MY PSYCHO ALPHA

CHAPTER 2

By the time the campus tour ended, my brain felt like it had been put in a blender and set to freshman panic.

The student leader—still smiling like she’d been born holding a clipboard—finished with, “And if you ever feel lost, just remember: you belong here!”

Everybody clapped.

I stared at the distant line of trees again, the BOUNDARY sign planted like a warning label on the world, and thought: Do I?

Lina hooked her arm through mine as the crowd began to dissolve into smaller chaos-clusters.

“Okay,” she said, breathless, “new plan. We dump our stuff in our rooms, we shower off the auditorium trauma, and then we go to the welcome party tonight.”

“No,” I said automatically.

“Yes,” Lina said, automatically louder.

“I’m not going.”

“You are. I’ll drag you.”

“I’ll fake my own death.”

“I’ll post it on your page and still bring you.”

I opened my mouth to argue again, but Alex’s voice slid between us like he owned the space.

“You’ll go,” he said.

I stopped walking so hard Lina nearly tripped over my feet.

I turned to him slowly. “Did you just… join this conversation like you pay rent?”

Alex walked backward in front of us for three steps, hands in the pocket of his hoodie, like he was casually pacing a prison yard.

“I don’t like crowds,” he said.

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“Parties are less crowded than orientation,” he continued, ignoring me with the calm of someone who had never been humbled by a “no.”

Lina leaned close to my ear. “He’s still following us.”

“I noticed,” I whispered.

Alex’s eyes flicked to my mouth like he’d heard the whisper anyway.

I hated how my skin reacted to that. Like my body wanted to sprint and lean in at the same time.

“What’s your dorm?” Lina asked, because Lina had no fear and zero self-preservation.

Alex didn’t even blink. “Same as hers.”

My spine went rigid.

Lina’s head snapped toward me. “WHAT?”

My lungs stopped working properly.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Alex said.

“No way,” I said.

“Too late,” he said.

I pointed at him. “Do not—do not say things like that.”

He only smiled, slow and unfair. “You keep saying no like it’s a spell.”

“It is a spell.”

“It’s not working.”

Lina made a sound that was half laugh, half scream. “This is either a romance plot or a murder documentary.”

“It’s neither,” I said quickly, because the alternative was admitting my stomach was doing that twisty thing again.

Alex looked at me like he was about to say something infuriatingly soft and intense.

Instead, he glanced at the signpost ahead of us where the dorm buildings rose like stacked brick rectangles.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll carry your bag.”

“I can carry my own bag.”

“You can,” he agreed easily. “But you won’t.”

He reached for the strap again.

I yanked it away like it was my last shred of independence.

“I will bite,” I warned.

His smile sharpened. “Cute.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m not scared.”

That—that—was the first time it hit me that Alex didn’t say normal things like a normal person.

Normal people didn’t say I’m not scared when threatened with biting.

Normal people laughed or apologized or stepped away.

Alex just… existed like danger had never touched him.

We walked toward the dorms with Lina narrating our lives like she was filming a vlog in her head.

“And to your left, we have the future couple who will either fall in love or commit arson,” she muttered.

“I am not a future couple with him,” I snapped.

Alex didn’t even look offended.

He looked entertained.

Which somehow made me more offended.

The dorm lobby was a bright, echoing space with too many posters and a smell like cleaning products trying too hard. A folding table had been set up by the entrance with a line of students clutching papers like they were waiting for trial.

A sign read:

CHECK-IN HERE! WELCOME HOME!

I did not feel welcomed.

I felt like I was about to be assigned a bed inside a zoo enclosure.

Lina nudged me forward. “Okay, room keys. Then freedom.”

“Freedom,” I repeated like a prayer.

We shuffled through the line. Every few seconds, someone’s suitcase wheel got stuck and made the same high-pitched scream of plastic suffering.

When it was our turn, a resident assistant in a bright shirt looked at us with the exhausted kindness of someone who’d already answered the same question fifty times.

“Hi! Names?”

Lina went first, cheerful. “Lina.”

The RA typed. “Okay, Lina—here you go! Suite 4B.”

She handed Lina an envelope with a keycard and a printed slip.

Then the RA looked at me.

I hesitated, because saying my name still felt like giving something away.

I said it anyway.

The RA typed again, smiled, and reached for another envelope.

“Suite 4A,” she said.

Lina frowned. “Wait—she’s not with me?”

The RA blinked. “Looks like you’re not assigned together.”

Lina clutched her envelope like she’d been betrayed by fate. “But we requested each other.”

The RA made the universal face of I am not paid enough for your dreams. “Sometimes the system—”

I already knew the rest.

Sometimes the system didn’t care.

“Okay,” Lina said, trying to recover. “Fine. 4B. She’s 4A. We’re still best friends. We can still—”

A shadow fell over the table.

The RA’s smile tightened slightly, like she’d swallowed a surprise.

“Alex,” she said, in a tone that was… weirdly polite.

I turned.

Of course.

Alex stood behind me with one hand in his hoodie pocket, the other holding a plain envelope like he’d been expecting to be called.

The RA handed it over quickly.

“Suite 4A,” she said.

My heartbeat misfired.

I stared at her. “No.”

The RA blinked. “I’m sorry?”

I pointed at Alex like he was a glitch. “No.”

Alex’s mouth curved. “Yes.”

The RA looked between us, confused. “Are you… together?”

“No,” I said at the same time Alex said, “Not yet.”

My soul left my body.

Lina made a choking sound.

The RA’s cheeks went pink. “Okay! Um. Anyway. Your suite is co-ed, but you have separate bedrooms. Shared common area. The building is designed for—”

“No,” I said again, because maybe if I said it enough times the universe would finally respect me.

Alex leaned slightly closer, voice low. “Too late.”

I spun toward him. “Why are you in my suite?”

He lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Why are you in my suite?”

“It’s not your suite!”

“It is now.”

Lina was bouncing on her toes like she wanted popcorn. “Oh my God. You’re actually roommates.”

“We are not roommates,” I hissed.

“Suite-mates,” Lina corrected like it made it better.

“It does not.”

Alex’s gaze slid over me like he was taking inventory, and that stupid smell hit me again—rain and metal, storm and sharpness—and my stomach twisted in warning and something else.

He looked… satisfied.

Like this outcome was not an accident.

I didn’t like that.

I grabbed my envelope from the RA with shaking fingers.

“Where’s the housing office?” I asked, forcing my voice to sound normal.

The RA pointed down the hallway. “Student Services building, first floor.”

“Perfect,” I said, already turning.

Lina followed me instantly because Lina was loyal to drama.

Alex followed too, of course, because Alex didn’t understand boundaries or gravity or the word “no.”

We crowded into the elevator.

The doors slid shut.

The air inside felt suddenly smaller.

Lina stood between us like a referee trying not to die.

I jabbed the button for the fourth floor.

The elevator hummed upward.

Alex leaned against the wall like he was in a music video.

I stared at the glowing floor numbers and tried not to think about the fact that my first day of college had already turned into a romantic horror movie.

“Maybe it’s a mistake,” I said out loud, because hope was a disease and I was infected.

Alex didn’t answer.

The elevator dinged.

Fourth floor.

The doors opened onto a hallway lined with identical doors and posters that screamed WELCOME! in too many fonts.

My suite number glared at me from the wall like a threat.

4A

I walked toward it like I was marching to my own execution.

I swiped the keycard.

The lock clicked.

The door swung open.

And there it was.

A small common room with two doors branching off it—two bedrooms. A shared couch. A tiny table. A kitchenette that looked like it could host exactly one emotional breakdown at a time.

And on the couch—

A duffel bag.

A dark hoodie tossed over the armrest.

A pair of shoes lined up neatly like someone who liked control.

My throat tightened.

Alex stepped in behind me.

Calm.

Too calm.

Like he’d already pictured himself here.

Like he’d already smelled the room.

Like he’d already… claimed it.

“No way,” I whispered, staring at the duffel.

Alex’s voice came close to my ear.

“Too late.”

I whirled on him. “You did this.”

His eyebrows rose. “I don’t control housing assignments.”

“Then why do you look like you’re enjoying my suffering?”

He smiled like my suffering was a hobby. “Because you’re loud when you’re mad.”

Lina stepped into the room, looking around in fascinated horror. “Okay, wow. This is real.”

“This is wrong,” I said.

Alex walked past me and dropped his envelope on the table like he was officially moving in.

Then he pointed at one bedroom door. “That one’s mine.”

I stared. “You can’t just pick.”

He opened the door like he absolutely could.

Inside was a room already half-set up—his bedding, dark and neat. His bag. His stuff.

My stomach dropped.

“You were here already,” I said.

Alex didn’t turn around. “Yeah.”

“How?”

He looked back at me over his shoulder, eyes unreadable. “I got here early.”

“Why would you get here early?”

His gaze held mine for one long beat.

“Because,” he said softly, “I like to know my territory.”

The word territory scraped down my spine.

Lina whispered, “Okay, I officially believe he’s a werewolf.”

I hissed, “Lina!”

Alex’s mouth twitched. “She’s funny.”

“She’s insane,” I snapped.

Lina lifted her hands. “I’m just saying! He gives off… vibes.”

Alex’s eyes flicked to Lina, then back to me.

“Do you feel my vibes?” he asked, voice amused.

I glared. “I feel annoyed.”

“Same thing,” he said.

I marched past him to the other bedroom and threw the door open like I was claiming land in an ancient war.

My room was empty.

No duffel bag.

No bedding.

No sign of a storm living in it.

Just a bare mattress and a desk that looked like it hated students.

Good.