“However, there are concerns. Concerns about your place here. About your, ah, suitability.”
He lets that word hang.
Rhett’s leg bounces against the floor, a rapid tremor.
“We understand that you have had some difficulties with your peers,” Steele says, tone shifting to clinical. “That you have been the subject of harassment, even violence.”
The back of my neck goes hot. I stare at my hands.
“It is unfortunate,” he says, “but it is also, in a way, a test. Westpoint is not for the faint of heart. It is our duty to ensure that only the strongest survive.”
I want to argue. I want to tell them that strength isn’t about how much pain you can take, but I know they wouldn’t hear it.
“Still,” he continues, “there are rules. Standards of conduct. We cannot allow our traditions to devolve into mere brutality.”
He glances at the row of Feral Boys, then back to me.
“It has come to our attention that you have, on occasion, responded to provocation with a seductive violence of your own.”
I blink. I try to remember when that might have been. The gym, the library, the field? None of it was my choice. None of it was defense, only survival.
“We have considered expulsion,” Steele says. “But Mr. Harrington has, for the moment, stayed our hand.”
At this, Harrington nods, as if he’s just been congratulated.
“We are, instead, placing you under probation,” Steele says. “You will meet weekly with a counselor. You will avoid all contact with the Feral Boys except as required by class or Board directive. Any further infractions will result in immediate termination of your scholarship.”
I absorb the words, one by one. They feel distant, like they’re happening to someone else.
“Do you understand?” Steele says.
I nod.
“Good,” he says. “Now. The second reason for this meeting.”
He looks at Harrington, who stands again, slow and deliberate.
“Miss Allen,” Harrington says, “your mother was a remarkable woman.”
The room freezes. I stop breathing.
“She attended Westpoint herself, you know. In another era. She was a, how shall I say, a survivor. Like you.”
He leans forward, elbows on the marble.
“I knew her well.”
The words shock me. I try not to show it.
Harrington smiles, just a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “She broke our agreement. Ran, if I recall. But the thing about bloodlines, Miss Allen, is that they never really let you go.”
My stomach turns over.
“I have taken a particular interest in your progress,” he says, “not out of charity, but out of duty. It is my hope that you will do better than your mother did. That you will prove worthy of the name you have inherited.”
“I’m an Allen.” I say, looking down at my hands.
Mr. Harrington laughs. “You are anything but. You are a Harrington. My first born daughter, taken away from me by a selfish woman who couldn’t see the flowers for the trees.”
