Rejected by the Beta, Claimed by the Alpha

Chapter 147

Chapter 147: Paranoia?

Clark POV:

I tried going back to bed.

Keyword: tried.

Lucas was clearly nuts. Or maybe just too high-strung for a place like this. Whatever it was, I shouldn’t have let him get in my head. I shouldn’t have even engaged him.

Monsters?

Right. And maybe next week, I’d be abducted by aliens who wanted to teach me advanced calculus.

It was a prank. Had to be. Some messed-up, long-standing tradition where seniors test how gullible the freshmen are. Maybe they had a whole betting pool about who would crack first. Lucas just happened to be the poor bastard who snapped early.

And if, by some insane chance, he was telling the truth?

Then it was a cult.

Big deal. I wasn’t joining it.

I rolled over in bed, pulling the blanket over my head like Lucas had done last night. Ironic. But even under the covers, the room felt colder. Like whatever panic he brought in had left a residue behind.

My hand instinctively reached for my phone. I hovered over sara’s name.

I missed her voice already. Her joy. The way she always managed to talk me out of my spirals. If anyone could snap me back to reality, it was her.

But 5:13 a.m. was too early. Even for her. I didn’t want to come off as clingy.

I’ll tell her at lunch, I told myself. Maybe laugh about it. "Hey, guess what? My roommate thinks we’re living in a vampire cult."

Yeah. Maybe it’d be funny by then.

I dropped the phone beside me, closed my eyes, and tried to block out the sound of the wind outside. The faint hum of the old radiator. The flickering fluorescent light in the hallway that kept buzzing through the crack under the door.

Tried.

But my mind kept looping back to one thing Lucas had said:

"You saw it, didn’t you?"

Yeah.

I had.

I didn’t want

still managed to pass out again. My brain must’ve tapped out from

against the desk beside my bed. It was Sara calling. I jolted up, groggy, my body stiff like I’d been lying in a casket. Weird

I picked up.

"Hey," I rasped.

and painfully normal. A total contrast to

until this morning. Now she was heading to the

to

just because I was starving, but because I needed some normalcy. Something to remind

His bed was made neatly like he’d never come back. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he really did leave. His stuff was gone, and the eerie

I shook it off.

That would’ve been the worst, especially if bullies were in the picture. The idea

to let Sara’s first official breakfast memory with me involve me smelling like sweaty

directions. Big time. One of the many failings of my so-called genius brain. Show me a network server or a firewall, and I’ll find twenty back doors in under five minutes. Ask me to follow a GPS path

stood outside the dorm, scanning.

looked like other students were making their way out too. Some in small chatty groups, others with

I followed.

of course. Didn’t want to look like a weirdo, but I kept a healthy distance. As I walked, I took in

a breath the land was holding in. The buildings—gothic and majestic—seemed to rise out of the fog like sleeping giants. Ivy climbed across stone like veins. The trees that lined the cobblestone paths

Too still.

breeze that rustled past

shifted behind me. Not a sound. More like a presence. That same cold prickling at

whispered to myself. "Or maybe

sped up, almost

warm gold from inside. Through the glass, I spotted Sara standing by the entrance, her arms folded and her hair pulled up in

Normal.

Safe.

and I waved back, the tightness in my chest easing slightly. Human connection.

time," she grinned as I walked up, slightly

lost," I

figured. I was about to come

a moment, the weight of last night, Lucas’s strange warning, the pale-eyed senior, the weird vibes—all

Just for a moment.

we stepped inside,

all... wrong. Tight-lipped. Tired. Or forced. One of them, an older man with

it

notice. She was already filling her tray with eggs and toast. I followed suit, trying to act natural, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched.

Targeted.

dark corner of the cafeteria where students were sitting

eyes flicked toward me in

Then turned away.

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