Chapter 73: Anticipation and Worry
Chapter 73: Chapter 73: Anticipation and Worry
Chapter 73: Anticipation and Worry
Daphne Whitlock waited outside apartment 203 with a food container in both hands.
She had timed it carefully.
Cyrus usually left around the same part of the morning, and she had arrived early enough to catch him without looking as though she had been waiting. Breakfast had been meant as an apology of sorts. It was also an excuse to see him before school, which Daphne had not examined too closely.
Ten minutes passed.
Then another few.
Cyrus never came out.
Daphne stood in the third-floor hallway with the container cooling between her hands, listening to the building wake up around her. A faucet ran somewhere below. A door opened and shut on the second floor. The air smelled faintly of old paint, detergent, and somebody’s burnt toast.
Apartment 203 remained silent.
Eventually, she gave up and headed for her car.
By the time she reached St. Alder Academy, she still felt strangely unfocused.
The ache in her mouth had not fully faded. It brought back too much whenever she pressed her tongue against the sore spot. Cyrus had fought her there. The memory should have made her feel ashamed enough to stop replaying the rest of the night.
Instead, it kept coming back in fragments she did not want to inspect.
The locked door.
His anger.
The way he had looked at her as though she had become something he needed to escape.
Daphne sat at her desk in the faculty office and set the food container beside a stack of papers.
She had crossed a line. She knew that much.
The breakfast had been her attempt to soften the damage, though even she could see how pathetic that sounded. A meal did not erase a locked door, a threat, or the force she had used to make him show his child-form.
Nothing did.
Still, she could not bring herself to treat the night as an ending.
A part of her wanted to believe that, given enough time, enough care, and enough proof that she could be useful to him, Cyrus might stop looking at her like an enemy. He needed rent, food, a place to live, and someone who could keep his secret from becoming public. Daphne could offer all of that.
The thought had a hook in it.
She knew it did.
The possibility of some lasting consequence had crossed her mind afterward, something that might make it harder for Cyrus to leave her completely. The idea was ugly enough that she pushed it aside before it could become a plan.
That did not make it disappear.
More teachers began filtering into the office. Chairs scraped. Someone complained about the copy machine. A history teacher balanced two coffees while trying to sort through a pile of attendance slips.
Daphne barely noticed.
Her thoughts kept returning to Cyrus.
He had not raised his voice loud enough for anyone to hear. He had resisted, but he had also been frightened of what the police, the cameras, and the building records could do to him. Daphne had used that fear because it worked.
She could admit that privately.
What she could not accept was the thought of pushing him so far that he began to fear her before she even entered a room. If he ran every time he saw her, then all the leverage in the world would become useless.
Cyrus was too rare a person to lose.
Not because of Cory’s child-form. Not because of the impossible transformation. Not even because of the mystery wrapped around his missing memories.
He was simply the first person in a long time who had made her feel awake.
Daphne rested her cheek against one hand.
The smaller form remained in her thoughts too. She remembered Cory sitting stiffly at the edge of the couch, refusing to trust her even while accepting the food. She wanted to hold him again, to keep him close for a little while, to prove that she could be gentle when she chose to be.
That desire was another problem.
She checked the office clock.
Classes would begin soon.
By dismissal, she might see Cyrus again.
For now, Daphne told herself she would not pressure him. She would give him time. She would let him breathe. Then, when the moment was right, she could show him what she had to offer.
The thought made her mouth curve faintly.
The school day ahead suddenly seemed much more interesting.
In the classroom, Cyrus had his forehead against his folded arms.
He had not slept well.
That much was obvious even to him.
His body felt heavy, his thoughts lagged behind themselves, and the room’s warmth pressed against his skin in a way that made concentration feel unreasonable. The first bell had not rung yet, but Cyrus was already thinking about how much trouble he was in.
Daphne had been far too strong.
He had spent enough time around humans to understand the general rule. Men tended to be physically stronger. Women tended to be less dangerous in a direct fight, at least in the ordinary human sense.
Daphne had shattered that understanding with one hand.
She had thrown him to the floor in the entryway, held him down in the bedroom, and overpowered him even after he had changed back. He had been no weaker than usual. He had eaten. He had tried to use leverage. None of it mattered.
Was she a rare-blood?
The thought made sense, except Daphne had shown none of the signs he knew how to recognize. Her hair had not changed. Her eyes had not shifted. Nothing about her body had reacted before she used that impossible strength.
Could being a shameless creep come with some kind of strength boost?
Cyrus did not have an answer.
He only had a landlord with camera footage, a teacher with access to his apartment building, and a secret that had stopped being fully his.
The worst part was that he could not simply run.
Grayhaven was full of cameras. The apartment building had cameras. The school had cameras. Stores, street corners, parking lots, traffic lights, and bus stations all seemed to have cameras. One bad decision could turn into footage that ordinary people would never understand but might still use against him.
He had escaped much worse before.
That did not make this easier.
At least he was still free enough to leave his apartment, come to school, work at the lounge, and make his own choices in small ways. The freedom was thinner than it had been yesterday, but it had not vanished completely.
Cyrus slowly sat up.
A quiet sigh escaped him.
Near the front of the room, Owen Keats stood beside Iris Wexley, speaking in low voices by the teacher’s desk. Iris had one hand resting against the edge of the podium while Owen told her something that made her smile.
In front of Cyrus, Faye Larkin sat with her usual straight-backed posture, her attention fixed on the notebook open beside her.
She turned at the sound of his sigh.
"You seem worried about something," Faye said softly.
"Yeah, a little."
Faye did not turn away.
That was unusual. She was not overly chatty in class, and she did not force conversations when people looked tired. Instead, she waited with the quiet patience of someone offering to listen without demanding an answer.
Cyrus appreciated that.
He could not exactly explain the problem.
A teacher had discovered his transformation, threatened the police, used his rent as pressure, and crossed a line that had made him feel trapped in his own apartment. Saying it aloud would not make it clearer. It would only make him sound unbelievable.
"It is nothing serious," he said.
The pause before serious was small, but Faye caught it.
She did not press.
"All right," she said.
For a second, Cyrus could see her eyes through the loose strands of hair near her face. Her fingers brushed her cheek in a nervous gesture, and a faint pink touched the tips of her ears.
Then Faye lowered her voice.
"Are you free tomorrow?"
Cyrus blinked. "I should be. Why?"
"My brother and sister have been asking about you." Faye looked down at the notebook. "Miles wants someone to play games with him, and Lena wants you to come by too."
Cyrus considered it.
He had planned to use tomorrow’s work shift as an excuse to stay away from his apartment. Spending a full day at home now sounded like an invitation for Daphne to appear at his door with another meal, another excuse, or another demand.
Faye’s house would be safer.
Probably.
It also had children, video games, food, and a family that did not know enough about his life to hold any of it over him.
"Tomorrow morning works," Cyrus said. "Would that be okay?"
Faye’s face brightened.
"That would be great."
The answer came too quickly for her to hide it.
Cyrus found the reaction oddly reassuring.
The invitation was ordinary. It involved games, children, and a casual visit. Nothing about it required him to explain himself, hide under a disguise, or calculate whether someone would lock a door behind him.
The first bell rang.
Faye turned back toward the front.
Cyrus reached for his book, then noticed Audra Sloane watching from across the room.
Their attention met briefly.
Audra looked away almost at once.
Cyrus frowned.
He had already given her the cake. It had been a thank-you for tutoring and a way to settle the debt he felt he owed for the award money. What else was there to look at?
Maybe she wanted another cake.
That would be unreasonable.
Cyrus opened his book as the teacher entered and let the question fall away.
He had more urgent problems than trying to understand women.