuracy was terrifying. He was reading her like one of his case briefs. She forced a light shrug. "Maybe I just like to understand how things are built. So I know how they might fall."
Their eyes locked. In the space between them, the pretense of small talk evaporated. This was a silent, mutual recognition of something deeper—a shared intensity, a gravitational pull that had nothing to do with class schedules.
A sleek, dark sedan she recognized all too well glided slowly past the curb farther down the loop. Luca. Her curfew, her leash, made manifest.
"I have to go," she said abruptly, taking a step back. "My… ride is here."
Kai followed her glance, his lawyer's eyes missing nothing. He noted the car, its tint, its slow, predatory roll. "That doesn't look like a rideshare."
"It's complicated," she said, echoing her own internal mantra.
"You keep saying that." He didn't smile. "Complicated is just a word for a story someone doesn't want to tell."
"Goodnight, Kai. And thanks for the coffee." She didn't wait for a reply. She turned and walked, not too fast, toward the waiting car. She could feel his gaze on her back like a physical touch, a brand.
As she slid into the silent, opulent interior of the sedan, Luca glanced at her in the rearview mirror, his expression unreadable. "Everything alright, Miss Elara?"
"Fine," she said, staring out the window as the campus—and Kai Sterling—receded into the night. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, a frantic, traitorous drum.
It hadn't been a planned meeting. It had been an accident. A cosmic collision. And in its wake, she was left with the unsettling wreckage of a simple truth: she wanted to see him again. Not to study him. To talk to him. To feel that strange, electrifying challenge again.