At Midnight

Silas Alexander is not misunderstood.

He is rude, arrogant, and violently unrestrained - feared on campus and untouched by consequence. He doesn't soften. He doesn't attach. He doesn't care who he frightens.

Alya was never meant to matter to him. She's too gentle, too talkative, too openly kind in a world that rewards cruelty. She smiles when she's nervous. Apologizes when she shouldn't. Exists in ways that make Silas feel something sharp and unfamiliar under his skin.

Every night at midnight, they somehow run into each other.

Every night, he tells himself it's nothing.

But he notices when she's late.
When she's tired.
When someone else stands too close.

Silas doesn't call it obsession.

He calls it awareness. Control. Protection.

And he has never learned how to want something without breaking everything else in the process.