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Standing in the hallway in front of me was a girl with full pink hair, wearing black leggings and a T-shirt with the Imagine Dragons band logo.

“Shani,” I greeted her tonelessly.

“Kieran,” she sighed, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Very uncool that you're fucking your way through my dorm.”

I laughed amusedly and pulled my black biker jacket over my black hoodie.

“Who's next?”

“Don't worry,” I murmured and walked past her, ready to disappear from the girls' King Suites. “I don't fuck anyone I know.”

Shani and I had been part of the IT security team, and she was one of the few people who didn't get on my nerves. I had no intention of ruining that, even though I wasn't interested in turning it into something as schmaltzy as friendship.

She was a human. I was a Senseque. Besides, I had Emely and the annoying idiots from the pack on my hands. That was enough for me.

“I'm serious,” Shani snorted and caught up with me. “Find yourself another student residence. There are entire housing complexes in the Vanderwood forests.”

Shani knew I was doing this to relieve stress.

Fucking away my worries for a few minutes was – after riding my motorcycle – the best way to keep from exploding inside.

But strangely, since I'd been back on campus, my need for sex had diminished. Two weeks had already passed since I'd arrived, and this girl three doors down was the first of at least ten women who had offered themselves to me that I had ended up in bed with.

I could guess why. Rebecca. She was in my head, on my agenda, everywhere. She would never disappear from there unless I got rid of her myself.

Immediately, the frustration I had just taken out on the girl returned.

I’d had to be careful in there. Everything in me had wanted to transform. I had grabbed her neck a little too hard once or twice, but she had begged for it.

Hopefully, I hadn't left any marks, because, knowing these girls, they would use any ridiculous shit against me to trap me with them. Some of them even lied about being on the pill, but none of them knew that I was taking the male contraceptive.

A non-hormonal preparation with the active ingredient YCT-529, not yet approved for the market – not even publicly announced – to which I already had access as a research subject at Vanderwood University Hospital downtown.

Even though I refused to have blood samples taken – something every Senseque subject to the Codex had to do – and wasn't sure if it made any difference to me compared to human men, it seemed to work flawlessly.

So these girls could save themselves the bullshit.

Hookups. That was all I was open to.

I noticed that Shani was still walking beside me.

“There's something else...” I murmured, already knowing what it was, but I needed confirmation.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her glance at me as we both took the stairs down.

“We need you,” she said, sounding exhausted.

A smirk escaped me, but I hid it quickly enough before Shani could notice.

“Jordan can't manage to set up a functional firewall against the hacker, and Luca definitely won't find him.”

It had been far too easy to break through that firewall. What had I actually taught Jordan the entire last semester?

“With a little time, I'm sure you'll figure it out,” I said, letting myself be swept up in the euphoria of being the real traitor in this cat-and-mouse game.

The only person I was conflicted about was Emely. I tried not to ruin Vanderwood's reputation and played more into Alarik's hands than I scared off future students. But how could I ease the worries of this responsible and constantly concerned girl without betraying myself?

“Harlow is breathing down our necks, Kieran,” Shani ranted, tossing her long, wavy pink hair over her shoulder. “She said she would take more drastic measures if we didn’t make progress soon.”