“And Leo is a terrible substitute.”
RJ makes a sound — rough, unpracticed.
A laugh.
Cal catches my eye and says nothing and turns back down the corridor.
Then Gavin appears.
He stands at the far end of the corridor and doesn't come closer. Takes in RJ — the hand that finds my arm again the moment Stone releases him, the way RJ positions himself so I'm not between him and the door. Gavin looks at Dalton's collar. At me. At my wrist.
"My office," he says to me.
RJ's hand tightens on my arm.
"I'm coming back," I say. To RJ, not Gavin.
RJ looks at the corridor. At Gavin. At me. Something moves through his face — the territorial instinct running hard against the new bond, the part of him not fully back pulling against the part that is trying to trust me.
"Stone," I say.
Stone steps up beside RJ. Not restraining — just present.
RJ lets me go. But he watches me walk down that corridor with yellow still bleeding into the edges of his eyes and I feel it through the bond the whole way — the pull of him, the wrong-frequency alertness, the effort it takes him to hold.
***
Gavin's office. He closes the door and stays standing.
"He needs to be assessed," Gavin says.
"Yes," I say.
"He escaped containment, attacked a security consultant, and broke the boundary of Frosthaven." His voice is even. Clinical. "Those aren't bureaucratic concerns. Those are safety events."
"I know what they are," I say. "I was there for all of them."
"Then you understand why temporary tolerance is not the same as approval." He holds my gaze. "Whatever happened in that clearing — whatever the bond means — he still did those things. The assessment happens. The panel reviews it. I don't have the authority to make this disappear and I wouldn't if I could."
"I'm not asking you to make it disappear," I say. "I'm asking you to let me stay with him tonight. The bond is new and he's not stable yet and pulling me out now—"
"I'm aware of what pulling you out now does," Gavin says. "I'm also aware that you're placed at Frosthaven. That placement was a panel decision. One conversation in my office doesn't override it."
"The panel is already reviewing new information," I say. "The James case. The bond with Dalton. This bond will be documented before the end of the day." I pause. "I'm not asking you to override the placement. I'm asking for tonight. One night while the bond settles and the assessment gets scheduled and I’ll ask Lumi to get Tomlinson on the phone."
Gavin is quiet.
"And Frosthaven," I say. "The classes. I want to talk about that."
"One thing at a time," he says.
"It's the same thing," I say. "I can't be at Frosthaven and here. And I need to be here." I hold his eyes. "Remote coursework. Whatever Tomlinson requires — assessments, check-ins, all of it — I'll do it from here. But I need to be at Feral Academy." I pause. "RJ needs me here. The pack needs me here. The bond is a fact and it happened here and—"
I stop.
Tomlinson's office. The library table and Lumi's cold coffee and Jon Matthias watching me across a faculty dinner with the expression of someone recalibrating. Kane and Kade and the documented memory and the panel sitting in silence while the framework cracked.
Things I am walking away from.
