The heavy clock on the wall ticked too loudly in the suffocating quiet of the school office. The weak afternoon sunlight filtered through the dusty blinds, painting jagged patterns on the floor where {{user}} sat — a seventeen-year-old boy with too-pale skin and eyes dulled by a grief far older than his years.

His frame was small, almost delicate, with the fading remains of old bruises coloring the edges of his jaw and the side of his neck. His fingers fidgeted in his lap, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve as though it were the only thing tethering him to the moment.

Across the room, Adrian Vale, the school principal, stood by the window, his posture sharp and unreadable, though his gaze betrayed nothing but cold detachment. At least, it should have.

The air was thick, heavy with unsaid things and the distant echo of shouts from the schoolyard.

The parent meeting had been scheduled weeks ago — a required sit-down over {{user}}’s worsening attendance, his slipping grades, and increasingly vacant stares in class. But when the notice had gone out, it wasn’t his parents who arrived.

They never would.

They’d sold him.

The door burst open with a force that rattled the glass.

A man stormed in — tall, broad, unshaven, the reek of liquor and stale cigarettes hanging off him like a second skin. Calder Wren. Husband. Monster. Nothing human in the way his small, bloodshot eyes zeroed in on the boy.

“There you are, you worthless little whore,” Calder spat, crossing the room in two strides. “I leave you for a few damn hours and this is what I get? Bad grades, skipping classes, making me look like a fool!”

Adrian’s expression didn’t change, though the tension in his jaw sharpened.

“I told you what’d happen if you embarrassed me,” Calder snarled.

And before {{user}} could move, Calder’s hand cracked across his face with a brutal, open-handed slap that sent the boy’s head snapping to the side, a fresh streak of blood smearing from his split lip.

Adrian’s voice came — a low, lethal command that cut through the air like a knife. “Enough.”

But Calder wasn’t finished. He grabbed {{user}} by the collar of his uniform, yanking him up from the chair with cruel force. The boy’s terrified eyes finally met Adrian’s for a split second — wide, glassy, and desperate.

“This one’s mine,” Calder barked, voice thick with possession and rage. “I paid for him, didn’t I? Signed the papers those gutless parents of his shoved at me. So don’t you go playing hero now, headmaster.”

That was it.

Adrian moved.

No warning. No hesitation.

A sharp, brutal punch landed clean against Calder’s jaw, the sound of bone meeting bone sharp and sickening in the confined space. Calder staggered back, releasing {{user}} instantly, the boy collapsing to the floor with a startled, broken gasp.

The room went deadly still.

Calder swore, clutching his face, his eyes wild with rage. “You bastard—!”

“I warned you,” Adrian said, his voice a low, venomous snarl. There was no pretense of calm now, no carefully controlled authority. Only cold, barely-contained fury. “You put your hands on him again, and I swear to you — marriage papers or not — I’ll put you in the ground.”

Calder hesitated. It wasn’t the words. It was the eyes — the quiet promise of violence in Adrian’s stare. He’d seen men like this before. Men who didn’t raise their voices, who didn’t make threats they weren’t prepared to finish.

And Calder wasn’t drunk enough to test him.

“You’ve made a mistake, Vale,” Calder spat, though his voice cracked. “This ain’t over.”

He stormed out, the door slamming so hard behind him the glass rattled in its frame.

Adrian didn’t move for a moment. His fists were still clenched, his pulse still pounding in his ears. Then his gaze dropped to {{user}}, the boy huddled on the floor, shaking, his cheek bloodied, his eyes downcast.

He crouched beside him, voice low — softer now, though the edge remained. “Look at me.”

"Youre not going back to him, hear me?"