Julian laughs. "You gonna do it, or should I?"
"Neither. It’s not worth it." I flick my gaze up at the dorm windows.
"The Board wants her to survive. She’s a test case. Hurting her is the one way to get on their radar, which I thought we weren’t trying to do anymore than we already have." Bam chimes in.
"Maybe she’s for the Hunt," Rhett says.
They’re both wrong. The only way to win here is to figure out why the Board wants her so badly. Figure out what she is. Then take it apart, piece by piece.
“Let’s go get some beer.”
“Yeah, you guys go ahead, I’m gunna walk for a bit.” I say as we hit the doors to the Academy.
“You good, bro?” Bam asks, cocking his head slightly.
Holding in a sigh, I nod. “Yeah, just need a few minutes before pulling an all-nighter with you fucks.”
Rhett chuckles and they head to our wing. I suppose it’s just Jules and I now, which is somehow more peaceful and yet lonely. Three of us are gone, living their best lives with their women and Jules and I are just waiting for our turn.
Which should be in about six weeks for me, if they keep the Night Hunt going after Bam’s fucked everything.
I drift through the corridors, shoulders brushing old stone. They upgraded the motion sensors after the Castillo incident, but there’s a dead spot behind the fire doors on the third floor. I walk through it, footsteps silent, breath even, stopping to read the list of who is in which room, pinned to a shoddy bulletin board.
Freshman dorms are a joke—painted cinderblock, thin doors with warped nameplates, the kind of place you put your mostdisposable assets. Eve’s room is at the very end, the only one with light on this late.
Leaning against the wall, I watch her shadow as she paces. A string of expletives escaping her as a zip sounds. There’s no rhythm to her unpacking—just bursts of activity, then long stretches of nothing. I edge closer until I can hear the faint drag of cardboard across tile, the shivering snap of tape.
There’s a vent near the floor. Old, unguarded. I sit down and watch through the slats.
Eve sits on the bare mattress, unpacking her life onto a shelf that won’t support it. The space is smaller than a prison cell, but she’s working to fill it with order. Her books are used, spines cracked, covered in fluorescent stickers and inked notes. She lines them up by subject, not color. Next, a battered picture frame: a man, a woman, and a girl in grade school plaid. Her parents, probably. The mother has the same high cheeks, the same look of wanting to get out.
She sets the frame down, angles it toward the wall so the faces can’t see her.
A small potted plant next. It’s dying, but she rotates it in the light, picking off the yellow leaves like that’s enough to keep it alive.
Her movements are efficient. Deliberate. No wasted motion. She folds clothes in tight stacks, lays out pencils, squares off the corners of a spiral notebook. When a group of girls passes inthe hall—loud, slurred, triumphant—she freezes. Waits until the voices fade before she uncoils again.
She pulls out an envelope. Scholarship paperwork, embossed with the Board’s seal. She reads it three times before folding it into quarters and shoving it deep in her desk drawer.
I see her hands: nails short, crescent moons of grit under the cuticles, fingers nicked and skin dry. Not the hands of Westpoint. The hands of the world she left behind.
A slow heat starts in my chest, climbs my throat. It’s not hunger. It’s not curiosity.
It’s the sudden certainty that if I let her, she’ll remake this place in her image.
I back away, careful not to catch the light. She never looks up. She never even knows she’s being watched.
But I know everything I need to.
Tomorrow, I’ll test the boundaries. I’ll find the fault lines. And if I decide to break her, it’ll be because I want to, not because the Board does.
I slip out, pulse steady, jaw unclenching only when I hit the stairwell. I’m already thinking about how she’ll react when I finally introduce myself.
I want to see the exact moment she realizes who owns her.
Morning at Westpoint is always the shits. The dining hall opens at 0600, and by 0615 the first wave is already queued for protein, caffeine, or whatever passes for food when your parents bankroll the kitchens. The room is a grid of tables, each one staked out by a different tribe: sports kids near the windows, debate and legacy near the server line, the strays and predators closest to the exits.
We take our usual spot on the platform, waiting to be served. Rhett’s not here, but Bam is, making for an interesting trio of hungover assholes.
