HIS ANGEL OF DAMNATION

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

LUCI'S POV

I stepped into the principal's office but left the door open, allowing the sound of hurried footsteps in the corridor to linger behind me for a moment longer than necessary. They were fast, uneven, already retreating into distance that meant she was gone.

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

Mary.

The name settled comfortably in my mind, familiar in a way that did not belong to this life or this face she now wore. She lived under a different identity now, carried a different name, yet the moment she had turned and looked at me, I had known without hesitation.

The corridor beyond the doorway had already emptied. Students passed in clusters, voices rising and falling in careless rhythm, laughing at things they would forget before the day ended. I paid them no attention.

My focus remained anchored to the space she had occupied only moments earlier.

Interesting.

After all this time, I had imagined this meeting in countless variations, across countless outcomes, and none of them had included her calling me a creature.

My smile widened slightly at the memory.

Her face returned with irritating clarity: the oversized hoodie, the crooked glasses, the way colour had rushed into her cheeks the moment she realised what she had said. Even her eyes remained unchanged, not in form but in essence, carrying that unsettling tendency to look directly at people rather than through them. It was a quality I had once mistaken for innocence, though I no longer entertained such interpretations.

The office door clicked shut behind me, drawing my attention fully away from the corridor.

The principal sat rigidly behind her desk. She had been watching since I entered, not with professionalism, but with the kind of poorly disguised fascination humans often convinced themselves was subtle. Her fingers tightened around a pen, loosened, then tightened again as though her body could not decide whether to remain composed.

Humans were always the same in that regard. They believed concealment required effort, when in truth it required understanding.

“Are you one of the students’ guardians?” she asked.

I studied her for a moment before responding, and she straightened almost immediately under my gaze.

“No.”

Silence followed.

The pen slipped from her fingers and rolled across the desk, though she made no move to retrieve it. Her attention had already narrowed entirely onto me.

“I see,” she said.

It was a lie.

She saw nothing at all.

Most humans never did.

I took a slow step forward, then another. There was nothing theatrical in the movement, nothing that should have warranted reaction, yet the atmosphere in the room shifted regardless. The principal swallowed, a subtle sound in the growing stillness.

“What is it you want?” I asked.

The question was not raised. It did not need to be.

Principal Larson blinked once, then again, confusion tightening briefly at the edges of her expression.

“I’m sorry?”

I did not answer.

Her gaze remained locked onto mine as the space between thought and speech began to blur. The room felt quieter, though nothing in it had changed; it was perception that shifted, not sound. She adjusted slightly in her seat, uncomfortable without understanding why.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, but the words lacked conviction. They were automatic, formed from habit rather than intent.

I waited.

Seconds stretched.

The confusion on her face deepened, then began to dissolve entirely. Her posture loosened as though something holding her upright had slowly been released. Her eyes drifted, losing focus, settling somewhere beyond the physical room itself.

The pen struck the floor.

Neither of us acknowledged it.

“I…”

Her voice broke slightly.

A distant expression overtook her features, as though she were no longer fully anchored in the present.

“I hate this school.”

The words emerged before she appeared to recognise them.

A faint flicker crossed her face, then faded.

“I hate this office. I hate going home every night and pretending everything is fine.”

Her gaze dropped, though it did not land on anything specific.

“I hate listening to him apologise. I hate the way he looks at other women.”

A sharp c***k echoed through the room as the pen snapped in her hand. She did not react.

She did not seem to notice.

“I want him gone.”

The room grew still in a way that had nothing to do with silence.

Something older settled into the space between us.

“What do you want?” I asked again.

This time, there was no delay.

“I want him to suffer.”

The words were immediate, unfiltered, stripped of hesitation.

“And after that?”

Her lips parted slightly, her expression distant, unsteady.

“I want everything to burn.”

There it was.

Not restraint. Not suppression.

The truth, finally spoken without resistance.

I studied her for a moment longer before giving a small nod.

“That can be arranged.”

Her breath caught.

They always understood at that moment, even when they did not want to.

“And do you accept the terms?” I asked.

No hesitation followed.

“I accept.”

The moment the words left her mouth, the exchange completed itself.

Somewhere beyond perception, something detached from her existence—without violence, without struggle, without ceremony. Only absence where something had once been.

A life exchanged for desire. A future rewritten without resistance.

I straightened slightly.

“When you wake,” I said evenly, “you will remember nothing of this. Only that you hired a new history teacher.”

Her expression softened immediately, as though a weight she had carried unknowingly had been removed.

“Yes,” she said faintly.

I turned toward the door.

A single motion sealed the alteration in place.

Her memory folded neatly into the constructed narrative, accepting it without question.

By the time she blinked again, it had already become truth.

“Oh, Mr Morningstar,” she said warmly as I stepped into the corridor. “We’re delighted to have you here. If you need anything at all, please let me know.”

“I’m sure I will,” I replied.

And I meant it.

Because everything was already moving exactly as it should.

The corridor stretched ahead, ordinary and noisy, filled with the unknowing rhythm of human life.

Principal Larson walked slightly ahead of me, already settling comfortably into her altered reality.

“I’ll introduce you to the staff later,” she said.

“That would be fine.”

We moved through the corridor as students passed in clusters, none of them aware of anything beyond their immediate concerns.

“You’ll be teaching…” She paused suddenly, a crease forming between her brows.

“That’s strange,” she murmured, glancing down at the papers in her hand. “For some reason I can’t seem to remember.”

History.

The answer was already present in her mind, buried beneath the alteration, but inaccessible in the way locked thoughts often are.

“History,” I supplied calmly.

Her expression cleared immediately.

“Of course. History.”

A small laugh escaped her as she shook her head.

“Forgive me. My mind feels a little foggy today.”

“Must be stress,” I said.

“I’m sure that’s all it is.”

Humans possessed a remarkable talent for explaining away the edges of reality they were not meant to notice.

The principal continued forward.

A few moments later, she slowed to a stop outside a classroom.

“Here we are.”

I lifted my gaze.

7B.

The number held still on the door.

Something subtle shifted within me.

7B.

Mary’s class.

Of course.

Not chance. Not coincidence.

Something older than both.

“Perfect,” I murmured.

The principal smiled, unaware of anything beneath the surface.

“Your first class, Mr Morningstar.”

A faint smile touched my lips.

Measured. Controlled.

This would complicate nothing.

Or perhaps it would complicate everything.

Either way, it was already decided.

Because I had not come here to observe.

I had come here to continue something unfinished.

And Mary had already reminded me—

She was worth the trouble.