Orphaned Seed
Copyright© 2026 by Fantasylover11
Chapter 12: Move-In
Ravenport University looked like it had been built to make you feel small in a respectable way.
The dorm quad was green and manicured and staged for brochures: brick buildings with white columns, banners that said WELCOME CLASS OF 2030, parents hauling mini-fridges like they were sacrificial offerings.
Noah stepped out of Mara’s car and immediately felt it.
Eyes.
Not hostile, not focused on him—just everywhere, diffuse, the normal surveillance of a campus full of strangers.
Except for the second layer.
The subtle pressure that had followed him since Marrowick didn’t fade here.
It thickened.
The overlay appeared with a quiet certainty he was starting to resent.
LOCATION: RAVENPORT UNIVERSITY STATUS: MASKING RECOMMENDED
Noah didn’t wait for it to escalate.
He pulled Masking over himself like a hood.
MASKING: ACTIVE FOCUS: DRAINING
Mara handed him one duffel bag and a set of keys with a plastic tag.
“From here,” she said, “you are a normal freshman.”
Noah stared at her. “And the other part?”
Mara’s ring tapped once against her knuckle. “The other part stays inside you until you know where the cameras are.”
Noah’s jaw tightened.
“If you feel pressure in your ears,” Mara continued, voice low enough that it vanished under the quad noise, “don’t look around like you’re looking for it. Look through it.”
Noah nodded once.
Mara’s gaze swept the quad.
Noah followed it.
Three people stood out, and not because they were obvious.
One was an RA in a bright shirt helping a parent carry a box. Her smile was casual, but her eyes tracked movement the way Mara’s did.
Another was a campus security guard leaning on his golf cart, posture loose, attention sharp.
The third was a man in a RU staff lanyard speaking to a group of students near the dining hall entrance. He had the warm cadence of someone used to being listened to.
Noah’s gaze snagged.
The man looked up at exactly the wrong moment and met Noah’s eyes.
Just long enough.
Then the man smiled mildly and turned back to his group as if nothing had happened.
Noah’s skin prickled.
Mara didn’t react.
Which meant she had noticed.
Or she wanted Noah to pretend she hadn’t.
“Meridian?” Noah asked under his breath.
Mara gave the smallest nod. “Some of them.”
Noah swallowed.
The idea that Meridian could hide in plain sight shouldn’t have surprised him.
It still did.
“Go,” Mara said. “Unpack. Be boring.”
Noah picked up his bag and walked into the dorm building with the flow of freshmen like a drop in a river.
He kept his shoulders loose, his face neutral.
Composure was a skill now.
He used it.
His assigned room was on the third floor, the kind of cramped double that forced intimacy between strangers.
His roommate hadn’t arrived yet.
Noah took that as mercy and unpacked quickly, stowing the sigiled keycard in the back of his wallet and then hiding the wallet under a folded sweatshirt in his drawer like that would make it safer.
Don’t let anyone scan this.
It was an instruction that turned every friendly interaction into a hazard.
He forced himself to do normal things.
Make the bed.
Hang a towel.
Put his shoes in the closet.
Masking hummed at the edge of his attention the entire time, draining him in quiet sips.
When he finally stepped back outside, the afternoon had tilted toward evening. The quad was less chaotic now, parents thinning out, students clustering into groups with the ease of habit.
Noah stayed on the edge.
Not because he hated people.
Because being seen was a risk, and he hadn’t learned yet how to choose the risk on purpose.
He needed a reason to be somewhere without looking like he was looking.
He chose the library.
The research library was older than the dorms, darker brick, narrower windows, the kind of building that felt like it had its own weather.
Inside, the air smelled like paper and HVAC and someone’s too-sweet coffee.
Noah walked past the front desk and deeper into the stacks, letting the quiet settle his heartbeat.
He’d barely reached the aisle for campus maps and local histories when he heard a low, precise voice.
“You’re in the wrong section.”
Noah stopped.
A girl stood at the end of the aisle with a clipboard and a pen tucked behind one ear. Athletic build, hair braided back, posture composed in a way that looked practiced.
She wasn’t smiling.
She also wasn’t posturing.
Noah’s attention sharpened.
“I’m looking for the freshman orientation packet,” he said.
“Then you’re two rows over,” she replied. Her gaze flicked to his hands, his bag, his face, the way people looked when they were used to collecting detail. “Unless you want the version with the missing pages.”
Noah frowned. “They’re handing out missing pages?”
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