[Keifer's POV]
The moment Kiara's arms fell away from me, the air around me felt contaminated. I didn't look at her. I didn't give her the satisfaction of a single glance at her face, because if I had, I might have said something that would haunt my reputation for years.
"Don't ever do that again," I said, my voice vibrating with a frequency that made the students nearby freeze. It was a warning, low and lethal. "You aren't a variable in my life, Kiara. You're a glitch. And glitches get erased. Stay away from me, and stay away from my fiancée."
I turned on my heel and walked toward Section 1-A. Every step felt like I was crushing glass under my boots. My only goal was to get through the lectures and get back to Room 413, back to the girl who actually held the code to my heart.
When I entered the classroom, Sir Alvin was already at the podium. He looked up, his expression uncharacteristically relaxed.
"Class," Sir Alvin announced, tapping the digital board. "Due to the extreme winter weather warnings and a scheduled overhaul of the university's heating grid, the board has approved an early one-month winter break, starting tomorrow."
The room erupted in cheers. Rory practically fell off his chair, and even Erdix and David were high-fiving. Under any other circumstances, I would have felt the same rush of relief. A month. Thirty days of absolute privacy with Jay at the estate. Thirty days to let her heal, to study together by the fire, and to forget that Yuri Hanamitchi even existed.
I felt a genuine spark of happiness. I was already planning the itinerary for our month-long sanctuary in my head as I sat through the final hour of the lecture.
The Empty Room
The second the bell rang, I was out the door. I bypassed the Squad, ignored Rory's shout about a "pre-holiday drink," and practically ran to the dorms.
I burst into Room 413, the words "Jay, we have a month!" already on the tip of my tongue.
But the silence that met me was wrong. It wasn't the peaceful silence of Jay sleeping; it was the hollow, echoing silence of a room that had been abandoned in a hurry.
Mica was standing by the window, her face pale, holding a half-empty glass of water. Her hands were shaking.
"Mica? Where is she?" I demanded, the happiness from the lecture hall vanishing like smoke. My heart began to drum a frantic, irregular rhythm against my ribs. "I told you not to leave her alone."
"I didn't leave her, Keifer!" Mica cried, her voice hovering on the edge of a breakdown. "She was sitting on the bed. She was fine. Then her phone buzzed. She looked at it, and... Keifer, I've never seen her look like that. It was like her soul just evaporated. She started crying—just one tear—and before I could even ask what happened, she grabbed her keys."
"And you let her drive? She was dizzy, Mica!" The panic was a physical weight now, crushing my lungs.
"I couldn't stop her! She looked... robotic. Like she was on autopilot. She didn't say a single word to me. She just left."
I didn't wait to hear the rest. I pulled out my phone, my fingers fumbling as I tried to call her. Voice mail. I called again. Voice mail. "Dammit, Jay! Pick up!" I roared, kicking the leg of the coffee table. The "Chill Prince" was dead and buried. I was a man coming apart at the seams.
The Call from the Fortress
I was halfway to the door, my mind racing through every dark possibility—did she crash? Did Yuri find her?—when my phone vibrated in my hand.
Mamma Serina.
I swiped the screen so hard I nearly cracked the glass. "Mamma? Is Jay there?"
"Keifer..." Mamma's voice was thick with worry, and I could hear the faint sound of her own distress in the background. "She's here. She just arrived, but Keifer... something is terribly wrong. She was crying, but she wouldn't speak. She wouldn't even look at us. She just ran upstairs to the Blue Suite and locked the door. She won't come out, and she won't answer me."
My blood turned to ice. She was safe at the estate, but she was broken. And I knew, with a sickening certainty, that whatever she saw on that phone was the cause.
I'm coming home, Mamma. Don't let anyone near that door. Just... tell her I'm coming."
I hung up and sprinted for the parking lot. I didn't care about the winter break, I didn't care about the university, and I didn't care about the speed limits. My car roared to life, the tires screeching against the asphalt as I peeled out of the campus.
What did you see, Jay? I thought, my knuckles white as I gripped the steering wheel, my heart shattering with every second that passed. Whatever it was, whatever lie they told you... I'm going to fix the equation. I'm coming home.