We head to the Feral Boys wing. My phone is already in my hand, Eve’s profile blinking on the home screen. She’s in her room, door locked, curtains drawn. I watch the dot pulse, steady and unbroken.
Bam lets the door swing shut, then turns on me. His frame blocks the corridor, arms crossed, shoulders squared.
“You’re obsessed,” he says. No question, just fact.
I shrug. “You’re the expert.”
He barks a laugh. “At least I admit it. You think you’re different?”
“No,” I say, “I think I’m worse.”
His mouth curves up, the old violence in his face replaced by something almost understanding. “You could let it go.”
“I don’t want to,” I shrug.
Bam’s eyes glint. “Didn’t think so.”
We stand in the corridor, two killers in dress clothes, staring at each other. If my father were here, he’d see this as proof of his victory—two sons, loyal to the end, ready to ruin anyone who got in their way. But Harrison isn’t here. There’s only us, and the ghosts of what we could have been.
“Ever regret it?” I ask.
Bam’s head tilts. “What?”
“Dahlia. Picking her over duty. Over the Hunt.”
His smile is slow, real. “No. Best decision I ever made. Fuck the rest.”
I nod. “Thought so.”
He steps aside, giving me the way. “Go get her,” he claps me on the shoulder.
I walk past, but not before glancing up at the camera in the ceiling. The red light blinks. I smile for whoever’s watching.
The tracking app shows Eve leaving the dorm, heading toward the greenhouse. I feel the pulse in my throat, hot and hungry.
Bam sees the look on my face and grins, all teeth. “You’re really gone, huh?”
I don’t answer. There’s nothing left to say.
I move, fast and silent, back down the stairs, through the quad, into the shadows where the real game begins.
Chapter 7: Eve
I’mboredofthesame old routine and the one place that interested me, but I haven’t been yet, is the greenhouse. I told myself I’d go straight there, make a detour for a coffee, then get to my class before noon.
Instead, my phone buzzes, and the world pivots.
I freeze under the weight of my pulse, digging for the phone as if the device itself is about to detonate. It’s not a number I recognize, but that only means one thing: home.
I swipe to answer, voice catching on the first hello.
“Eve!” my sister says, all exhale and high energy, like she’s yelling over a football game even though I know she’s probably in bed, lights off, phone buried in a blanket cave.
She never calls. This is the third time in two years. She only calls if she needs something, or remembers I exist. After Mom left, our aunt took her in and left me to live with my dad, saying I was old enough to be without a mother, but Melanie was not. My jaw unclenches, my knuckles go slack on the backpack, and my heart breaks itself open.
“Hey Mel,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, just wanted to see if you’d pick up. Auntie Kay made banana bread, and she made me call and see if you want a loaf? She thinks you can’t cook for shit out there.”
