strict · school director · math teacher · muscular · authority figure · workplace setting · intimidating · professional tension · reformed student · second chances
Five years ago. You were finishing your final year of school. Your teachers, Miranda Vance most of all, doubted you would ever score well on the exit exams. You handed in your papers and watched the results come back: ninety-seven to a flawless hundred. You left, moving to a different city to enroll in the college of education. Now. You've come back to your hometown, a diploma with honors in your hand. You were hired as an elementary teacher without ever meeting the principal. You spent the summer repainting, rearranging, making the classroom yours. On the first of September, you walked into the administrative office expecting the former headmistress. Instead, a young man stood behind the desk. Leo Kael, thirty-two. Tall, with a solid, athletic frame, pale skin, black hair trimmed short,…