I half-walk, half-jog to keep up, avoiding the yellow shafts of security lights and the old, twitchy cameras that guard every entry.
We cut behind the dining hall, then duck through a door marked STAFF ONLY. The air inside is warmer but heavy with the scent of bleach and ancient carpet. Eve takes the stairs two at a time, her hair trailing in a dark, untidy rope behind her.
At the basement, she pauses. “You ever been to the archives?”
I shake my head. She grins. “Figures. They don’t let the precious ones down here.”
We walk in silence, the only sound the distant hum of the night crew’s vacuum on the floor above. The door to the archives is solid oak, a lock as big as my fist. Eve pulls out a little plastic wedge, inserts it in the door seam, and shimmies it with an expert wrist-twist.
The lock clicks. My jaw drops.
Eve sees my face and laughs, soft and sharp. “You learn things when your boyfriend is a determined asshole.”
She pushes the door open and motions me inside.
The room is full of dust and shadow. There are rows of shelving that tower overhead, stacked with boxes, folders, books so old the leather flakes at the touch.
It doesn’t feel like a library.
It feels like a crypt.
Eve shuts the door behind us and switches on a desk lamp. Its cone of light carves a circle in the gloom. She walks the aisles as if she knows them, tracing her fingers along the spines of ledgers and yearbooks.
“Watch the floor,” she says. “Last time I was here, I tripped on a loose tile and landed on my ass. Hurt for a week. Or maybe that was the anal we had that night. Either or.”
I pick my way over, peering at the labels on the shelves. There are boxes for every year since the school’s founding. Some are marked “Incident,” others “Board Minutes.” Most just bear a last name and a number.
Eve stops at a cabinet and tugs a drawer open. The papers inside are typed, yellowed, and stamped with the Marcus family seal. She pulls a folder, flips through it, then sets it on the table.
“You wanna know the rules, you have to read the original playbook,” she says, her voice low.
I join her. My hands hover over the folder, unwilling to touch it. “What’s in there?”
She sits, gestures for me to do the same. “Every Hunt. Every Runner, every pairing, every outcome. This is how they decided your fate before you were even born.”
The words thud in my stomach. “You’ve read them all?”
She grins, but there’s no joy in it. “I made it my job. Issy was first to read these, but she told us if we wanted to know, we’d have to figure it out for ourselves. Something about not wanting to do our work for us.”
The folder is heavier than it looks. My fingers tremble as I open it.
Inside are dossiers. Girls’ faces—some smiling, some blank. There are write-ups of their family histories, the names of the boys chosen for them. Next to each is a page of notes: compliance ratings, aptitude, reproductive information, medical charts, ‘bonding outcomes.’
Eve leans over and points at a chart. “See this? They tracked every relationship. Who ran, who resisted, who submitted. It’s all here.”
I scan the pages, my eyes snagging on the names. Roth. Bonaccorso. Greenwood. And mine, over and over: Marcus.
I look up, throat raw. “They never even tried to hide it.”
“Why would they? Westpoint’s not a school. It’s a breeding program.”
She says it so simply, as if it should be obvious.
My skin crawls. “How did you—” I try to find words, but nothing fits. “How did you figure this out?”
Eve snorts. “We put more and more information together with each Hunt. You and Jules… you’re the last one. The last pairing they need to complete the next generation of control. Caius and O… they were smart. He got her out. They have their baby nowsomewhere out in the fucking woods. They’re thriving. We chose to stay and fight. We need to move faster, Issy is due soon and then they’re gunna come collect her baby. Payment. Always the first born. Rhett thinks he can protect her, but he can’t. No one can. Except if we band together and fuck this place from the inside out. Make us all safe.”
I flip the next page and see my mother’s name. I read the bio twice, three times. The pairing. The compliance score. “They did this to her, too?”
