THE MASKED HEIRESS

Emmelyn’s Pov I’ve learned how to disappear without ever leaving the room. Sit in the back. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t speak unless spoken to. It’s not that hard once you get used to it. Most people are too wrapped up in themselves to notice the quiet girl with paint-stained fingertips and a hoodie two sizes too big. No one at Westbridge Academy knows who I really am. Not the teachers. Not the kids who whisper about trust funds and summer homes in Spain. And definitely not the ones who act like their lives are hard just because their parents won’t buy them the latest phone. They don’t know that my last name is Blackwood. Or that my dad is that Blackwood—Daniel Blackwood, the man who turned a garage start-up into a tech empire. He’s the reason half this town runs the way it does. And he’s the reason I keep my mouth shut and my head down. Right now, I’m in art class. It’s the only place that feels even remotely like mine. My pencil dances across the paper without me thinking. Two hands, reaching through darkness grasping, searching. I don’t even know what they’re reaching for yet. I just draw until it feels right. “Emmelyn,” Ms. Carter’s voice breaks through the quiet hum of graphite on paper. “Care to share with the class today?” I blink, caught off guard. Her eyes are kind, but I still feel the weight of thirty others shifting toward me, some curious, some already bored. I shake my head. “No, thanks.” A few chuckles ripple through the room, and I sink a little lower in my seat. That’s the thing about staying invisible—you forget how it feels when people actually look at you. And then the classroom door creaks open. Late. Loud. And impossible to ignore. A guy strolls in like he owns the place tall, dark curls, that too-casual walk that screams trouble. He doesn’t apologize. Just hands Ms. Carter a slip and scans the room like he’s deciding which corner he wants to set on fire first. His eyes stop on me. And just like that, my invisibility? Gone. His eyes lock on mine for a second too long. I look away first. I always do. But even in that tiny moment, something shifts. The air thickens. I can feel the stare burning into the side of my face like it’s daring me to look back. “Class, this is Jaxon Wilder,” Ms. Carter announces, a little too cheerfully. “He’ll be joining us for the rest of the semester. Jaxon, you can take that open seat by the window.” Of course, it’s the seat two desks down from mine. He doesn’t say anything, just slides into the chair like he’s done this a hundred times before. Probably has. The rumors have already started even before he sat down expelled from two schools, transferred mid-year, some kind of fight. The usual bad boy checklist. I stare back at my drawing, but the lines don’t make sense anymore. My hands aren’t steady. My pencil presses too hard, snaps the tip. Great. I lean down to dig through my bag for a sharpener, keeping my face hidden, hoping he’ll forget about me just as fast as he noticed me. But no such luck. “You always draw like that?” he asks, voice low, but not quiet. The kind that cuts through small talk and dares you not to answer. I freeze. No one talks to me in here. Not really. I straighten slowly, keeping my eyes on the page. “Like what?” He shrugs. “Like you’re trying to say something you can’t say out loud.” My heart stumbles. It’s a dumb reaction, but it happens anyway. I finally glance up and he’s already watching me with this lazy curiosity, like he’s trying to piece me together without touching the puzzle. I force a shrug. “Maybe I am.” A slow smirk curls at the edge of his mouth. “Well, let me know when you figure it out.” Ms. Carter claps her hands then, dragging the class back to order. Everyone else returns to their own sketches, like nothing happened. But something did. Because for the first time in a long time, someone saw me. And I don’t know if that scares me more or excites me. The bell rings, sharp and sudden. I gather my things like I always do quick, quiet, efficient. My goal is to be the first one out the door, but today I’m slower than usual. My hands feel weirdly heavy. By the time I step into the hallway, it’s already buzzing with voices and footsteps and the hum of people trying too hard to matter. I head for my locker, eyes down, earbuds in even though there’s no music playing. Just white noise. “Hey, mystery girl.” I don’t have to turn around to know who it is. Jaxon leans against the locker next to mine like it belongs to him. He’s got that smirk again, like he knows something I don’t. And maybe he does. I sigh. “Do you talk to everyone this much, or am I just special?” “Definitely special,” he says without missing a beat. “You’ve got that whole secret artist vibe going. People like you usually end up in movies or mugshots.” I close my locker and finally meet his gaze. “You’ve known me for five minutes.” “Five minutes is long enough to know when someone’s hiding something.” My heart stutters again. He doesn’t know anything. He can’t. I put my bag over my shoulder and start walking. “Well, maybe you should learn to mind your own business.” He laughs, following. “Where’s the fun in that?” I don’t answer. I don’t need to. I cut across the courtyard and head toward the back gate—the path most kids ignore. It’s quiet back there. Safe. But halfway down the steps, I hear his voice again, softer this time. “You’re not like the rest of them.” I pause, one foot on the last step. The words hit harder than they should. I don’t turn around. “You don’t know me,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper. “Not yet,” he says. Then he’s gone, leaving me with the strange feeling that, for the first time in forever, maybe I don’t know myself either. I don’t look back, but I feel him leave. His words hang in the air like smoke faint, annoying, hard to ignore. Not yet. Ugh. I cut across the back field and loop around the gym, taking the long way to the lunchroom. I need space, silence, just anything that doesn’t involve that smirk or those eyes like he could see through me. By the time I push open the cafeteria doors, the buzz hits me like a wall. The place is louder than usual, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why. “He’s so hot, it’s criminal,” someone says behind me. “Did you see his jawline? I mean, how is that even fair?” I turn my head, and yep—there they are. A group of girls from my lit class, gathered like moths around a flame that hasn’t even noticed them yet. “He’s definitely the bad boy type,” one of them sighs, twirling a strand of hair. “Troubled past, maybe a motorcycle, probably a fake ID.” “If he talks to me like that, I swear” They giggle, and my stomach flips. He talked to me. And now they’re making him a fantasy. I grab my tray, shove an apple onto it, and head to my usual corner table before they see me listening. I don’t know why it bugs me. I don’t care. He’s just some new guy with too much confidence and not enough boundaries. Still. The way they were talking, like he was some kind of prize to chase… I don’t know. It just irks me. He probably wants that kind of attention. Guys like him usually do. I decide right then: I’m done engaging. No more accidental eye contact. No clever back-and-forth. No falling into whatever mess he brings with him. He can keep his trouble, and I’ll keep my distance. That’s the plan. I eat half my apple and pick at the sandwich I didn’t want. The voices blur into background noise again, and I try to zone out like I always do. I even pull out my sketchbook, flipping to a clean page. But my hand won’t move. All I can think about is him—the way he looked at me, like I was something he’d seen before in a dream. No. Stop it. I press my pencil to the paper, ready to drown the thought in graphite, when a shadow falls across my table. I look up and there he is. Jaxon. Smirking. Tray in hand. “What are you doing?” I ask before I can stop myself. He raises an eyebrow. “You looked lonely.” My stomach drops. “I’m not,” I say quickly. “Too bad.” He slides into the seat across from me like he’s always belonged there. Every table in this place, and he chooses mine? People are already staring. Whispering. I grip my pencil tighter, but before I can say anything else, he leans in just slightly, like he’s about to tell me a secret. “Funny thing about secrets,” he says, voice low, eyes sharp. “They never stay hidden for long.” My pulse spikes. “What are you talking about?” I ask, heart suddenly pounding. He just smiles and pulls something out of his jacket pocket. A folded sheet of paper. He places it face-down on the table and stands. “See you around, Blackwood.” My blood runs cold. He walks away like nothing happened, leaving me frozen, staring at my own name. And suddenly, the silence I’d built my whole life around? Shattered. He knows me? How did he figure that out so fast? Nobody knows!