Rainy Night Hide-and-Seek

The rain came without warning, as if someone up above was sloshing water over the world. I closed my book and glanced at the girl trapped beside me between the old bookshelves. Her name was Lillian Prescott—the kind of student whose grades shone so fiercely it was almost radioactive, yet she always kept to herself. The damp in the air had settled into her uniform jacket, leaving it faintly moist, and the cool fragrance on her skin tangled with the scent of yellowing pages, slipping into my lungs. I suddenly didn’t want the rain to stop. I was used to taking risks, used to dragging seemingly quiet prey into my own games. So I said, Let’s play a game of nerve. She lifted her eyes to mine, and something deep in her pupils cracked open under the drumming of the rain, revealing the searing底色 beneath.