The noise shifts with the weight of attention turning toward us. I feel every stare.
Sting’s hand presses more firmly into my back. “Eyes forward,” he murmurs.
I try to obey, but my gaze snags on movement to my left.
A woman at one of the far tables has stopped working. Her hands rest on the edge of a crate, fingers splayed wide, but she’s not looking at what she’s unpacking. She’s looking at me.
I grind my teeth until it hurts. It’s her.
The girl from the Hunt. The one I punched in the stomach when she tried to expose my hiding spot. The one who spat at me in the corridor days ago before Armen threatened to cut her tongue out.
She’s thinner than I remember, her face sharper, but the look in her eyes is unmistakable. Recognition flares first, then something colder. Harder. Hatred.
Her mouth curves slowly. Not a smile. Something meaner. Like a hand around my throat.
“Vi,” Sting warns, his voice cutting through the fog in my head.
I tear my gaze away, forcing myself to look forward again. But my pulse is hammering now, my skin prickling with awareness.
She’s here. She works here. And she saw me. Saw Sting’s hand on my back. Saw the way people stepped aside when we entered.
“Keep walking,” Sting murmurs, brushing once along my spine—a small, grounding gesture.
I do. One step, then another, my knee protesting with every uneven stride. We’re halfway across the room when I hear it.
A low laugh. Quiet, but deliberate. Meant to carry.
I don’t turn around. I don’t have to. I know it’s her.
Sting’s hand tightens at my back. “Ignore it,” he says.
But ignoring it feels impossible. The laughter follows us like a shadow, threading through the noise of the room until we finally step into the corridor on the other side.
I glance back once, just once, and see her still standing at the table. Still watching. Her hands haven’t moved. Her expression hasn’t changed. She looks like she’s memorizing me.
“She hates me,” I say, shrugging.
Sting doesn’t answer right away. When he does, his voice is flat. “Yes.”
“Fuck her.”
“Well, you got noticed,” he replies. “And she didn’t.”
“I punched her, too,” I add. “During the Hunt.”
“I know.”
“You know?” I turn my head to look at him, but his mask is angled forward.
“I know everything that happens down here,” he says. “Or close enough.”
My throat tightens. “Is she dangerous?”
“Everyone’s dangerous,” Sting says. “But you’re with me now. That limits what she can do.”
“Limits,” I repeat. “Not stops.”
His gaze flicks to me briefly, something unreadable in his eyes. “Smart girl.”
