CHAPTER 6
Willow Creek High's hallways buzzed with the familiar thrum of teenage chaos. Bodies pushed and rubbed against one another in a turning sea of hormones and indifference. While banging lockers and wild laughing, Lila Emerson's Absence went completely unnoticed.
To most, she was nothing more than a silent shadow on the outskirts of their awareness. A mystery cloaked in the impenetrable cloak of her silence. Caleb Matthews, on the other hand, saw her as a strange form of entertainment—a punching bag on which he could unleash his cruelest jabs and most savage derisions.
As he swaggered into the crowded corridor, a malicious smirk formed on his lips, his alpha pheromones billowing through the air like a toxic cloud. Beside him, Yuria, his fiancée Miranda's best friend, was practica
