Fire and Frost

Sierra’s Point of View

I skipped lunch.

I didn’t really go anywhere. I just walked around the school. By the tall trees and quiet paths. By other students laughing, as if they never had a bad day.

My stomach hurt, but not from being hungry.

It was from anger.

From shame.

And from something else I didn’t want to think about.

I kept thinking about it, his voice loud in the room, his words tearing down my pride in front of people like it was nothing. And the worst part?

It got to me.

He reached me. Again.

By the time it was nearly 6 p.m., I was outside his office door again, less than a day later, staring at his name in those cold silver letters like they were making fun of me.

Professor Damon Cross

I could still hear him say my name that way slow, clear, as if he was marking it into ice.

I lifted my hand and knocked.

“Enter,” came his voice from inside. Smooth. Flat. Like he’d been expecting me since dawn.

I stepped in.

He didn’t look up from his laptop.

“You’re early,” he said.

“You said six sharp.”

He clicked his mouse. “Exactly. Not five minutes before. Not five after.”

My jaw clenched. “Noted.”

“Sit.”

I sat. The same chair. The same silence. But this time, I wasn’t cold—I was burning.

He finally looked at me. His face unreadable. His tie perfect. His mouth still holding that faint downward curve like the whole world disappointed him.

“Tell me, Miss Blake,” he said, “what exactly do you think you’re doing here?”

“In this office?” I asked. “Serving time, apparently.”

His eyes narrowed, just slightly.

“I meant here. At Crestmont. In this program. In my class.”

I turned my head. "You seem to feel sure I don't fit in."

"Right," he spoke flat out. "But I asked what you think."

I sat up, anger heating me up. "I think I fit in as much as the next person."

He bent forward, his arms on the desk. "Then act like it."

My hands turned into tight balls in my lap.

"Stop the soft talk. Stop being lazy. Stop making up reasons. If you hide behind your charm again, I won’t just make you look bad—I’ll kick you out for good."

I blinked.

"You think I’m just flirting through school?"

His quiet said it all.

"You don't know me," I shot back.

"No," he said. "I don’t. And I have no plans to. I don’t need to know your sad tale. I don’t care if you left a big house or a small place. The second you entered my class and joked about it, you became my issue."

I got up.

His gaze hung on me, him sitting there, cool as ever.

"I didn't come here to be a problem," I said, voice tight. "I came to start over."

He lifted an eyebrow. "So you are running."

I stopped cold.

His voice softened—just a fraction. “This place is full of people trying to outgrow something. But the ones who make it don’t sleep through their first day and play innocent when called out.”

My breath caught. I hated that he was right. I hated it more that he knew it.

“You don’t scare me,” I lied.

He stood then. Slowly. Quietly. And the room got smaller.

“You’re not supposed to be scared,” he said, voice like silk stretched over steel. “You’re supposed to be better.”

We stood there in silence—too close, too aware, too much.

And then, just like that, he sat back down, opened a folder, and waved a hand dismissively.

“You’ll serve detention here every evening this week. Six to seven.

You’ll organize lecture materials, archive case notes, and write summaries of the topics we cover in class.”

I swallowed my pride. “Fine.”

“One more failure to follow basic rules, and I’ll make sure the board reviews your enrollment.”

“You don’t like me,” I said, flat.

“I don’t like wasted potential,” he replied without looking up.

“Especially when it acts entitled.”

I turned and walked toward the door. My face burned. My chest was tight.

But this time, I did not move back. I stood still.

Just before I went out, I turned a bit, my hand still on the door.

"Good thing I'm not here to make friends," I said, calm and clear.

For the first time, I saw it—that grin.

Not nice. Not fun. Planned.

His voice came after me, soft and clear.

"No, you're not here to make friends, Miss Blake..."

I stopped.

"You're here because you left your house."

My hand held the knob tight, but I did not move.

I did not take a breath.

Then he hit me with the last thing.

“And by the way….Sierra Blake isn’t your real name right?”

My heart sank. I stood there shocked.

He let the quiet grow long, like a line, before he said a word.

"Do you think you could walk into my school and I wouldn’t learn your true self?”

I turned to look at him slowly. "What did you just say?"

He sat back, one arm on the chair, the other tapping a pen on his desk.

"I mean... you're not just a girl who fakes a smile and gets bad marks. You have a secret."

He looked right at me. "And not from a job, or school, or love gone wrong. You're hiding from a name."

My blood turned cold.

“I don’t know what you think you know,” I said, trying to stay calm.

“But I know exactly who you are.”

He opened a drawer and slid out a slim black folder. The kind that had no business being in the hands of a professor.

“Sierra Blake doesn’t exist prior to three months ago,” he said.

“No school records, no medical files, no trace of anything… until she applied for a transfer to Crestmont under ‘special consideration.’”

He tilted his head. “Now, that would normally be flagged. But your documentation was… well-forged. Enough to fool most.”

I tried to speak. Couldn’t.

"But not me," he said in a low voice. "I never take things as they seem."

He opened the folder and took out a photo. I couldn't see it from where I was, but I knew what it showed.

"I looked more," he said.

"Had to. You caught my eye when you slept in my library like it was yours, then walked into my class like you had no mind for the rules."

His voice turned steel-sharp.

“People like you never show up by accident. They land like storms.”

He tossed a photo on the desk like a final card in a high-stakes game.

"Or like bad talk."

I moved near, heart racing, and bent to see.

I could not breathe.

It was me—hair done up, no grin, next to my dad in one of those shiny work photos that made me feel more like a show than his kid.

“You are not Sierra Blake,” he said, his tone like ice.

I stood still.

“You are Sierra Langston, the only child of Charles Langston.

Gone for three months. And now right in front of us.”

I looked up slow, my mouth dry, my back straight.

He moved close over the desk, his voice soft, but sharp.

“Tell me, Miss Langston... what are you running from?”