The third morning, I miscalculate.
The bathroom is on our corridor. I go at seven because Lily mentioned the east wing one had a broken lock.
Three girls come through the door while I'm at the sink. They arrange themselves with practiced efficiency. Two to my left, one to my right, the door covered without them appearing to block it. I know their faces from the upper tables, from Caspian's orbit. High-ranking females.
The one to my right has scissors.
"You looked at Caspian." Her voice is pleasant, matter-of-fact. "First day in the dining hall. Everyone saw. You held eye contact with an Alpha when you have no rank."
"I was looking at the room," I say.
"Doesn't matter. You need to learn the pack protocol." She steps closer. "We're going to help you remember your place."
Two of them take my arms and the one with scissors works fast, taking sections and cutting close. She's systematic, moving from one area to the next with focused attention, not angry, not cruel, just enforcing hierarchy. The efficiency of it is somehow more intimidating than rage would be. This is pack law. This is what happens to wolves who don't observe proper submission protocols.
The girl on my left has her phone out. Recording. Of course. The pack needs to see that protocol violations have consequences.
I don't struggle. Struggling would signal that I'm challenging their authority, which would make this worse. I stand still. I keep my face blank. I don't give them dominance signals to feed on.
When the scissors stop the one holding them steps back and assesses her work. What's left is uneven, some sections short, some longer. It's not about aesthetics. It's about marking me as someone who violated protocol.
She looks at my face in the mirror, waiting for submission signals. Tears, fear, vocal distress.
"Remember your place," she says.
They leave unhurried and I'm alone.
I stand in the bathroom. The hair on the floor is mine. I look at it, at the amount of it, then back at my reflection.
My eyes are dry. My hands on the sink edge are flat and still. There's something in my chest that wants to become larger than I can manage, something that's been building since the dining hall, since the mat. I breathe through my nose. Four counts in, hold, four out. The thing in my chest stays contained.
What they want is for this to break my composure. They want me to walk out showing submission, for every wolf who passes me to read it. They want the evidence on my face and in the video.
I look at my reflection. At the uneven hair, at the eyes underneath that are not going to give them that.
I sweep the hair into the bin and go to class.
The video circulates by the next morning.
I know before I've left my room, from the sound of it playing on someone's phone in the corridor. I shower and dress, then catch a few seconds of it on someone's screen in the common room. My own face in the bathroom mirror, flat and still, while the scissors work.
Lily is already at breakfast, her face measured.
"You saw it," she says.
"I saw it."
She looks at her hands, then at me. "It came from Caspian's table. The recording was authorized. They knew you'd be in that bathroom. They've been tracking your patterns to find the right moment for a dominance demonstration."
They'd been watching me. Mapping my behavior to determine the optimal time for a rank enforcement.
I sit with that for a moment. The cold weight of it, not about the hair or the video but about being assessed that closely without knowing it. I pick up my water glass and take a slow drink.
"That's useful information," I say finally. "Thank you."
Lily looks at me like she's trying to read something in my face. "How are you this calm?"
"I'm not. I just don't know what the alternative is." I set the glass down. "They're testing whether I'll submit or hold position. If I submit, they'll rank me Omega and I'll be safe but powerless. If I hold position, they'll keep testing to see what I actually am."
