She takes two steps forward, then stops.
“I guess you know why you’re here now,” she says.
I try to answer, but nothing comes out.
She waits. Then, quietly, “Jules is a hard asshole of a man, but if you can win his heart, he will do anything for you. Like Colt would do for me. Just… all of this sucks dick and I’m so sorry, but I’m here for you. You just need to make it through the Hunt, okay?”
I look at her, really look, and I see that she’s angry. Not at me. At the world.
“They said I was a contract.” My voice is unrecognizable. “They said—” I can’t finish.
Eve’s mouth twists into something that isn’t quite a smile. “Yeah. Welcome to Westpoint.”
For a long minute, neither of us speaks. The only sound is the slow drip from the leaking faucet.
I grip the edge of the sink until my knuckles go white. “So it’s true? The Hunt? All of it?”
She nods. “Every word.”
She sits on the counter, crossing her arms. “You want the real story? No one ever tells it to us. Not until it’s too late. I tried the other day but Julian rudely interrupted us.”
I nod, desperate for any kind of logic.
Eve’s eyes go sharp. “They don’t care about us, or our grades, or any of the things they tell you in orientation. The whole school is a breeding program. They pair up dynasties, shuffle us around until the donors and the Board are happy. If we’re lucky, we get someone who’s not a total psycho. If not—” she looks away, jaw working “—well, historically, a lot of women don’t make it. The Feral Boys are tame compared to what used to happen.”
She looks at me, her anger raw and unpolished. “I was the scholarship experiment, the outlier. I was supposed to get eaten alive, a penance for my mother escaping with me when I was a child. But I survived, and now they use my story to remind the others that anyone can be bought, sold, or broken.”
I try to picture Eve as broken, but it doesn’t fit.
She sees it in my face and laughs, bitter and bright. “I broke so hard I went the other way. Colton patched me together, but he’s just as fucked as the rest. The only difference is that despite how barbaric the whole thing is, the pairing program works, youknow? Like all of us got paired with perfect matches. It sucks to have your choice stripped away, but… we’re happy. You know what saved me? Knowing what they are. Knowing how they work. Joining Caius and Bam in working to take this whole place down.”
The words spin in my head, dizzying.
“They think I’m weak,” I whisper. “They think I’ll just give up.”
Eve shrugs. “Let them think that. It’s your only advantage. These boys like to feel in control, but they don’t realize that there’s power in quiet strength. That’s how you get him wrapped around your finger. At least that’s what worked for me.”
I let myself believe her, just for a second. The possibility of not letting myself be destroyed.
Eve leans in close. She smells like cigarettes and cinnamon gum.
“The Hunt isn’t just about bloodlines,” she says. “It’s about power. If you play it right, you can use it. You can bend it.”
I don’t understand. “How?”
She smirks. “Simple. You stop caring what they want. You decide what you want. One of the girls broke the mold and their claiming was right in front of everyone. Totally exploded the Board’s minds. Bam and Dahlia did theirs outside of the ritualgrounds. We all have our own ways of rebelling. Making it our own.”
The idea is so alien, I can’t process it.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I say, the words so small they barely exist.
Eve places a hand over mine on the sink. Her fingers are warm, the skin rougher than I expect.
“I’ll teach you,” she says. “The other girls will help too, if you want to meet them.”
There’s a pause, heavy and full of things I don’t know how to name.
“Is that what you want?” Eve asks. “To just survive? Or do you wanna motherfucking thrive?”
