Chapter 8
Faye
I lifted my head off the desk. Took him in — platinum hair, that easy lean, the crimson eyes dialed back to something closer to dark brown in the lecture hall light.
No bruises. No split lip. Nothing. Yesterday he'd been thrown into a stone wall hard enough to crack the surface, and today he looked like he'd just rolled out of a spa.
Also: no silver bat pin on his lapel. Just a faint needle-hole in the fabric where it used to be.
"Define rough," I said.
He pulled out the chair next to mine and sat down without being invited. His elbow landed on the desk maybe six inches from my notebook, close enough that I could feel the cold radiating off him.
Or you know exactly what that means and you're still sitting here.
"You look like you didn't sleep," Adrian said. His eyes dropped to the side of my neck for half a second before coming back up.
"I slept fine." I flipped to a clean page. "You look like you didn't get thrown into a wall yesterday. Funny how that works."
Something moved across his face — not quite a flinch, more like a pressure point getting pressed. The crimson bled back into his irises for just a moment before he controlled it.
"I heal fast," he said.
"Clearly." I clicked my pen. "So does your ego. Evander told you to stay back and here you are."
His expression shifted — jaw locking, something dark moving behind his eyes. "I'm not that bastard's dog. He's nothing."
The denial was too sharp to be casual. Whatever sat between them went a lot further back than yesterday's wall.
Savienne said I'd need someone with clearance to get into the Glass Dome. Adrian's been kicked out of the society, but he still knows things.
I set my pen down and turned slightly toward him. "I heard there's a botanical garden somewhere on campus. Glass dome. Someone mentioned it."
Adrian went still for exactly two seconds. "It's not open to students."
"When is it open?"
"Hunting Day." He said it like it was obvious. "You just missed the last one. Next one's about a month out."
He looked at me for a long moment. "If you're still at this school by then."
"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
His hand moved toward my knee under the desk. I caught his wrist before it landed and set it back on his own side without making a production of it.
"I'll take you in," he said. Flat. Like he was offering to hold a door.
"Deal," I said, and wrote Hunting Day — one month in the margin of my notebook.
The lecture ended. I was halfway to the door when it opened from the outside.
Evander walked in.
He wasn't in this class. Wrong building, wrong year level, no reason to be here. But there he was: military-cut jacket, that silver shield with the lion's head pressed into its center flat against his chest, those deep violet-red eyes doing a slow sweep that stopped the second they landed on the back row. On Adrian, sitting one seat away from me.
His jaw set. He came down the aisle without hesitating, and the room went quiet the way rooms go quiet when something with real weight enters. Two students near the aisle shifted their chairs sideways without seeming to realize they'd done it.
He stopped in front of Adrian. Still hadn't looked at me.
"You filthy mutt, we've had this conversation," Evander said. He reached up and touched the shield badge — one finger, brief, like he was pointing at a fact. "What happens when you see this?"
Adrian said nothing. His hands were flat on the desk, knuckles going white.
"I'll count," Evander said. "Ten. Nine. Eight."
Adrian's jaw was locked so tight I could see the muscle jumping in his cheek. The crimson was bleeding back into his irises in slow, involuntary pulses.
"Seven. Six—"
"This is a classroom," I said.
Evander stopped counting. He turned toward me slowly, with the expression of someone interrupted mid-sentence by the furniture.
A beat of silence. Two.
"So it is," he said. Something in his expression hardened, the controlled version of being caught off guard. His gaze moved back to Adrian. "We'll finish this later. And you know exactly what that means."
He straightened his jacket, then looked at me again.
"Allen. I'd reconsider your social circle. The company you keep says something about your judgment — and yours is looking questionable."
"My judgment got me through nineteen years just fine," I said. "I'll manage."
The corner of his mouth moved — something he decided against at the last second. He turned and walked out, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft click that landed louder than a slam.
Three full seconds of silence. Then the room exhaled.
"He'll remember that," Adrian said beside me. Not a warning. Just a fact.
Two hours later, in the women's bathroom off the commerce building, I found out what that kind of attention costs.
Four girls. Waiting. I recognized the one in front from the lecture hall — she'd had front-row seats to Evander walking in, and I'd watched her expression collapse the second she clocked where his eyes landed.
"Two days in and you've already got your hooks in two of them," she said.
"I don't have hooks in anyone."
"Adrian was sitting next to you. Evander came from another building." Her voice climbed. "You think that just happens?"
I leaned against the sink counter. "Apparently it does."
She shoved me — both hands, hard. I hit the tile wall, elbow catching the soap dispenser on the way down. Sharp ceramic edge, skin splitting. Someone yanked my bag strap. Another girl stepped on my notebook and ground her heel in.
I stood up. Brushed my shoulder off. Didn't touch the elbow.
She came at me again. I let her close the distance, sidestepped, caught her wrist mid-reach, and redirected her straight into the counter edge. She grabbed her hip and made a sound like air leaving a tire.
I didn't let go right away. "First time, I'll call it a bad day. Second time is a choice. You made it."
I released her, collected my things from the floor without rushing, and when I got to the notebook with the shoe print on the cover, I looked at whoever had done it and smiled. "You've got something on your sole."
Silence.
I stopped beside the ringleader on my way out. "Whether Evander looks at me or not has nothing to do with you. You're not his girlfriend. You're just upset about it."
I left. Something hit a wall behind me.
I made it around the corner before I stopped and breathed. My elbow was still bleeding — not badly, but enough. I pressed my sleeve against it.
Three slow claps broke the quiet.
Savienne stood at the far end of the corridor, framed in a stone arch, champagne-gold hair loose over a cream coat. Caramel eyes warm and amused, the small mole beneath her left eye catching the dim light.
"Impressive," she said. "Two days in, enemies on three fronts." A pause. "Talent."
