Chapter 5 Grouped

ELARA'S POV

Three days.

Viktor had been absent for three days, and I hated myself for noticing. I'd clocked his empty seat every single morning like some kind of reflex I couldn't switch off. 

Hadn't even realized I was doing it until the second day, when I'd looked up and felt something strange move through my chest—not quite disappointment, not quite relief. Just awareness. The particular awareness of absence.

Mr. Non-Human. That was what I'd started calling him in my head. Because nothing about him fit. Not the way he held himself, not the cold precision of his movements, not those eyes that seemed to see through things rather than at them. Not whatever was in that glass at the party.

I was still thinking about it when Sia's elbow connected with my ribs.

"Hello? Earth to Elara." She was looking at me with that expression—eyebrows raised, mouth curved like she already knew something. "Where are you right now? Because you've been staring at the floor for the last five minutes."

"I'm here. I'm thinking."

"About?"

"The exam."

Sia let out a long, theatrical sigh. "You are the worst liar I have ever met in my life."

I shoved her shoulder. "Stop it."

She laughed, dodging sideways, then looped her arm through mine. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry." A beat of silence. Then softer: "I'm really sorry, Elara. About the party. About the dare. I keep thinking about it and I—"

"Sia." I cut her off, not unkindly. "Let it go. It's done."

"I just feel terrible—"

"I know. I know you do." I meant it. The anger had moved somewhere else by now, settled onto a different target, cold and specific. "Forget about it."

She squeezed my arm. We walked in silence for a moment, our footsteps falling into rhythm on the tiled floor.

"Has your mum said anything?" Sia asked carefully.

I rolled my eyes so hard it almost hurt. "She's still out of the country. No idea when she's coming back."

"Oh thank God."

"Exactly." Because if my mother had seen that video—the fall, the crowd, all of it—I would already be on a train home with a lecture waiting for me at the other end. My mother had a gift for turning someone else's shame into her own suffering, and she exercised it liberally. The universe, at least, had been merciful about that.

We pushed through the lecture hall doors, and the noise swallowed us whole.

I found my usual seat, set my pen down, pulled out my pencil case. Normal movements. Routine. I was good at routine—it kept the noise in my head manageable. I uncapped my pen, smoothed my palm over the blank page of my answer booklet, and looked up.

My eyes found him immediately.

Viktor was sitting three rows ahead and to the left, and he was—laughing. Actually laughing, low and quiet, at something Ellie had said. It transformed his face for just a moment, cracked open that cold exterior slightly, and I felt the anger hit my chest like a closed fist.

He was fine. Completely fine. While I'd spent three days oscillating between shame and fury, while I'd replayed his words in my head until I could recite them like scripture, while I'd cried in a bathroom stall—he was sitting there laughing like nothing had happened. Like I didn't exist.

I will literally tear you into pieces.

I looked away. Hard.

"Elara." Sia's voice dropped to a whisper. "I see you."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You were staring at him like you wanted to set him on fire."

"Maybe I do."

"Hey." Her hand found my arm under the desk. "Let it go. Don't let him get into your head before an exam."

I inhaled slowly through my nose. She was right. I picked up my pen, squared my shoulders, and fixed my eyes on the front of the room.

Viktor Stone was not worth a dropped grade.

For ninety minutes, I existed only in the clean, knowable world of organic chemistry—reaction mechanisms and molecular structures and questions I'd spent weeks preparing for. The anger retreated. The shame retreated. 

There was just the work, and I was good at the work, and that was enough.

I finished with four minutes to spare, reviewed my last two answers, and set my pen down.

When I looked up, Viktor was still writing.

I looked away before I could think about it.

Dr. Osei waited until the last booklet had been collected before he held up a hand for quiet. He was a short man who had the energy of someone who'd been teaching for twenty years and found the whole enterprise mildly amusing.

"Before you disappear," he said, in that dry, unhurried voice of his, "I need a few minutes."

The room settled, reluctantly.

"Your practical component begins this week. It counts for thirty percent of your final module grade, so I'd encourage you to actually pay attention." He reached for a sheet on the lectern. "You'll be working in groups of five. I've already assigned the groups—before anyone asks, no, you can't switch. The assignments are based on your performance distribution."

I pulled out my phone. Group practical. One week. I could do one week of anything.

Dr. Osei started reading names.

I half-listened, tracking the count. First group, second, third. People around me relaxed visibly as their names were called—the particular relief of having the uncertainty resolved. Beside me, Sia got called into the fourth group and exhaled loudly.

By the time the fifth group was announced, there were ten people left.

Please, I thought, very specifically and with great feeling. Please.

"Group five," Dr. Osei said. "Viktor Stone."

My stomach dropped.

"Ellie Marchetti. Priya Nair. James Orlando."

Four names. One spot left.

I was already doing the math. Ten people, two groups, one spot remaining in this one. The probability was not in my favor and I knew it, had known it the moment I heard Viktor's name, but still—

"Elara Thane."

The room didn't go quiet. No one reacted. It wasn't a dramatic moment by any external measure.

But my mouth opened slightly, and for three full seconds I sat completely still while the last group was called and Dr. Osei moved on to logistics.

I wanted to raise my hand. Wanted to say excuse me, there's been a mistake, can you check the list again? I wanted to explain, clearly and calmly, that I could not—for very documented reasons—be expected to function in close proximity to that specific person for an entire week.

But Dr. Osei was already talking about deadlines and submission formats, and protesting would mean explaining, and explaining would mean everyone in this room knowing exactly why I was asking.

I closed my mouth.

From three rows ahead, I felt—rather than saw—Viktor's complete indifference to the news.

The walk back to the dorms felt longer than usual.

"Okay but statistically," Sia started.

"Don't."

"—the chances of that were actually pretty low—"

"Sia, I'm begging you."

"I'm just saying!" She was grinning, and the grin was the worst part—that bright, irrepressible delight at the sheer absurdity of it. "Out of all the possible group combinations, the universe decided—"

"The universe can go to hell," I said flatly.

She burst out laughing.

It wasn't funny. It was one week of group sessions and shared workspace and having to sit across from someone who had physically shoved me onto a floor in front of a crowd of people and then, two days later, threatened me in a hallway with the kind of cold certainty that still made my skin crawl.

One week of pretending that was fine.

"You could talk to Dr. Osei," Sia offered, more seriously. "Request a switch."

"And say what?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

"Exactly." I pulled my jacket tighter. "I can't say anything without it becoming a whole thing. I'm not doing that."

"So you're just going to survive it."

"I'm going to do the practical, get the grade, and never think about it again." I said it with more conviction than I felt. "It's one week."

Sia went quiet for a moment, which was worse than her teasing. Then: "You know what I think?"

"I don't want to know."

"I think the universe is trying to tell you something."

I pushed the dorm door open. "The universe can write me a formal letter."

Her laughter followed me up the stairs, bright and entirely unhelpful.

Alone in my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall.

One week. Five people. Viktor Stone.

I thought about his face in the lecture hall—the brief unguarded moment before I looked away. I thought about the party, his hands on my waist, the force of it, the absolute zero warmth. I thought about the hallway.

I will literally tear you into pieces.

I pressed my palms flat against my thighs and breathed.

The anger was still there. It had just compressed itself into something dense and quiet, the way pressure builds before something finally gives. I was angry at him for the push and the threat and the casual cruelty. I was angry at myself for noticing his empty seat for three days straight. I was angry at Dr. Osei and his performance distribution.

And I was angry—deeply, privately angry—that some small, stupid, traitorous part of me was not entirely upset about this.

I lay back and covered my face with both hands.

One week.

I was going to have to survive it.