I didn't come here to make friends.
Every word, every step I took since returning had been calculated—each moment weighed for advantage or exposure.
But life rarely asks what you want.
It throws people in your path, and sometimes, you don't get to walk around them.
Sometimes, you have to decide whether they're a threat, a tool—
—or something else entirely.
The second week of school brought group assignments.
A "team bonding" exercise, the teacher called it. History class. Four people per group. Presentations due next Friday. No substitutions.
I didn't care about the assignment.
But I cared about who I was grouped with.
The names hit like dull blades.
Mira Chen. Nolan Black. Evie Serrano.
Three strangers.
Or so I thought.
Mira was sharp. Small frame, sharper tongue. Long black hair tied tight behind her head like she didn't trust the wind. She talked fast, cut deeper. The kind of girl people called "intimidating" behind her back. Top student. She looked at me like I was a pop quiz she didn't study for.
Nolan was the opposite. Broad shoulders, easy grin, quiet eyes. Wore his hoodie like armor. He spoke softly, but watched everything. I didn't trust soft men. They hid too much.
Evie was odd. Artsy. Hair dyed purple at the tips, sketchbook glued to her side. She didn't look people in the eye unless they were crying. I didn't get a read on her immediately—and that made me wary.
We met in the library during lunch.
I was the last to arrive. By design.
Evie was doodling a dragon. Mira had already taken over the agenda. Nolan offered a nod, nothing more.
I sat without speaking.
Mira raised a brow. "You gonna contribute, or just glare holes in the table?"
I shrugged. "Depends."
"On?"
"Whether this is a waste of time."
She blinked. "It's a school project, not the Geneva Convention."
Nolan chuckled.
Evie looked up. "What's your name again?"
I hesitated.
Not because I didn't know it.
But because I hadn't used it much lately.
"…Kai."
"Cool," she said. "You don't talk a lot."
"I talk when I have something worth saying."
Mira leaned forward. "Well, let's hope your research is worth it, Mercer."
We spent the next thirty minutes working through the assignment—presentation on postwar economic collapse. Easy material.
But I wasn't listening to the content.
I was watching them.
How Mira took control. How Nolan followed quietly but decisively. How Evie drifted until something sparked her focus—and then snapped into genius-level insight like a switch was flipped.
They weren't like the others.
Not like the wolves.
These three had something else.
Something closer to… integrity.
I didn't want to like them.
Liking people leads to trust.
Trust leads to vulnerability.
And vulnerability is how they destroyed me last time.
But there was a moment—brief—when Nolan caught me glancing at Evie's sketch. It was a dragon curled around a broken sword.
"She's got talent," he said.
"She sees the world different," I replied, before I could stop myself.
He nodded. "Yeah. You too, I think."
My eyes flicked to him. "What makes you say that?"
"You don't blink when people talk."
"…And?"
"People who don't blink are either fearless, or hiding everything."
After the meeting, I found myself walking slower than usual.
Not because I was tired.
But because something unsettled me.
Something I hadn't expected.
They weren't threats.
Not yet.
And that terrified me more than any enemy.
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, letting the shadows stretch and move across the plaster like ghosts I couldn't shake.
I thought about Reese, and Cole, and the others. Their perfect little kingdom. Their rituals of cruelty. Their stupid, smug laughs.
And I thought about Mira's eyes when she called me out. About Nolan's quiet intuition. About Evie's dragon guarding a broken blade.
Why did that image haunt me?
Why did I care?
I shouldn't.
I told myself I didn't.
But my chest was tight.
My throat dry.
This is how it starts, I thought.
This is how you forget the mission.
This is how you get hurt again.
But even knowing that…
…I didn't want to pull away.