Chapter 11: St. Patrick’s Day: Green Crowds, Dark Motives

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Chapter 10 Recap

Monday after Reading Week should have felt like a reset. Instead, Jamie returns to a campus where CJ’s version of events is still moving faster than the truth. She starts documenting patterns, follows through on support, and learns that CJ’s access is not random. He has been close enough to names, locations, and systems to make himself seem harmless while shaping what people believe. By the end of the day, another cream envelope appears outside Jamie’s residence door, proving the pressure has not faded. It has only moved closer.

Read Chapter 10 of the series.

Chapter 11: The Party Was Never the Danger

St. Patrick’s Day arrived before Jamie felt ready for it.

Green had taken over campus overnight. It appeared on hats, scarves, cheap sunglasses, jackets, socks, and the plastic beads looped around students’ necks before breakfast. Music drifted from open windows. Laughter bounced across the sidewalks in bright, uneven bursts. Even the grey limestone looked warmer under the crowd’s restless movement, as if the buildings had agreed to participate whether they wanted to or not.

Jamie stood by the window in her room at Victoria Hall and watched students gather in loose packs below. Some already carried cups marked with a harm reduction tool used to track and measure drinks. Some were taking photos before they even left the building, arranging themselves carefully under the weak March light so the day would look effortless later. Two students near the entrance were painting shamrocks on each other’s cheeks with stiff fingers, laughing every time the cold made one of them flinch.

Nothing about it looked effortless to Jamie.

Riley was lacing her boots with the kind of focus she usually reserved for exams and other people’s bad decisions.

“You do not have to go out at all,” Riley said without looking up.

Jamie turned from the window. “I know.”

Riley straightened and studied her. “But you want to.”

Jamie hesitated. “I do not want to hide.”

That was the real answer.

Since CJ had turned Valentine’s Day into a public performance and Reading Week into a strange, suspended silence, every choice felt loaded. Staying inside would be read as fear, at least by the people who liked reading other people’s lives as if they were fiction. Going out would mean stepping into the kind of crowd CJ understood better than anyone should.

Riley nodded once. “Then we do it properly.”

Jamie almost smiled. Riley had become very attached to that phrase.

The plan sat written on a sheet of paper beside Jamie’s desk, simple and sensible.

Phones charged.

Stay together.

No disappearing into side streets or private houses.

No drinking past clarity.

Leave the second anything feels wrong.

Jamie had added one more line before breakfast.

Do not let the crowd decide what is true.

She slipped her phone into her coat pocket and checked for the portable charger Riley had insisted she bring. Her bag felt heavier than usual, but the weight steadied her. It reminded her that she was entering the day with intention, not surrendering to it.

Her phone buzzed.

Alex: Are you still okay with today?

Alex: I can meet you and Riley on University. In daylight.

Alex: I meant what I said. No disappearing.

Jamie read the message carefully, then typed back.

Jamie: Yes.

Jamie: Public only.

Jamie: Riley stays with us.

The reply came quickly.

Alex: Good.

Riley watched her face. “He is trying.”

“He is,” Jamie said.

Riley pulled on her coat. “Good. He can keep trying in public where the universe can supervise.”

Jamie laughed before she meant to. The sound surprised her, but it helped.

By late morning, campus had turned loud enough to feel physical.

The sidewalks near the University District were packed. Green flags hung from porches. Music pulsed from houses before Jamie and Riley were even close enough to see the front doors. People moved with the loose, overconfident energy of students treating the whole day like a story they would retell later.

Jamie and Riley stayed near the edge of the crowd, not isolated and not swallowed by it. Riley kept one eye on the street and the other on Jamie in a way that would have been insulting if it had not become so comforting.

A group of students in matching shamrock sunglasses pushed past, laughing hard enough to stumble into one another. One nearly dropped a phone and caught it with the kind of triumph reserved for actual emergencies.

Jamie watched him steady himself and felt her stomach tighten.

Everywhere she looked, someone was filming.

Not everything and not everyone, but enough.

That was what made it dangerous. A crowd did not need the full truth. A crowd only needed a clip.

Alex was waiting where he said he would be, near a campus path crowded with people moving toward louder streets. He wore a dark green sweater under his coat, subtle enough to pass as ordinary, deliberate enough that Jamie noticed.

When Alex saw Jamie, his face softened. Then his eyes flicked to Riley and stayed there for a beat, acknowledging the arrangement.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Jamie replied.

Riley gave him a small nod. “The ground rules still apply.”

Alex did not argue. “I know.”

Jamie studied him for a moment. He looked tired, but not distant. That alone felt like progress. For so long, Alex had looked like someone deciding which truth to withhold. Today he looked like someone who understood he no longer had the right.

The three of them moved together through the crowd, not close enough to invite commentary and not separate enough to look fractured. Jamie could feel the day working at her from all sides. There was too much noise, too many colors, and too many faces that might know her name for the wrong reason.

At first, things felt almost manageable.

Jamie, Riley, and Alex passed a student group offering free green pancakes from paper trays. Jamie, Riley, and Alex stepped aside for a group taking photos in front of a house draped in shamrocks. Someone shouted a joke from a porch. Someone else started singing badly and was encouraged by exactly the wrong people.

Alex kept pace beside Jamie without trying to touch her. Jamie noticed that too.

“You okay?” Alex asked quietly.

Jamie kept her gaze forward. “I am trying to stay ahead of my imagination.”

Alex nodded. “That is fair.”

Riley, walking on Jamie’s other side, spoke without looking at either of them. “The crowd will always be louder than the facts. That does not make it right.”

Jamie exhaled slowly. “I know.”

A few blocks later, the noise changed.

It was not louder. It was sharper.

The kind of sound a crowd makes when attention begins to collect.

Jamie felt it before she understood it. Movement shifted. People slowed. Heads turned. Phones lifted.

Riley noticed too. Her posture changed instantly.

“Stay with me,” Riley said.

Jamie and Alex followed Riley toward the edge of the sidewalk, where the view opened just enough for Jamie to see a small cluster forming near the curb.

A student sat half-collapsed against a low stone wall, face pale, eyes half-open, one arm limp across his lap. A girl crouched beside him, speaking too quickly. Two others stood nearby looking panicked and unhelpful in equal measure.

Jamie’s pulse jumped.

No. This could not be happening again.

Alex went still beside her. Jamie felt the pause in him, brief but unmistakable. Alex knew what Jamie knew. Alex knew what helping in public had cost him before. Alex knew what a crowd with cameras could do to a moment it did not understand.

Then the girl crouching beside the student looked up and called out, “Can anyone help? He is not answering properly.”

Alex was moving before the sentence finished.

Jamie caught Alex’s sleeve. The gesture was instinctive, almost desperate.

Alex’s eyes met hers.

For half a second, neither of them spoke.

Then Alex said quietly, “I cannot stand here and do nothing.”

Jamie’s chest tightened.

That was the problem. That was always the problem. Alex’s instinct to help came before Alex’s instinct to protect himself.

Jamie released his sleeve.

“Then I am coming with you,” Jamie said.

Riley was already pulling out her phone. “I am calling for help now.”

Alex dropped to a crouch beside the student on the wall. Alex’s movements were calm and efficient, the kind that came from focus rather than performance.

“Hey,” Alex said to the student. “Can you hear me?”

The student’s head shifted slightly, and when he tried to answer, the sound came out thick and slurred.

Jamie knelt on the other side, close enough to see how unfocused his eyes were. His breathing was shallow but present. Relief came in a thin, unreliable line.

Riley stepped closer, phone to her ear, giving clear directions to emergency services in a voice that sounded steadier than Jamie felt.

Around them, phones were rising.

Jamie saw it happen in flashes. A screen angled over a shoulder. Another one lifted higher. Someone whispering, “Is that him?” Someone else saying Alex’s name like it already came with context.

Jamie’s stomach turned cold.

“Do not crowd him,” Alex said sharply, not looking up. “Give him air.”

A few people stepped back. More kept filming.

Jamie looked up and caught one student recording from the sidewalk. “Put your phone down,” Jamie said.

The student froze, startled by the force in Jamie’s voice, then lowered it a little without actually stopping.

The student against the wall made another weak sound. Alex shifted slightly, checking his responsiveness again. Jamie saw Alex’s jaw tighten. Alex was concentrating too hard to care how he looked.

That was when Jamie heard it.

It was not a shout and not even a full sentence.

It was only a voice somewhere behind the crowd saying, “This looks familiar.”

Her blood ran cold.

Riley heard it too. Riley’s head turned sharply, but the faces behind the phones were already blending into one another.

The sirens came faster than they had at Trinity Social, or maybe Jamie’s sense of time had warped again. Paramedics moved through the crowd with practiced urgency. One paramedic took over immediately, asking questions. Another checked the student’s airway and pulse with quick, controlled movements.

Alex stood back the second he was asked to. Alex did not argue. Alex did not linger. Alex stepped away and wiped cold hands against his coat, looking more tired in that moment than he had all day.

Jamie rose beside him.

For a second, the crowd held itself in that strange hush that follows real fear.

Then phones started buzzing.

One after another.

Jamie felt her own pocket vibrate.

She did not need to check it.

She already knew.

Riley looked down at her screen, swore under her breath, and turned it toward Jamie.

A clip had already gone up.

The clip was short. It lasted only a few seconds. It showed Alex moving toward the student and Jamie kneeling beside him. The paramedics were not yet visible. Riley was not on the phone in the frame. The crowd refusing to help was not in the frame. No one asking for space was in the frame.

Only Alex stood at the center of another moment people could misunderstand.

The caption was worse.

Again?

Jamie stared at the screen.

Her mouth went dry.

“It is happening too fast,” Jamie said.

Riley nodded grimly. “It is happening far too fast.”

Alex looked at the clip and went pale, though whether from anger or recognition Jamie could not tell.

“It was posted already?” Alex asked.

Riley’s voice stayed sharp. “Yes.”

Jamie looked around the crowd. Too many faces. Too many green hats, shamrocks, sunglasses, and cameras. Anyone could have filmed it.

But not everyone could have been ready.

That was the difference.

Someone had been waiting for the right angle.

“Leave,” Riley said quietly. “Now. Before this turns into a larger crowd.”

For once, Alex did not argue with urgency. Alex nodded.

Jamie, Riley, and Alex moved away quickly, not running, but not pretending this was normal either. Jamie could feel eyes on her back. Jamie could feel the story moving behind them, mutating, reproducing, and attaching itself to whatever names were easiest to hold.

The three of them cut through a quieter path near campus, away from the densest noise. The sudden reduction in sound felt almost violent.

Jamie stopped near a line of bare trees and turned to Alex.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Jamie said.

Alex met her gaze. “He looked semi-conscious. No one else was helping. I checked that he was breathing and tried to keep people from crowding him until help arrived.”

Jamie nodded once. “And that is all?”

“Yes.”

Alex said it without hesitation.

Riley checked her phone again, then shoved it back into her pocket. “The clip is getting reposted.”

Jamie closed her eyes briefly.

When Jamie opened her eyes again, Jamie looked at Alex. “Did you know this might happen?”

Alex’s expression tightened. “I knew helping in public would be risky.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Alex exhaled slowly. “No. I did not know. But I know how CJ works. He turns hesitation into guilt and help into suspicion.”

Jamie felt her pulse in her throat. “Then he was ready.”

Riley’s gaze sharpened. “That is what matters.”

Jamie looked at Riley. “What do you mean?”

Riley pulled out her phone again and opened the clip. Riley tapped the timestamp.

“It was uploaded almost immediately,” Riley said. “It moved too quickly for someone to film, edit, caption, and post unless that person already knew what to look for.”

Jamie stared.

The numbers felt small on the screen, but they hit with force.

The clip had gone up before the crowd even fully understood there was an emergency.

Before the paramedics arrived. Before Alex had even stepped back.

Someone had not merely captured the moment.

Someone had targeted it.

Jamie’s voice came out quiet. “He was ready.”

Alex’s face had drained of color now. “Yes.”

Riley looked from Jamie to Alex. “This is bigger than a rumor. Someone is building these moments.”

Jamie’s hands trembled slightly. Jamie curled them into fists to steady them.

This was what had changed.

It was not only that CJ posted. It was not only that people believed him. It was the speed. It was the preparation. It was the sense that chaos itself had become a tool in CJ’s hands.

Alex’s voice was low. “I am sorry.”

Jamie looked at him sharply. “Do not apologize for helping someone.”

Alex’s throat moved as he swallowed. “I am apologizing because you are in this with me.”

Jamie almost laughed, but there was nothing light in it. “I have been in this for a while.”

Silence settled between them.

Riley broke it first. “We need to control what we can.”

Jamie nodded slowly. “Which is what?”

“The facts,” Riley said. “The timeline. The witnesses. The actual sequence.”

Jamie forced her breathing to slow. Structure helped.

Jamie turned to Alex. “Did anyone there know the student?”

Alex thought for a second. “The girl crouching beside him did. She kept saying his name.”

“That matters,” Riley said. “So do the paramedics. So does the fact that you were asked to step back and did.”

Jamie nodded.

Alex looked at her carefully. “Do you trust me?”

The question landed harder than Alex seemed to expect.

Jamie looked at the path, at the snow packed down by a thousand careless feet, at the brittle branches overhead.

Then Jamie looked back at him.

“I trust what I saw,” Jamie said. “I saw you help.”

Alex exhaled, and something like relief crossed his face. For one brief second, Alex’s hand lifted slightly, as if he wanted to reach for hers. Then Alex stopped himself and let it fall back to his side.

Jamie saw the movement.

Jamie continued before Alex could settle into the relief. “But I also think CJ was waiting for something like this. That means trust is not enough anymore.”

Alex nodded slowly. “I know.”

Riley tucked her phone away. “Then here is what happens next. We document this incident like we did the others. We record when the clip went up. We write down what actually happened while it is still fresh. We do not let the crowd narrate it for us.”

Jamie nodded.

Alex nodded too.

The three of them started back toward residence by a quieter route, the celebration still raging somewhere beyond the trees and side streets. The music sounded farther away now, but it did not sound harmless.

Jamie’s phone buzzed again.

Jamie did not check it.

Not this time.

Jamie already knew what it would be. It would be more reposts, more questions framed as concern, and more invitations to doubt herself in public.

At Victoria Hall, the air inside felt stale and warm after the cold. Students passed in green hats and glitter, heading out or staggering back. The day was still going for everyone else.

Jamie and Riley reached their room first. Alex stopped at the end of the hallway.

“I should go,” Alex said.

Jamie nodded. “Text me what you remember. I want every detail.”

“I will.”

Alex hesitated. “Jamie.”

She looked at him.

“I meant what I said,” Alex told her. “No more hiding.”

Jamie held his gaze. “Good.”

Alex left.

Riley unlocked the door and let Jamie inside first. The room looked ordinary. Two beds. Books. Coats. The low, familiar mess of students trying to live and study in the same small space.

Jamie sat on the edge of her bed and pulled out her phone.

This time Jamie opened the clip.

Jamie watched it once, jaw tight. Then Jamie watched it again, slower.

On the third viewing, Jamie saw it.

A figure near the edge of the frame appeared for only a second. The person wore a green sleeve and had a phone raised early, before anyone else. The face was not clear. The image was not enough for proof.

But something else was visible.

A shamrock bracelet flashed at the person’s wrist, bright green and plastic, the same kind Jamie had seen hanging from the Valentine delivery table while cards and names were being sorted.

Jamie’s blood ran cold.

Jamie looked up at Riley. “Someone started filming before Alex even reached him.”

Riley crossed the room and looked at the screen.

The figure vanished almost immediately as the camera shifted, but the timing remained. The bracelet was visible only for a second, but it was enough.

Riley’s expression hardened. “That is not random.”

Jamie swallowed. “No.”

Riley sat down beside Jamie. “Write it down.”

Jamie opened her notes and began.

St. Patrick’s Day. Student in distress. Alex helped. Clip posted almost immediately. Possible early filmer near edge of crowd. Green shamrock bracelet, similar to the ones at the Valentine table.

Jamie’s fingers moved quickly now.

The shape of the chapter was changing in Jamie’s mind. The shape of the whole story, maybe.

CJ did not only exploit chaos. CJ prepared for it.

Jamie set the phone down and stared at the wall for a long moment.

Outside, somewhere beyond the residence windows, the crowd kept singing.

Cliffhanger

CJ had a clip online before the emergency fully unfolded, which meant someone was ready to frame Alex in real time. Was CJ in the crowd himself, or had CJ built a network that was watching for him?