Chapter 5: The Professor's Concern
The quiet held. It wasn’t the tense, brittle silence of before, but something softer, warmer. Finn didn’t know how long they sat like that, him holding her from behind on the worn sofa, his chin on her shoulder. Her breathing gradually deepened, the frantic tremor in her hands stilling. She didn’t relax, not exactly—her body was too disciplined for that—but the sharp edges of her panic seemed to blur, absorbed by the simple, stubborn fact of his presence.
Finally, she shifted. It was a slight movement, a testing of the space. Finn loosened his arms, letting her pull forward. She didn’t go far, just enough to turn her head and look at him. Her blue eyes were red-rimmed, exhausted, but clearer. The raw despair had receded, replaced by a weary, guarded confusion.
“You’re a very strange person, Finnian Moreau,” she said, her voice rough.
A small, relieved smile touched his lips. “So I’ve been told. Mostly by professors who think citing ‘a feeling’ isn’t a valid diagnostic tool.”
He untangled himself and stood, his joints protesting from the long stillness. “I’m starving. We let breakfast get cold and I skipped lunch. Can I make you a sandwich? My culinary skills peak at ‘things between bread,’ but I’m told it’s passable.”
She watched him pad to the kitchen, his tail giving a lazy, unconscious flick. “Yes,” she said, simply. It felt monumental.
He moved around his small kitchen, pulling out bread, cheese, and a jar of pickles. The domestic normality of it was surreal. The scent of catnip from a stuffed mouse in the corner mixed with the tang of brine. Kira remained on the sofa, observing him with the analytical focus she’d once used to survey hostile terrain.
“This professor,” she began, her tone carefully neutral. “Blackwood. The one who… noticed.”
Finn’s ears twitched, a slight droop to them. “Yeah. He’s sharp. Misses nothing. He’s also the only one on faculty who doesn’t treat me like a walking diversity brochure.” He layered cheese with meticulous care. “He’s a good guy.”
“Good guys report things,” Kira said, her words dropping like stones into the quiet. “They follow protocols. They see a bruise like that on a student and they don’t think ‘bar fight.’ They think ‘domestic violence’ or ‘coercive control.’” She paused. “They ask questions.”
Finn stopped slicing a pickle. He set the knife down. “He will ask questions.”
“And what will you tell him?”
The question hung in the air. Finn turned, leaning against the counter. The yellowing bruise stood out lividly against his pale skin. “I’ll tell him I walked into a door.”
“He won’t believe that.”
“Probably not.”
“Then what?”
Finn shrugged, a gesture that was meant to be casual but was tight with tension. “I’ll figure it out. I’m a good liar when I need to be.” He winced as soon as he said it, his ears flattening further. “I mean… not usually. But for this.”
Kira’s gaze was unwavering. “Lies require maintenance. They create threads. One tug and the whole thing unravels.” She looked down at her own hands. “I am a thread.”
Before Finn could answer, his phone, discarded on the coffee table, buzzed sharply. Once. Then again. A sequence of rapid, insistent vibrations.
Both of them froze.
Finn’s green eyes went wide. Kira’s posture transformed in an instant. The weary vulnerability vanished, replaced by a predatory stillness. Her head tilted, every sense tuned to the electronic device as if it were a live grenade.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice low and utterly changed.
“It might be—”
“It’s him. Who else would it be right now?” Her eyes locked onto his. “You hesitate to text back. Now he double-texts. He’s applying pressure. Establishing control over the communication.”
“Anya, it’s just a text.”
“Is it?” She uncoiled from the sofa with fluid grace, her injury forgotten. She didn’t approach the phone, but she moved to a position where she could see both it and the apartment door. Her right hand drifted, almost unconsciously, to her hip, where her belt—with its concealed tools—now lay hidden under a cushion. “What’s the protocol, Finn? At your school. For a suspected abused student. What does the handbook say?”
Finn’s mouth was dry. He remembered the mandatory online module. Recognize, Respond, Refer. “They… they’re supposed to express concern privately. Encourage the student to talk to counselling. If there’s immediate danger, they contact security or… or the police.”
The word police seemed to vibrate in the air.
Kira gave a single, sharp nod. “So. He has expressed concern. You have not responded. His next step is to escalate. To force an interaction. The meeting demand.” Her mind was racing, scenarios branching and collapsing. “He will want to see you in person. To assess your state, to look for more marks, to gauge your story’s consistency. He will be watching your eyes, your pulse in your neck.”
As if on cue, the phone buzzed again. A longer, more urgent sound. A call.
The noise was an electric shock in the silent room. Finn jumped. Kira’s fingers finally closed around the hidden hilt of her knife, not drawing it, but anchoring herself to its cold reality.
The call went to voicemail. Thirty seconds of pounding silence followed.
Then, a new text alert. Finn could see the preview light up the screen from where he stood.
Dr. B: Finn. My office. Now. This is not a request.
Kira saw his face pale. She read the decision in his eyes before he even moved. “You’re not going.”
“I have to,” Finn whispered. “If I don’t, he’ll escalate for sure. He might call my emergency contact. He might send someone here. Here.”
The implications crashed between them. A wellness check. A knock on the door. Strangers in this space, asking questions, seeing her.
Kira’s breathing was silent and controlled. Her mind shifted gears, from analysis to operational planning. The professor was no longer a person; he was a problem. A variable that needed containment. Her blue eyes, cold and calculating, met Finn’s.
“Then we control the encounter,” she stated. “You go. You stick to the simplest story possible. You walked into a door during a panic attack. You were embarrassed. You’re fine. You apologize for the worry. You are calm, you are grateful, you are dismissive.” She took a step toward him, her intensity filling the small space. “Your job is to make it boring. To make him feel like a fussy old man overreacting to nothing. Can you do that?”
Finn felt a chill that had nothing to do with the apartment’s temperature. The way she said ‘we’. The calm, strategic dissection of the situation. This was the Kira from the alley, from the conditioning. This was the tool.
“I can try,” he said, his voice thin.
“Trying isn’t good enough. You have to sell it.” Her gaze scanned him, critiquing his appearance. “Put on a hoodie. Keep the hood up, casual. It hides your ears and shadows the bruise. Don’t fidget. Look him in the eye, but not too much. Brief, grateful smiles.” She was tailoring a persona for him, like a uniform. “Do not, under any circumstances, mention me. Not a hint. I do not exist.”
“And what are you going to do?” Finn asked, the question laden with dread.
Kira’s expression was impenetrable. “My job. Contingency.” She saw the fear in his eyes and something in her hardened, a shield slamming down. “I will not touch him, Finn. Unless he forces my hand. But I need to see him. I need to know the threat.”
“You can’t come to campus! Someone might—”
“I won’t be seen,” she interrupted, her tone leaving no room for argument. “You go to his office. You talk. I will be elsewhere. Assessing. If I sense the situation turning, I will create a diversion. A fire alarm. A medical emergency in another wing. Something to break the interaction and give you an exit.”
It was a full-blown tactical op. Planned in sixty seconds in a cluttered apartment.
Finn felt a surge of nausea. This was his life. His kind, eccentric professor. This was her life. Recon and diversion and threat assessment. The two worlds were colliding, and the friction was terrifying.
He numbly pulled on his grey hoodie, drawing the hood up as instructed. He felt like a puppet.
Kira approached him. She didn’t touch him. She stood close, looking up at his face, searching for any crack in his resolve. “Listen to me. Your empathy is your strength, but right now, it is your vulnerability. You feel guilty for lying to a man who cares. That guilt will read as deception. You cannot afford it. Box it up. Shove it down. Be bland and boring and fine.” Her eyes were like chips of Arctic ice. “Can you do that for me?”
He looked at her—the fierce, damaged, terrifying woman who had just let him hold her. He thought of the police at the door, of her bolting back into the shadows, of the cold alley where he’d found her.
“Yes,” he said, and this time his voice was firmer.
“Good.” She stepped back. “Go. Take the side stairs, not the main entrance. I’ll leave after you. We are not together.”
Finn moved to the door, his hand on the knob. He glanced back. She was a silhouette against the window, already pulling her hair into a tighter, less recognizable shape, her face a mask of focused intent. The cozy, cluttered apartment felt like a stage that had just been cleared for a performance he never wanted to see.
He slipped out into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him with a sound of terrible finality. He hurried down the stairs, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Inside the apartment, Kira stood perfectly still for five full seconds, listening to his footsteps fade. Then she moved.
She went to the cushion, retrieved her belt, and fastened it with practiced efficiency. She pulled on a dark, nondescript jacket she’d taken from the back of Finn’s closet days ago. From a small, sealed pouch on the belt, she removed a compact, black device—a signal scanner, cheap but effective. She activated it, watching for the telltale signs of any active surveillance in the building. Nothing. Good.
Her side ached, a hot reminder of her fallibility. She embraced the pain. It would keep her sharp.
She didn’t leave through the front door. She went to the window in Finn’s bedroom, the one overlooking the fire escape. With silent, fluid strength, she opened it and slipped out into the damp evening air, melting into the gathering dusk like a shadow detaching itself from the wall.
Her mind was a map of the campus, assembled from Finn’s idle chatter and her own earlier passive reconnaissance. Blackwood’s office was in the old medical sciences building. Stone facade. Two main entrances. Multiple window lines.
Finn would be the bait, walking calmly into the lion’s den. Her job was to be the unseen hunter, circling, ensuring the lion was just a lion, and not something more. She moved through the back alleys with a speed that belied her injury, a ghost in the twilight, her fingers resting lightly on the cool metal at her hip.
The cold air bit through the jacket, sharpening the persistent throb in her side into a focused point of awareness. She used it, letting the pain ground her in the moment, in the mission. The campus quad was a spread of artificial light and geometric shadows, students shuffling like tired ghosts between libraries and late seminars. She avoided them all, sticking to the ink-black seams between buildings.
Her mind constructed the timeline. Finn would be entering the Medical Sciences building now, taking the west staircase as she’d implicitly suggested. Professor Blackwood’s office was on the third floor, corner room, overlooking a narrow service alley. The perfect vantage point for her, not for him. She found a position tucked behind a dumpster, the stench of rotting waste a cheap disguise. She looked up. The office window glowed yellow.
Inside, Finn’s knuckles hovered, then rapped softly on the dark oak door.
“Come.”
The voice was familiar, warm but edged with a gravity that made Finn’s stomach clench. He pushed the door open, his hood still up, and slipped inside. Dr. Elias Blackwood sat behind a monumental desk piled with journals and a disarticulated plastic skeleton. He was in his sixties, with a close-cropped silver beard and eyes that missed nothing.
“Finn. Close the door.”
Finn did, the click sounding like a verdict. He kept his hands in his hoodie pocket.
“Sit, please.” Blackwood gestured to a chair, not taking his eyes off him. He didn’t smile. “Take the hood down. Let’s have a proper look at you.”
Shit. The first command. Finn forced his movements to be slow, unbothered. He pushed the hood back, his cat ears twitching once under the fluorescent lights before settling. The bruise was fully on display, a sickly map of yellow and purple across his jaw and throat.
Blackwood leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. He didn’t comment on the injury immediately. He just looked, his gaze traveling from the bruise to Finn’s eyes, which were trying desperately to hold a neutral, slightly apologetic expression.
“You walked into a door,” Blackwood stated, his tone flat.
“Yes, sir.” Finn’s voice was tighter than he wanted. “During a, um, a study fog. Late night. Wasn’t looking.”
“A study fog.” Blackwood repeated the phrase as if tasting it. “And the throat? That’s an interesting door. Textured.”
Finn’s pulse hammered in the very spot Blackwood was scrutinizing. “I fell forward. Hit the edge of a table on the way down. It was a whole… clumsy thing.” He attempted a weak, self-deprecating smile. “Pretty embarrassing, honestly.”
“I’ll bet.” Blackwood sat back, steepling his fingers. The silence stretched. He let it. It was a technique, Finn realized, a pressure applied not with words but with absence. “You’re a terrible liar, Finn. You always have been. It’s one of the things I like about you.”
The words, softly delivered, were a sledgehammer. Finn’s careful facade cracked. He looked down at his hands.
“Look at me.” The command was gentle but absolute. Finn obeyed. Blackwood’s eyes were kind, deeply worried. “I am not your adversary. Whatever is happening, you can tell me. Is someone hurting you?”
Down in the alley, Kira watched the silhouettes in the window. She saw Finn’s head dip, a gesture of defeat. Her muscles coiled. She pulled the small scanner from her pocket; its screen showed no unusual signals in the immediate area, just the standard wifi cacophony. Clean. For now. Her attention snapped back to the window. The professor was leaning forward again, speaking. Finn’s posture was collapsing in on itself.
“No,” Finn said, too quickly. “No, it’s nothing like that. I’m just… I’m fine. Really.”
“You’re not fine,” Blackwood sighed, rubbing his temple. “You look like you haven’t slept. You’ve missed two labs. And now this.” He gestured at Finn’s face. “If this is a personal matter, a relationship that’s turned… difficult, there are resources. Discrete ones. This is not shameful. It happens.”
The misunderstanding was somehow worse. “It’s not a relationship,” Finn whispered, the truth tangling with the lie. “I’m just under stress. Exams. It’s my fault.”
Blackwood studied him for another long moment. Then, decision made, he opened a desk drawer. He pulled out a small notepad and pen, wrote something, and slid it across the desk. It was a name and a phone number. “Dr. Amara Singh. She’s a therapist who works with the university. She’s excellent, and confidential. I want you to call her. Tomorrow.”
Finn stared at the paper. It was an exit, but it was also a thread, just as Kira had said. A thread leading back to more questions.
“And,” Blackwood added, his voice dropping, “I need you to tell me, right now, that you are safe to go home tonight. That whatever door or table you encountered, it’s not waiting for you.”
Kira, from below, saw Finn’s shoulders rise with a sharp intake of breath. This was the critical point. The direct question. A promise extracted. She eased the knife from its sheath, the metal whispering softly. The dumpster’s shadow swallowed her whole.
Finn looked at the professor’s concerned face. He thought of the sofa, the hug, the raw sound of Anya’s voice. He thought of the glass, the terror, the blood on her bandage. The words formed, heavy and sour on his tongue.
“I am safe,” he said, forcing his eyes to meet Blackwood’s. “I’m safe at home. It was an accident. It won’t happen again.”
Blackwood held his gaze, searching. Finn didn’t blink, pouring every ounce of his will into the performance of boring, embarrassed normalcy. He shoved the guilt into a dark box and sat on the lid.
Finally, the professor gave a slow, reluctant nod. “Alright. I’ll accept that. For now.” He tapped the paper with the number. “But this is mandatory. Consider it a medical prescription. I’ll be checking in.”
“Okay,” Finn said, grabbing the notepad like a lifeline. “Thank you, Dr. Blackwood. I’m sorry for the worry.”
He stood, his legs shaky. He pulled his hood up again, a reflexive retreat.
“Finn,” Blackwood said as he reached the door. Finn turned. The older man’s expression was unreadable. “Doors and tables are stationary. They don’t chase you. Remember that.”
Finn fled, the words burning into his back.
Kira watched the office door open from her shadowed vantage point. Finn’s figure emerged into the hallway, visible for a second through the interior window before he turned toward the stairs. His movements were hurried, a controlled scramble. Good. He was out.
She looked back at the professor’s silhouette. He hadn’t moved from his desk. He was just sitting there, looking at the door. Then, slowly, he reached for his desk phone.
Her blood went cold.
It was a simple, logical action. A concerned mentor might call a colleague in counselling for a heads-up. He might even call security for a non-specific welfare note. But every instinct in Kira screamed that a thread was about to be pulled. The phone’s receiver was in his hand.
The diversion. Now.
Her eyes swept the alley. No fire alarms. No obvious circuits. But twenty yards down, a university maintenance van was parked, its side panel slightly ajar. A plan crystallized in a heartbeat, ruthless and efficient.
She sheathed the knife and moved, a streak of darkness. In seconds, she was at the van. The panel door was unlocked. Inside were toolboxes, cables, a portable generator. Her fingers found the main fuel line leading to the generator. A sharp, precise jerk with her locked hand broke the connection.
The smell of gasoline began to bloom, rich and volatile in the confined space.
From a pocket, she took a waterproof match, the type used for camping. She struck it, the flare momentarily illuminating her impassive face. She held it for a second, then dropped it into the shallow, spreading pool at her feet.
She was already ten steps away, melting back into her original shadow, when the whump of igniting fuel filled the alley. Flames, bright and hungry, licked up the van’s interior, not yet explosive but impressively visible. Black smoke billowed toward the professor’s window.
Inside his office, Blackwood jerked his head up at the sudden orange glow painting his wall. He dropped the phone, rushing to the window.
“What in the world—” he muttered, fumbling for his own phone to call campus security.
In the stairwell, Finn heard the first shouts of “Fire!” and smelled the acrid smoke. His heart, already racing, seized with a new, specific terror. Anya. He burst out of the building’s side exit into the chaotic alley, just as the first distant scream of a siren pierced the night.
He scanned the darkness, his feline eyes adjusting. And there she was, leaning casually against the brick wall beside the dumpster, well away from the burning van, watching the flames dance in her blue eyes. She turned her head toward him, her expression unreadable.
“Let’s go,” she said, her voice barely audible over the crackle and the approaching sirens. “The conversation is over.”
She pushed off the wall and walked past him, not waiting to see if he followed. He stood frozen for a second, the heat of the fire on one side, the chilling reality of her on the other. He looked up once, at Blackwood’s window, and saw his professor staring down, not at the fire, but directly at him, his face a mask of shock and dawning, horrible understanding.
Then Finn turned and ran after the ghost, leaving the light and the questions and the burning van behind.