"Nice church, huh" he said.
"I've seen better," Zayan shot back, though the bravado felt thin, stretched tight over the sudden knot tightening in his gut. He swung his leg back over the saint's shoulder, bracing his hands against the cold stone, refusing to scramble down like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "It's a little drafty for my taste. And the decor is a bit heavy on the 'suffering in silence' vibe." He flicked the crushed cigarette butt off the statue, watching it tumble through the air to land on the pristine floor near the stranger's polished shoes. A tiny test, a deliberate breach of etiquette to see if the man would flinch.
The stranger didn't look at the smoldering ash. He kept his eyes locked on Zayan, a faint, terrifyingly polite smile touching his lips that didn't reach his eyes. "Silence is usually preferable to the noise people make when they're dying," he said, his voice smooth and low, carrying effortlessly down the long aisle without raising. He reached into his coat, not for a weapon, but for a silver lighter, flipping it open and closed with a rhythmic click-clack that sounded like a bone resetting. Something in his eyes said — puppy.
Zayan saw it land. Felt the precise shape of the dismissal. Filed it away in the part of himself that didn't forget things.
Interesting, he thought.
He swung his legs off the saint's shoulder and dropped — clean and easy, eight feet to the stone floor, landing without a sound, crouched for a split second before standing up. He shook out his jacket, settling it back on his shoulders, and walked down the aisle toward the man, closing the distance until he could smell the expensive scent of the man's cologne cutting through the incense. He stopped three feet away, looking up at him with a defiant tilt of his chin, refusing to be the one to look away first. It was a game of chicken, played with eyes and silence, and Zayan was determined not to blink.
"You're blocking the exit, ," Zayan said, his voice quiet but carrying the same sharp edge as the knife he'd lost. "Unless you're the janitor, in which case, I'm definitely in the wrong place for a smoke break."
The stranger's smile didn't waver. If anything, it deepened, stretching into something that resembled a rictus of good humor. He gestured toward the heavy oak doors with a fluid sweep of his arm, his coat flaring slightly like the wings of a dark bird.
"I'm not the janitor," he said. "But I am someone who appreciates a boy who knows how to make an entrance. Even if it's from eight feet up." He took a step closer, invading Zayan's personal space with the casual confidence of a guy who owned the ground he walked on. Zayan looked at him from his own height — they were nearly matched, nearly, he was tall, broad shouldered, heavy, but Zayan had the speed. The guy had the stillness. And handsome too — classically, brutally handsome, the kind of face that launched wars and destroyed cities without ever raising its voice.
"You're new." he asked still playing with his lighter, ignoring the insult about his height or perhaps cataloging it for later. "I can tell. You haven't learned the rule about looking at things that don't belong to you."
"I look at whatever I want," Zayan said, the words automatic, a reflexive defiance against the invisible leash the stranger seemed to be holding in his hand. He held the man's gaze, refusing to let the intensity of it burn him, refusing to acknowledge the way his instincts were screaming at him to run. He could feel the static between them, a charge in the air that made the hair on his arms stand up. This wasn't Java's chaotic, burning energy; this was something colder, more controlled. A deep freeze.
The man laughed, a soft, dry sound. "Do you? That must be tiring." He snapped the lighter shut, the sudden click echoing in the quiet church like a gunshot. "You're sitting on a saint in a house of God, smoking cheap cigarettes and acting like you own the silence. That usually implies either a death wish or a very specific kind of hunger." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that brushed against Zayan's ear. "Which one is it, puppy?"
The word hung in the damp, incense-choked air, a collar snapped tight around Zayan's throat before he could even think to dodge. "You're new." he said again, ignoring the provocation of the nickname, turning the observation into a statement of fact, a line drawn in the sand. He looked the guy up and down, a slow, deliberate scan that took in the polished shoes, the expensive coat, the perfectly groomed hair that screamed old money and older sins. "You don't know the rules here, . You're walking around like you own the place, but you're just a tourist. And tourists get lost."
The stranger's eyebrows rose, a flicker of genuine surprise breaking through the mask of polite menace. "Is that what I am? A tourist?" He repeated the word like he was tasting it, rolling it around on his tongue to see if it fit.
"I suppose everyone is a tourist in someone else's hell." He gestured vaguely around the church, taking in the candlelight and the statues, the shadows that stretched long and thin in the nave. "I'm just admiring the architecture. And the company. It's not every night I find a stray kitten perched on the altar."
"I'm not a stray kitten," Zayan snapped, the words lashing out before he could stop them, stung by the casual dismissal. He took a step closer, invading the stranger's space the way he had invaded his, ignoring the warning bells screaming in his head. "And I'm definitely not your company. I'm leaving." He turned toward the door, a dramatic exit ruined only by the fact that he had to walk past the man to get there.
Zayan Scott.
The name stopped Zayan cold, his hand hovering inches from the heavy iron handle of the door. It wasn't just that the stranger knew it; it was the way he said it, rolling the syllables around his mouth like he was savoring a vintage wine, testing the vintage. Slowly, Zayan turned back, the casual indifference he wore like a second skin slipping just enough to reveal the predator underneath. "You did your homework," Zayan said. "But you're still wrong about the kitten thing."
The stranger ignored the correction. "Zayan Scott," he said again, tasting the name. "Brother to Aziel Scott. Current resident of Room 314, Belthrow Campus, though I suspect you won't be sleeping in your own bed tonight." He smiled, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. "Or maybe you will. Maybe you like the cage."
" you did homework on a first year student." Zayan looked at him. "Why."
"Because Java Miklaus doesn't usually let his strays wander this far from the yard without a leash," the stranger replied, the name hitting the air between them like a dropped anvil. The smile faded, replaced by a look of cool, clinical assessment, as if he were dissecting a frog and found the anatomy lacking. "When a boy like that starts carving his initials into something, people tend to notice the ripples. You're not just a freshman with a bad attitude, Zayan; you're collateral damage waiting to happen. I'm simply curious what it is about you that's worth the cleanup."
The stranger let the silence stretch, heavy and suffocating, before he stepped aside, clearing the path to the door with a mocking sweep of his arm. But he didn't retreat; he loomed, a predator retracting his claws but keeping his teeth bared. "Run along back to your dorm, puppy. Lock the door. Check the closet. But remember that curiosity works both ways—you sat on the saint to feel tall, but you just told me exactly where you sleep."
"Till we meet again Java Miklaus." Zayan said tasting the stranger's name.
The heavy oak doors groaned shut behind Zayan, severing the connection between the candlelit nave and the wet, chaotic dark of the campus, but the stranger's assessment felt like a brand seared into the back of his neck. He walked fast, his boots skidding slightly on the slick pavement, not out of fear—though a cold, slithering panic was certainly trying to take root in his gut—but out of a desperate need to outpace the echo of that name in his head. The rain had returned with a vengeance, turning the quad into a blurred reflection of the streetlights, and Zayan welcomed the stinging bite of the wind against his face; it was real, it was physical, and it didn't look at him like he was a specimen under glass. He jammed his hands into his pockets, his fingers brushing against the familiar shape of his keys and phone, grounding himself in the mundane objects of a life that felt suddenly, violently fragile.
Room 314 was exactly how he had left it hours ago, smelling faintly of old paper and the lemon cleaner the dorm staff used to mask the scent of adolescent desperation, but the familiarity offered no comfort tonight. He slammed the door and twisted the deadbolt, the metal thunk satisfyingly loud in the small space, but he didn't relax. Instead, he methodically checked the window, then the closet, pushing aside hangers to peer into the dark corner, a ritual that usually felt paranoid but now seemed like a necessary survival skill. So the stranger's name was Java Miklaus. He had heard about him, of course—everyone at Belthrow had heard rumors about the seniors, the kings of the campus who ruled with a terrifying kind of bored detachment—but meeting the reality was a different experience entirely.
Zayan paced the small length of the room, the cheap carpet muffling his restless energy. He felt exposed, stripped raw by the stranger's insight. Java hadn't just seen him; he had seen through him, past the tough guy act and the cigarettes, straight to the messy, terrified center that Zayan tried so hard to hide. The memory of the lighter clicking—click-clack, click-clack—played on a loop in his head, a metronome counting down the seconds until the other shoe dropped. He knew he should stay in his room, let the deadbolt and the brick walls of the dormitory do their job, but the walls were starting to feel like they were closing in, the silence of the dorm pressing against his ears like deep water. He needed to see for himself. He needed to verify that Java Miklaus was real, that he wasn't a ghost conjured by the rain and the incense and his own fraying nerves.
He didn't go back to the church. That was a graveyard for a conversation that was already over. Instead, he found himself drawn back to the spot near the library, the hedges and the hydrangeas where he had tossed his first cigarette of the night. The rain had intensified, a relentless curtain that blurred the world into gray smears, but he could make out a figure standing under the streetlamp near the edge of the campus property. Ofcourse he could. He recognized the posture immediately—the wide stance, the hands shoved in pockets, the aura of barely contained violence that radiated outward like heat haze. No, his brain was playing dota dot with him. He needed some sleep.