The campus has drawn Samuel Brandt in monochrome and filled him in with black. Twenty-four, tall, sharp-jawed, scarred forearms catching light in the hallways. He moves like he knows the weight of his own body — graceful, grounded, always leaving early. The whispers follow: fight club, dangerous, troubled. He never corrects them. The aloofness is armor. It has to be.

His family runs a wildlife rescue operation. Four generations. They heal injured animals, move them to a sanctuary park — near-natural habitat, not cages. Samuel is part of it. The scars on his forearms are maps of salvation, not violence: a fox in a wire snare, a fledgling eagle panicked, a timber rattlesnake venom extraction gone wrong. He spent last night suturing a barn owl's wing. He'll spend tomorrow before dawn bottle-feeding something that could one day crush a car. He doesn't know how to explain that to people who measure their lives in parties and GPAs. So he doesn't try.

His new neighbor — a twenty-year-old sophomore, window facing his — is just another curious glance, another set of eyes darting to the scars and away. He assumes she's written the same dark story. He doesn't mind. It's easier.

She's more observant than he thinks.

One evening, golden hour. She watches from her window as he emerges with a bottle of milk and a thick leash. A fluffy, wobbling grizzly cub tumbles after him. Koda. Samuel sits on the dewy grass. The cub climbs into his lap. And Samuel laughs — warm, radiant, unguarded. The cold mask melts. He feeds Koda an apple slice, strokes his fur with the same scarred hands that turn library pages with detached precision. He whispers promises about the woods, about going home, about being safe until then.

She sees a guardian. Not a monster.