chapter 4
Sure enough, Sadie changed tactics.
After class, she bounced over to our desks with a stack of textbooks in her arms, chirping like she belonged there. The guy in front of us finally snapped.
“Can you be quiet? The teacher just explained this. Were you even listening?”
Sadie tossed her hair. “I can listen and still ask questions. Can’t I?”
“They’re simple equations,” he said. “If you don’t get it, you should probably see a tutor.”
“You don’t get it,” Sadie replied, leaning past him with a bright smile—aimed straight at Roman. “I’m not really here for the answers.”
The room went dead silent.
Even kids who’d been half-asleep lifted their heads.
Roman, who had been doodling in the margin of his notes, looked up. His eyes landed on Sadie… then flicked to me, waiting.
Waiting for permission.
I turned my head and looked out the window, pretending I didn’t care.
I heard his jaw tighten.
His voice dropped, icy and controlled.
“I don’t know you,” he said. “Go away.”
Sadie’s smile faltered, but she tried again, leaning closer like she didn’t understand how boundaries worked.
Roman reached for the nearest textbook and hurled it—not at her, but hard enough that it smacked the wall beside the board with a crack that made half the class jump.
“Can’t you understand basic English?” he said.
A few kids snickered. Sadie’s face turned hot with humiliation, and she stormed off.
She didn’t disappear after that.
If anything, she became more stubborn—like she couldn’t accept a reality where Roman didn’t play along.
And that’s when I heard it again.
That faint buzzing, like a dying fluorescent light.
The robotic voice.
“Subject emotional spike detected,” it said. “Fear and adrenaline registered. Conquest point adjustment: plus two.”
Sadie muttered under her breath near the door, furious. “He almost took my head off with a textbook.”
“High-intensity interaction,” the voice replied. “Intensity equals passion. Continue applying pressure.”
I lowered my gaze to my notebook to hide my expression.
Because now I understood.
That system—whatever it was—was broken.
It couldn’t tell the difference between rage and romance. It interpreted Roman’s panic and fury as “interest,” like it had never met a boy who loved like a locked door and fought like a cornered storm.
Sadie thought she was playing a romance game.
She didn’t realize she’d wandered into something much darker.