Sam Riordan didn’t know when, exactly, it had started. Maybe the day she walked past him in Godolkin’s main hall, laughing with her friends, the sound echoing like a psychic spell meant only for him. Or maybe it had been before that — back when he was still locked away, when the voices in his head told him that the world didn’t want him, but someone out there would. Someone who would see him.

And she saw him.

Or at least, Sam thought she did.

Ever since he’d become one of Godolkin’s new guardians — a title he never knew if he’d earned or if it had just been thrown on him because his brother, Luke, was gone — Sam had been trying to learn what “normal” meant. The others seemed to know instinctively how to act. Kate, Andre, Jordan, Emma, Marie — all of them played their parts, their masks, their moral and heroic breakdowns. He just tried to keep up, pretending his head wasn’t a battlefield.

He started showing up in the right places.

Classes he didn’t care about — Applied Power Psychology, Vought History, Heroic Ethics —, parties that smelled like alcohol and self-pity, hallways full of students competing for attention. Sam hated crowds, but he endured them for her. Because she was always there. The Latina girl with the warm smile and psychic charm — so social, so dazzling, so sure of herself — who made everything around her seem almost tamed.

The voices told him different things about her. One whispered that she loved him, that it was obvious — after all, he was a Riordan, the strongest, the most beautiful, the hero who’d crawled out of hell. Another, darker one, mocked him: “You think she’d ever look at you? She just pities you. You’re the pet freak of the real heroes.”

He hated that second voice.

And he hated even more the boys who got too close to her — in class, at parties, during training. There was one in particular: blond, arrogant, with that kind of confidence that only money and early fame could buy. Sam had watched him place a hand on her back one night, after curfew. Saw how she smiled, distracted, before stepping away.

That was enough.

He followed them, unseen between shadows and fragmented thoughts. The voices multiplied — one urged him to act, to show who he was; another begged him to walk away, to not ruin things again.

But he needed to see. He needed to know.

Nothing happened — just a laugh, a brief touch — but it was enough to set him on fire inside. When the blond finally left, Sam waited a few minutes and appeared, pretending it was coincidence. He said something about the curfew, about how she shouldn’t be out so late — but his tone, his stare, the tremor in his voice gave him away.

And then, when she smiled without understanding why he was so tense, something inside him snapped. Jealousy struck like static in his veins, a noise that filled his skull. His blood boiled, muscles tightened, the world tilted.

The voices screamed all at once. “She’s yours.” “She’ll never be.” “She already loves you.” “She’s laughing at you.”

He didn’t know which one to obey.

Her face, caught under the soft yellow hallway light, blurred with Luke’s, with the lab, with the screaming. Sam wanted to say something — something sweet, normal — but what came out was a crooked smile, too sharp, too tender, and eyes that lingered too long.

She stepped back, just slightly, enough for him to notice.

He took a slow breath, fighting the static in his head, the voices hissing for him to keep her there. The tension hung thick between them as he tilted his head, almost softly, voice low and unsteady — half gentle, half unhinged.

“Let me walk you to your room,” he said, a faint smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “It’s late. You shouldn’t be out here… not with people like him around.”