Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Ms. Whitlock Volunteers

Chapter 31: Ms. Whitlock Volunteers

Monday morning arrived with thin sunlight, pale air, and the kind of calm that made last night feel less like an incident and more like a dream that had gone wrong.

Cyrus stood on the narrow balcony of his apartment with a breakfast gel pouch between his teeth, staring out at the street without much expression. The balcony barely had room for one person, a laundry rack, and the cheap plastic stool left by the last tenant. Still, it belonged to his apartment. That gave it value.

Below him, Grayhaven had already started moving. A delivery bike rolled past the curb. Someone across the street shook a towel over a railing. A dog barked twice, then seemed to forget what it had been angry about.

Cyrus finished the gel pouch and folded the empty plastic flat between his fingers.

Last night’s siren-blood incident had moved too quickly. A strange woman, pink eyes, a hand around his, and the ring turning cold at the exact moment he needed his head clear. Rhea had appeared before the situation could become worse, and afterward she had said the matter would be handled.

Since she said the investigation was finished for now, maybe the whole thing would end there.

If the police needed him later for some official step, he could answer honestly within reason. He had been tricked, led away, and rescued. As long as he kept his head down and avoided saying anything unnecessary, no one should find whatever else was hiding under the surface.

That was the hope, anyway.

Cyrus did not trust hope very much, but it was cheaper than having another plan.

After throwing out the empty pouch and locking his apartment, he headed downstairs. The moment he stepped outside, a silver-white car at the curb pulled away from the building and rolled slowly down the quiet street.

Cyrus watched it go.

The windows were too dark for him to see inside, and the car had already turned the corner before he could decide whether the sight meant anything.

He stood there another second, then started toward school.

The route to St. Alder Academy had become familiar enough that he could walk it half-asleep. Storefronts opened one by one. Students in uniform gathered in small groups as he got closer to campus. The sea was not visible from here, but the morning air still carried that faint coastal dampness beneath the heat.

Cyrus kept his bangs low and his presence lower.

By the time he entered the classroom, advisory was already filled with the low, constant rustle of notebooks, quiet conversations, and people pretending to work while actually talking under their breath.

He slipped through the aisles like a background detail.

Faye Larkin was already seated in front of him. At school, she had returned to the version of herself most people knew: long bangs, heavy glasses, straight posture, and the kind of stillness that made others look past her without trying. The lenses hid most of her expression, but when Cyrus passed, her attention lifted toward him.

She gave him a tiny nod.

Cyrus nodded back, just enough that his hair shifted.

So she remembered Saturday clearly too.

That meant he did not have to pretend the visit to her house had never happened, and she did not seem inclined to make a scene out of it either.

He sat down and looked across the room.

Audra Sloane had just arrived.

Her entrance did not need to be loud to change the classroom. Girls near the front greeted her, and she answered each one properly despite the cool, distant look she wore by default. A few boys nearby seemed to spend more energy deciding how to speak to her than they had ever spent on math.

None of them succeeded.

Cyrus looked from Faye’s neatly held back to Audra’s polished figure across the room, then toward the hallway, where more than one passing student slowed enough to glance through the doorway at Audra.

Faye’s real face was not much less striking than Audra’s. The difference was not beauty. The difference was choice.

Audra moved through school like someone used to being seen.

Faye had chosen not to be seen at all.

Cyrus understood that second choice very well.

If he had to walk around campus looking the way he did at The Full Moon Lounge, with people staring, guessing, wanting, and trying to find excuses to speak to him, he would rather skip school entirely. A useful face belonged at work, where attention became tips. At school, attention only created trouble.

His eyelids grew heavy.

He folded his arms on the desk and lowered his head.

With Faye sitting straight in front of him, the line of sight from the front of the room was conveniently blocked. Very few students cared enough to notice him anyway. The classroom noise wrapped around him, familiar and harmless, and within minutes he drifted into the shallow sleep he had learned to steal between bells.

Several classes passed in broken pieces.

Cyrus woke now and then to move rooms, copy a line, answer attendance, or pretend he had been listening longer than he had. By late morning, his desk vibrated lightly under his cheek.

Owen Keats had returned to his seat and was tapping the corner of Cyrus’s desk.

Cyrus opened his eyes.

Owen leaned closer and lowered his voice. "You should sit up for this one. Ms. Whitlock is here."

At the front of the room, Daphne Whitlock had already set her materials on the teacher’s desk.

Cyrus pushed himself upright.

Owen was oddly reliable about this specific thing. Whenever Daphne taught their class, he usually remembered to wake Cyrus. Maybe it was because Daphne’s class sat close to lunch, and Cyrus tended to be slightly less dead by then. Maybe Owen had simply decided that sleeping through a teacher that popular was a waste of life.

Either way, Cyrus had no objection.

Daphne wore a fitted black faculty blazer today, formal without looking stiff. Thin gold-rimmed glasses rested on her nose, and her hair was arranged neatly enough that every detail looked intentional. She carried herself with the calm confidence of a teacher who could make the class settle without raising her voice.

The room did settle.

Even the students who whispered through other classes lowered their volume when Daphne began speaking.

Her voice was steady, warm, and easy to follow. The lesson moved clearly from one point to the next, and Cyrus had to admit that she was good at her job. That made her more inconvenient, not less.

On the platform, Daphne’s attention swept naturally across the room.

When it reached the back corner, it paused for a fraction of a second.

Cyrus sat there with his usual hidden face and lazy posture, looking like a student who had finally remembered school required consciousness. Daphne recognized him now, of course. Not only as a student in her class, but as the older brother of the white-haired little boy she believed lived next door.

The thought of that child made the lesson feel less satisfying.

Her game at home had stopped working on her. The cute fictional boys on the screen no longer gave the same comfort after she had held a real little boy in her arms, one with pale hair, wary eyes, and a helpless feverish body that had fit far too neatly into the empty spaces of her imagination.

Daphne continued teaching without the slightest change in tone.

No student in the room could have guessed where her thoughts had gone.

When the bell rang, a few students sighed with genuine regret. Daphne collected her materials, answered two quick questions near the podium, and left the classroom with the same composed grace she had carried in.

Cyrus watched her go.

Then he lowered his head again.

Daphne, meanwhile, walked to the faculty office with a problem pressing pleasantly against the back of her mind.

She knew Cyrus lived next door. She knew the little boy had been introduced as his younger brother. She knew nothing else.

That was not enough.

A name, at least.

She needed the child’s name.

The office was busy in the usual tired way. Teachers moved between desks, printers hummed, and someone near the window complained under her breath about a copier jam. At a desk crowded with papers, Ms. Hart sat staring at a pile of forms as though the forms had personally betrayed her.

Ms. Hart taught math and served as the homeroom teacher for Cyrus’s class. She was older, respected, and very clearly tired of anything that involved paperwork.

A blue folder lay open on her desk beside a stack of ungraded assignments, a permission packet for an off-campus activity, and several family outreach sheets.

Daphne slowed beside her desk.

"Ms. Hart, the paperwork seems to be winning today," she said.

Ms. Hart looked up, startled out of her thoughts. "Oh, Ms. Whitlock. I probably look exactly how I feel."

"It must be a rough pile if it has you staring at it like that."

"Homeroom always comes with extra work." Ms. Hart sighed and tapped the folder. "Activity forms, parent contact records, family check-ins, and the occasional home visit when a student’s situation needs a closer look. None of it is difficult on its own, but it piles up fast."

Daphne’s attention rested briefly on the blue folder.

Family check-ins and home visits were very useful phrases.

Ms. Hart rubbed at her temple. "I can handle most of it, but going out to some of these addresses after school is not as easy as it used to be. My knees are not impressed by stairs anymore."

Daphne smiled gently. "Could some of them be handled through video meetings? Parents are used to that now."

"They could," Ms. Hart admitted. "I know they could."

Her tone made it clear that she still preferred the old way. Some teachers trusted a living room more than a screen. They wanted to see who answered the door, whether the student had a desk, whether the parent sounded involved or merely polite. Daphne understood the instinct. A home revealed things that emails never touched.

Daphne gestured lightly toward the folder. "Do you mind if I look at the list?"

Ms. Hart nodded and pushed the folder closer. "Take a look."

Daphne picked it up and flipped through the pages with casual interest.

The first section had already been filled out. Notes on family contact. Parent response. Academic concerns. Attendance. Home environment when relevant. The later pages had names but fewer details. Students waiting for follow-up.

Her fingers moved past one page, then another.

Then they stopped.

Cyrus Calder.

The name sat there in ordinary print.

Daphne kept her expression mild.

There it was.

"Actually," she said, turning one page as if she had not found exactly what she wanted, "I can take some of these for you."

Ms. Hart blinked. "Wouldn’t that be too much trouble?"

"Not at all. I teach the class too, and I will probably have to handle this sort of work myself eventually. It would be useful practice."

"That is very kind of you, but I do not want to dump homeroom work on another teacher."

"You would be helping me learn the process," Daphne said. "And it would take some pressure off you before the activity paperwork comes due."

Ms. Hart hesitated for only a moment.

Relief won quickly.

"If you are truly willing, I would be grateful." She reached for the folder and pulled out a portion of the sheets. "You do not need to take too many. A few would already help."

Daphne accepted them.

Cyrus’s sheet was among them.

Convenient things happened when one knew how to stand near the right desk at the right time.

Ms. Hart smiled tiredly, already looking less buried. "Thank you, Ms. Whitlock. You really are saving me some trouble."

"I am glad to help."

Daphne glanced at the sheets in her hand, then looked back at Ms. Hart with perfectly reasonable timing.

"Could I also get the student information for this group? Addresses, guardian contacts, household notes, whatever the school has on file. I do not want to walk into a check-in unprepared."

"That makes sense." Ms. Hart turned to a drawer and began sorting through another set of folders. "Most of it should be here. The official digital records have the same information, but these copies are easier for home visits."

She found the packet she wanted and handed it over without suspicion.

After all, Daphne was not asking for anything strange. A teacher assigned to help with family outreach needed family records. That was how the process worked.

Daphne held the papers carefully, her fingers resting over the edges.

"Thank you. I will keep everything confidential."

"I know you will," Ms. Hart said. "You have always been careful."

Daphne gave her a pleasant smile. "I will start with the ones closest to campus."

That sounded sensible too.

Ms. Hart nodded and returned to her pile of assignments. Student addresses and family contacts were already part of the files, and Ms. Whitlock needed them if she was helping with home visits. There was nothing unreasonable about that.