The Shadow Beneath the Bleachers
The hallway at Ravenwood High moves like a river, and Lia Bennett has learned to become a stone beneath its surface—present, but never in the way.
She keeps close to the lockers, one shoulder brushing cool metal, and counts her steps the way she has since freshman year. Fourteen from the east doors to the science wing. Nine more to the stairwell she prefers, the one that smells like old paper and nobody's cologne. The trick isn't speed. The trick is rhythm, the art of moving like you belong nowhere in particular so no one bothers to ask where you're going.
Sneakers squeak against linoleum. Someone's speaker blares a bass line that rattles the trophy case. A boy named Dante Reyes is doing an impression of the chemistry teacher, flailing his arms, and the crowd around him laughs the kind of laugh that swells and multiplies, feeding itself. Lia tucks her chin and slides past, close enough to feel the heat of their bodies, far enough that not a single eye lands on her.
That's the goal. Every day, the same quiet mission: get in, get through, get out unnoticed.
She pulls her sleeves down over her wrists out of habit, though there's nothing to hide there—no scars, no marks, just skin…
