She told herself it was just a place to practice.

The Old Gym Building sat at the edge of campus, half-forgotten since the new athletics complex opened three years ago. The floor here was warped in places, the mirrors foggy at the edges, but it had space. Privacy. No one came here anymore.

Elenora Park pulled open the heavy door and stepped inside. The air smelled like dust and old wood and something faintly floral from the cleaning solution the janitor still used, out of habit. She'd found this place last semester, after the bathroom incident with Chloe, when she'd needed somewhere the other girls wouldn't look.

Her dance bag hung off one shoulder. Inside: the black leotard she'd worn since she was sixteen, the wrap skirt her mother had sent from Seoul two birthdays ago, worn soft at the waist. She'd brought a change of clothes too, in case anyone saw her leaving. The habit of invisibility, learned young.

She changed in the small locker room off the main gym, her hands moving on autopilot. The skirt hit just above her knees. Lightweight. Good for the kind of movement she needed today.

In the main room, she pressed her phone against the old speakers and scrolled through her music. Something that blended both sides of her. A track she'd made herself, layering a gayageum melody over a modern beat. Her mother's heritage and her father's city, tangled together in a way that felt like her.

The first note hit. She closed her eyes.

Movement came naturally. The slow, grounded steps of traditional Korean dance at the beginning—the careful placement of her feet, the controlled curve of her arms. Then the shift, the release into something freer. Hip rotations. A sharper angle to her elbows. Two worlds colliding in her body, the way they did every day of her life.

She pushed harder than she meant to. The turns were sharp, the landings hard. Her breath came fast, and she let it. Better to feel this than to think about the library. About his mouth on hers. About the way she hadn't pushed him away.

The music built. She turned—

And saw him.

Standing in the doorway of the gym. Arms crossed. Watching.

Her feet stuttered. She nearly lost her balance, catching herself on the edge of the old ballet barre. The wood creaked under her grip.

David Singh didn't move. He stood there in dark jeans and a fitted jacket, the collar of his shirt open at the throat. The light from the grimy windows caught the sharp line of his jaw, the way his mouth held a small, knowing curve. Like he'd been standing there for a while. Like he'd been waiting for exactly this.

Her fingers tightened on the barre. "What are you doing here?"

"Watching."

"This building is closed."

"It's a campus building." He stepped forward, unhurried, his footsteps echoing in the empty space. "My family donated the new gym. I think I'm allowed here."

She didn't move. Didn't breathe.

He kept walking toward her, and with each step the distance between them shrank. She was five-three in her bare feet. He had to be nearly six feet. The difference felt vast. Impossible.

"I was just leaving," she said.

"No, you weren't."

Her bag sat on the bench near the wall, ten feet away. The exit was behind him. She'd have to get past him to reach either one.

"David—"

"You said my name." He stopped a few feet from her, his head tilting. "Last time, you wouldn't."

She swallowed. "I didn't know it."

He smiled, slow and with no warmth. "You know it now."

She took a step back. The barre pressed into her lower back. Nowhere left to go.

He didn't reach for her. He just stood there, letting her feel the space between them, the way he filled it without trying. The way he didn't need to touch her to make her feel trapped.

"You dance well," he said. "When you're not thinking."

"I'm not—"

"You are now." That smile again. "I could see it. The moment you saw me, your body changed. Your shoulders locked. You started counting your steps."

She hadn't realized she was doing that. She stopped.

"What do you want?" The words came out smaller than she wanted. She hated that.

"I told you already." He took another step. Close enough that she could smell the sandalwood on him, clean and expensive. "You're mine to break."

"That's not—you can't just—"

"Can't what?" His voice was soft. Almost kind. "Tell me, Elenora. What can't I do?"

She tried to push past him. He caught her arm, not hard, just there, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. The same wrist Chloe had grabbed last semester, shoving her into the bathroom stall. The bruise had faded weeks ago, but she still felt it sometimes. Phantom pain. Memory in the bone.

David's thumb pressed against the inside of her wrist. "Your heart's fast."

"Let me go."

"Say it like you mean it."

She tried to pull free. His grip didn't tighten, but it didn't yield either. Like a door that would open if she knew the right way to push, but she didn't.

"Please," she said.

His eyes changed. Something flickered in them—not sympathy. Interest. Like she'd said something that confirmed what he already knew.

"That's better," he said.

He let go.

She didn't run. She should have. Her feet stayed planted, her back against the barre, her wrist still warm where his hand had been.

David walked past her, toward the mirror. He ran a finger along its surface, leaving a trail through the dust. "My parents are lawyers. Did you know that?"

She didn't answer.

"Big firm. Corporate defense. They win cases other people walk away from." He turned to face her, leaning against the mirror. "The university gets a lot of money from them. New buildings. Scholarships. Endowments."

Her throat felt dry. "I don't know what that has to do with me."

"Don't you?"

He pushed off the mirror and walked toward her again. This time she did move—sidestepping along the barre, trying to keep it between them. He matched her step for step, patient, unhurried, like a cat following a bird that didn't know it was trapped yet.

"I can do a lot of things," he said, still in that calm, almost friendly voice. "Things that would get other students expelled. Things that would have the police involved. My parents make sure of that." He stopped. "And I've never had to test how far that protection goes."

Her back hit the wall. The brick was cold through her leotard. She'd reached the corner of the room, the barre ending, the wall closing in.

He didn't stop. He kept walking until he was right in front of her, and then he didn't touch her. He just stood there, close enough that she had to tilt her head up to see his face. The height difference felt like a physical weight.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

She didn't believe him.

"Not badly," he amended. "Not the way you're thinking. That's not how I do things."

"Then what—"

"I told you. You're mine." His voice dropped. "I've been watching you for months, Elenora. Since before Chloe started her games. I was the one who kept the others off you. Mack wanted to corner you last October. I made sure he didn't."

She stared at him. "Why?"

"Because I saw you first."

He said it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like she was a seat in a crowded library, a parking spot, a piece of fruit he'd claimed before anyone else could reach it.

"I don't belong to anyone," she said.

"We'll see."

He reached out. She flinched, but his hand stopped a few inches from her face, hovering there. She could feel the warmth of his palm without the touch. The anticipation of it was almost worse than the contact would have been.

"Don't," she whispered.

His hand dropped to her shoulder instead. Light. Testing. Then his fingers curled around the edge of the leotard's strap.

"David—"

"Shh."

He pulled the strap down, slow, letting it catch on the curve of her shoulder before sliding into place against her upper arm. His fingertip followed the line of fabric, tracing where the skin had been covered a moment ago.

She grabbed his wrist. "Stop."

He looked at her hand. At her fingers around his arm. Then at her face. "You can push harder," he said, like an observation. "You're not trying."

She pushed.

He didn't budge.

"That's better. But not good enough."

His other hand came up, and before she could move, he'd turned her around, pressing her face-first into the wall. The brick scraped her cheek. Her hands went out automatically, palms flat against the cold surface, and then his body was behind her, boxing her in. His chest against her back. His thighs against the backs of her legs. The wall in front of her, nowhere to go.

"Let me—" She tried to twist away, but he was heavier than her, and he had leverage, and every movement she made seemed to press her harder into the brick.

"This is what it looks like when you fight," he said, his mouth close to her ear. "What happens next depends on whether you learn."

She stopped moving.

"Good girl."

A long pause. The only sound was their breathing, his steady, hers ragged.

He leaned closer, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. "My father argued a case last year. A student accused a professor of assault. The professor was a donor's son. The case never went to trial. The student transferred." His breath was warm. "They had evidence. Witnesses. It didn't matter."

Her throat closed.

"I'm not telling you this to scare you." His hand settled on her hip, heavy and still. "I'm telling you so you understand. If I wanted to hurt you, I could. If I wanted to take something from you, I would. There wouldn't be anything you could do about it."

His palm slid down her hip, over the fabric of her skirt. Light. Unhurried. Like he had all the time in the world.

"The only thing standing between you and that outcome is me. My decision. My choice." His fingers curled around the hem of her skirt. "Do you understand?"

She couldn't speak. Her hands were flat against the wall, her cheek pressed to the brick, her body pinned between him and the cold surface.

"I asked you a question."

"Yes." The word came out broken. She tried again. "Yes. I understand."

"Good."

His hand moved. Slid under the hem of her skirt and up, over the bare skin of her thigh. She jerked, tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. He was behind her, and the wall was in front, and his fingers kept moving, finding the edge of her underwear, tracing the line where fabric met skin.

"Please." Her voice cracked. "David, please."

"Please what?"

"Don't—"

"Don't what?" His fingers pressed, not hard, just there, against the thin fabric. "Say it."

She couldn't. The words wouldn't form.

His other hand came up and covered her mouth. His palm against her lips, his fingers pressing into her jaw. The warmth of his skin. The weight of his body. The way her breath came hot against his hand, trapped, useless.

"You don't get to say no," he said, still calm, still soft. "That's what being mine means. You don't get to choose anymore."

His hand moved under the fabric. She felt his fingers against her, direct, intrusive, and she squeezed her eyes shut, because if she didn't see it, maybe it wasn't happening. Maybe she was still dancing. Maybe she was still alone in the gym, lost in the music, and none of this was real.

But she felt it. The pressure. The slow, deliberate movement of his fingers. His breath against her ear, steady and unbothered. The way his body held hers in place, like she was a thing he was examining, not a person he was touching.

"Shh," he said again, though she hadn't made a sound. His hand over her mouth tightened slightly. "I know. I know."

It went on longer than she could measure. Time turned strange in that corner of the gym, stretched out and compressed at once. The only markers were his breathing, the scrape of brick against her cheek, the involuntary twitch of her legs when his fingers found a rhythm she didn't want to feel.

And then—

It stopped.

His hand pulled back. He took a step away. The absence of his body against hers was almost as disorienting as the contact had been. She nearly fell, catching herself on the wall, her knees shaking.

She heard him walk away. The sound of his shoes on the old wooden floor. The creak of the gym door.

"Same time tomorrow," he said, not turning around. "I'll know if you don't come."

The door closed.

She stayed against the wall for a long time. The brick left marks on her cheek. Her skirt had ridden up, and she didn't fix it. Her hands were still flat against the wall, her fingers numb.

When she finally moved, it was to reach down and pull her leotard strap back up. Her hands were shaking. She wrapped her arms around herself and stood there, alone in the empty gym, the old mirrors reflecting a girl she barely recognized.

The music had stopped a long time ago. She didn't remember when.

She found her bag. She found her clothes. She changed in the locker room without looking at herself in the mirror. Her hands moved on autopilot, the same way they had when she'd arrived, and she thought about how different everything was now from what it had been forty minutes ago.

She walked out of the Old Gym Building into the late afternoon light. The campus was quiet. Students passed her without looking. A girl on a bike. A group of boys laughing about something. Normal life, happening all around her, and she was walking through it with David Singh's fingerprints still on her skin.

She reached her dorm building. Pulled out her key card. The door buzzed open.

Inside, the hallway smelled like someone's dinner. Garlic and spices. Familiar. Ordinary.

She walked up the stairs to her room—third floor, end of the hall—and closed the door behind her. Locked it. Sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the wall.

Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

Tomorrow. 4pm. Don't make me wait.

She read it three times. The phone felt too heavy in her hand. She set it facedown on the nightstand and didn't respond.

Outside her window, campus life went on. She could hear someone laughing on the quad. A car horn in the distance. The ordinary sounds of a Thursday afternoon, indifferent to what had happened in an old gym building, indifferent to the girl sitting alone in her room, her hand pressed against the space where the brick had left its mark on her cheek.

Tomorrow. He'd be waiting.

She turned off the light and lay down, still in her clothes, staring at the ceiling, and didn't close her eyes for a long time.