"What's wrong with him?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
"Then why did he stop?"
Sven doesn't answer. He walks me back. His hand doesn't leave my arm until my door is in front of me and the bolt is ready to turn.
"Hey. Murder girl."
The voice comes from down the hallway. Behind Sven's back, which means whoever's talking has no self-preservation instinct whatsoever.
Sven's grip tightens. But he doesn't shut it down. Which tells me this one is tolerated, if not exactly allowed.
The guy is leaning against the wall about ten feet past my door. Arms crossed. One foot kicked up behind him. A posture I recognize because I've used it — casual on the outside, coiled underneath.
He's my age. Maybe a year older. Brown skin, sharp jaw, close-cropped hair. Lean muscles. Face that's objectively good-looking and absolutely knows it — dark eyes. A mouth I look at a beat too long and he catches me doing it.
He's assessing me the same way I'm assessing him. Threat level. Entertainment value. And then his gaze drops — quick, barely a flicker — down and back up. A look that says I see you and I'm letting you catch me looking.
"Torres already called dibs on the nickname," I say. "You'll have to get creative."
His smirk widens. Not warm. Interested.
"I'm Leo."
"I don't care."
"You will." He looks at Sven. "Relax, big guy. I'm ten feet away and fully clothed."
Sven's jaw works. "Two minutes."
"I only need one." Leo looks back at me. Those dark eyes are sharp — sharper than the smirk suggests, calculating behind the performance. "You're the first girl they've ever brought in here. You know that, right?"
"I figured it out when nobody in the cafeteria could remember how to eat."
"Yeah, that's not just because you're hot." He says it matter-of-fact. An observation. "Torres nearly ripped his bench out of the floor when you walked past. You notice that?"
"Hard to miss."
"Good. Keep noticing." His eyes cut to Sven, who's radiating the specific energy of a man whose two-minute clock is ticking. Leo pushes off the wall. Rolls his shoulders. The performance slides back on like a jacket.
"Welcome to the freak show."
He saunters off. Sven watches him go with an expression I can't quite read.
The bolt turns behind me.
I sit on the bed. Back against the wall. Knees up.
I run the inventory.
Feral Academy. Red House. High containment. No girls, all in red. A man in the yard who paces for hours and stopped when he saw me. A boy named Leo who talks like everything's a joke and watches like nothing is.
Both of them are unreasonably attractive and I noticed within an hour of arriving at a facility with electrified fences. My priorities are a mess.
Six weeks until the Review Panel.
Six weeks in a building where the doors are reinforced from the outside and the scratch marks are everywhere.
