Harvest on the Hill by H. C. Cardona

Author:H. C. Cardona [Cardona, H. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grey Star Publishing, LLC

By the time I made it to class the next day, I was already five minutes behind and twelve hours short on functioning brain cells.

I slipped into my usual seat near the back, hoodie pulled over my head, yesterday’s eyeliner smudged just enough to make me look haunted instead of cool. My coffee had gone cold by the time I remembered to drink it, and my essay draft was still sitting on my desktop, unsaved and unfinished.

Everything about me felt unfinished.

I slumped a little in my chair and pulled out my notebook, not because I was ready but because I needed something to hold. Something to do.

Adrian walked in exactly on time.

As always.

Black shirt. Black slacks. Hair tied back with that same severe precision. He looked like the human embodiment of a locked file cabinet—clean lines, cold metal, and something dangerous if you pulled too hard.

He didn’t look at me.

Not at first.

Instead, he turned to the whiteboard and began writing the case study for the day.

UNEXPLAINED DEATH—SIGNS OF SUFFOCATION—PETECHIAE PRESENT

Of course.

Of course it would be this.

I sat straighter, the weight of the night pressing into the base of my skull. I could already feel my heart speeding up. I hadn’t finished the assignment, but I’d read enough. Studied enough. Cried enough.

Adrian set the marker down and faced the room.

“Let’s begin with a basic question,” he said, voice smooth as stone.

Then his eyes landed directly on me.

Like a spotlight.

A trap.

“Miss Rose,” he said. “Perhaps you can enlighten us about the difference between passive and pressure-induced hemorrhaging.”

My blood went cold.

I blinked. Once. Twice.

My mouth opened. Then stalled.

I could feel every pair of eyes shift in my direction. The air got thicker. My throat got smaller.

“I—um—” I flipped my notes, even though I knew the page I needed wasn’t there. I hadn’t written it. I hadn’t gotten that far.

“Pressure-induced,” I said, too soft. “That’s when there’s… physical force?”

A beat.

Adrian didn’t nod. Didn’t blink.

“And passive?” he prompted, crisp and clinical.

“I think it’s… I mean, it’s from gravity? Or circulation? I’m not—” I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

The silence that followed stretched like a pulled muscle.

Painful. Obvious.

Adrian didn’t say anything cruel.

He didn’t need to.

The look he gave me—calculated neutrality—was somehow worse.

Like I hadn’t even earned disappointment.

And then⁠—

Adrian tilted his head slightly, as if examining me through a microscope instead of across a lecture hall. “You’ve been particularly… curious lately,” he said, voice even, unmoved. “One would think that interest would translate into comprehension.”

The words weren’t loud.

They didn’t need to be.

They sliced through the room like cold metal.

Something in my chest pinched tight. My fingers curled around the edges of my notebook. The pen I’d been holding hovered over the page, paused in a half-finished sentence I suddenly couldn’t remember starting.

I didn’t respond.

I couldn’t.

Not without cracking something.

The silence stretched a beat too long—enough for a few heads to turn, for someone to cough awkwardly, for me to feel the weight of being seen in exactly the way I didn’t want to be.

Then, as if nothing had happened, Adrian turned back to the board.

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