Page 107

“I already swim.”

Football really wasn't my thing.

Noah waved that off. “...and you do track and field, kickboxing, motocross, and who knows what else.” He shook his head, his lips pressed into a straight line. “Dude, come on. We need you on the team.”

“I'm not much of a team player,” I murmured, glancing at the huge clock on the main tower. My time was running out, but I still had a few minutes left. I looked back at Noah. “Besides, I have a business, remember?”

“Can I join?” Cody asked with a grin.

I sighed. “Over my dead body, Kaheel.”

Cody wasn't stupid, but I sometimes had the feeling that he was missing some essential connections in his brain. Even if he knew just a little about computer science, I wouldn't let him work alone for a second on a project that I had built up on my own with focus and sleepless nights.

“Think about it,” said Noah, who was still on the subject of football. “Really.”

I nodded, sure that there wasn't much to think about.

Teams weren't for me. Being a Delta Senseque already felt like a burden I had somehow gotten used to because I was left in peace and only had to be present for the full moon hunts. The last few months away from the pack had been a literal relief for me.

“Guys, Harlow's economics lecture is about to start,” Harry said.

I stared at him without really intending to.

One word. It took one damn word to throw me off track and at the same time stir up new aggression in me.

“Didn't you take economics as a required module this semester, too?” Noah asked with a pitying undertone. “It's time you meet Harlow. The new authoritarian terror of Vanderwood.”

Nash snorted.

I wanted to laugh. Dryly and sarcastically. But I couldn't.

I would have preferred not to return to Vanderwood at all, but at the same time, this opportunity was like a gift from Satan himself. As if he wanted me to plunge Rebecca where she belonged. Into the darkest, dirtiest abyss this grim world had to offer.

“I have to drop something off at the secretary’s office,” the words came out of my mouth almost automatically.

The others nodded, unaware of anything.

“See you in a minute,” Nash said, and they all turned and followed a large crowd of students toward the main entrance.

Living in the Shadows

Matthew Perryman Jones

Compared to my bedroom at home, this security room was a joke, even though everything here seemed more modern and larger than it actually was.

I was on the second floor of the west wing of the Vanderwood main building.

The twenty-square-meter dark room with its many computers, whose blinking blue lights were the only source of illumination and created a gloomy atmosphere, housed several powerful servers in secure racks, a comprehensive network security infrastructure with firewalls and intrusion detection systems, as well as specialized workstations for security experts, such as I had been until a few months ago.

Access was controlled by biometric identification using fingerprint and iris scanners as well as security cards to prevent unauthorized persons, such as me, from gaining access.

My advantage was that I had had to hand in my access card before my “semester abroad”, so no one would suspect me, even if I were to rejoin the security team during the coming weeks.

I closed the door – which wasn't even monitored by a camera and had been left unlocked by some idiot – behind me, locked it for safety's sake, because I didn't really know if the break times of the non-student IT staff had changed, then turned my attention back to the room's equipment.

A glance at the ceiling confirmed that the university still hadn't managed to install the planned CCTV cameras here either. That would soon change. I would give them a reason to.

Oh, Rebecca. You manage to build something up for once, but then you forget to protect it.