CHAPTER 51 #3
Every head turns toward her. A few students exchange glances, caught between fear and confusion.
None of them are Blues, but they all know Rosamund is.
Worse, they see her hand resting on the saber hilt in her scabbard.
One by one, the students shuffle out, coughing into their sleeves to block the stench of feces.
Now it’s just the two of us. And Jerome, inside his Sono-Chamber, still oblivious as he swipes through data, beads of energy drink dribbling down his chin.
Rosamund turns on me with a slow, stretching smile. “I know my brother kicked you out of his entourage.”
“We both agreed,” I reply.
The corner of her mouth curves, beautiful if you don’t know what it hides. “So, you’re on your own now?”
“My own is enough.”
We drift sideways, circling each other at the edge of the room. My shoulder brushes the wall, and Rosamund slides closer to the door.
“So, you’re willing, then?” she says.
“My restriction doesn’t include fists.”
Cold amusement lights her eyes. She places her palm on her saber’s hilt tenderly, like a lover’s hand on a pulse point. “No fists. No blades either… unless you force me.”
I grit my teeth. “Then what exactly is this, Rosamund?”
She lowers her shoulder, and the monkey scrambles up her silk dress, twining its tail around her throat.
Then her gaze jumps past me toward the reeking pile of feces in the corner.
When she looks back, her voice drops into her chest. “I’m going to kill you, Miss Waldsten.
But only after I’ve finished humiliating you. ”
She points a finger at the feces on the floor. “Eat it.”
The room around me seems to shrink. For a second, I’m sure I misheard. But Rosamund’s smile says I didn’t.
A dry, broken laugh escapes me. Then my vision collapses to a single point: her throat.
My boots grind into the sticky floor as I lunge, every muscle straining to bury her where she stands.
Her saber hisses free, drawn so fast that the graphene blade sparks.
I’m unarmed, and my left leg is still stiff, but I don’t care.
My body barrels toward her anyway, the same way Charles charged me, only this time I’m him.
No blade. No plan. Just fists, fury, and the stench of shit I’ll never swallow.
“Lore—!”
Charlotte’s voice cuts through as she steps through the doorway. One glance at me charging at Rosamund like a rabid animal, and she recoils in horror. “What the f—”
She never finishes. Rosamund whirls and flings the monkey claws-first at Charlotte’s face. Green blood spatters across the open door. Charlotte screams as the monkey slashes her skin, then pries the creature off and hurls it at the couch.
Rosamund seizes the moment. She springs at Charlotte, her silk dress ripping at the thigh as she wrenches Charlotte back, hooks an arm around her neck, and presses the tip of her saber against the delicate hollow of Charlotte’s throat.
I slam to a halt, my pulse hammering so loudly it swallows every other sound.
Charlotte’s eyes blaze with more fury than fear as she thrashes against Rosamund’s chokehold. Blood drips down her cheek from deep, vicious scratches.
I stretch my hand toward Charlotte, feeling utterly helpless, until Henry steps through the door.
The calm in the robot’s voice is infuriating—even more infuriating than Jerome, who’s still sipping his energy drink and flipping through helix data in the Sono-Chamber, blind and deaf to the war he’s hosting.
“Miss Prew, I must insist you release Miss Deering immediately,” Henry says. “This is not—”
“Silence, Pinkie,” Rosamund snarls. “Touch me, and I’ll have you decommissioned.”
She bares her teeth at me, like a cornered animal that loves the corner. Her saber dips until it kisses Charlotte’s skin, and a single drop of blood slides down her neck.
“Stop,” I choke. My eyes lock with Charlotte’s, pleading. She’s shaking so hard her boots slip on the floor. “Rosamund, please. Let her go.”
Rosamund’s voice hardens in challenge. “Want to save her? Then eat shit.”
The foul smell creeps into my nose, filling my mouth until my stomach clenches and roils.
“Don’t you dare, Lore,” Charlotte gasps, her breath hitching on a sob. I know she means it. She’d rather die than watch me crawl. But this isn’t how I’ll fight Rosamund. If I lose Charlotte, I lose everything.
I shove every thought aside but her as I step toward the corner. If I let myself think, I won’t be able to do it.
Behind me, Charlotte’s voice cuts through the buzzing in my skull, screaming for me to stop. But I keep moving. One step. Two. Then I crouch by the mess, the sour smell burning my throat before I even open my mouth.
Dad’s voice climbs from memory, low and cautionary: If you think strong people with power are dangerous, honey, just wait until you see what weak people with power are capable of.
I gag twice before I manage to swallow the first bite of feces. My stomach bucks so hard my ribs ache. A useless curse squeezes out as I reach for more, but my hand stops when I hear movement near the door.
I turn to see Henry lunging forward in a blur of rose-colored cloth, and Rosamund—too intoxicated by the sight of me on my knees—doesn’t notice the robot until its fingers clamp around her wrist. Rosamund’s scream pierces the air as the saber drops and clatters to the floor.
The sound feels like my last chain snapping loose.
Charlotte breaks from Rosamund’s chokehold and stumbles into the wall, green blood smeared across her jaw. Her voice erupts with rage. “YOU BITCH. I’LL KILL YOU FOR THIS.”
Henry positions itself between the two girls, its sculpted graphene alloy body a wall of graceful strength. “Miss Prew,” the robot says, still restraining Rosamund with a wristlock. “Disengage immediately. Noncompliance shall result in removal by force.”
Rosamund thrashes so wildly that runs appear in the fitted silk bodice of her dress.
I remain kneeling, my stomach clenched around poison, the taste of filth burning all the way down.
Then, suddenly, Rosamund’s shoulders draw inward.
She lifts her head, her eyes blazing with hatred, and her lips silently form the words: It’s finished. I’m going to kill you now.
And like a curse made real, an alert blinks on my Bond screen.
My civil credits start ticking down in real time, a slow, relentless bleed for crimes I didn’t commit: 200 for assault on a Blue, 50 for subversion of academic hierarchy, 15 for defamation, 10 for malicious misinformation.
One after another, the civil credits drop faster than my pulse can keep up.
I force myself upright and lock eyes with Rosamund through the haze. “How are you doing this?”
She goes limp in Henry’s grip, panting heavily. “Doing what?”
“Cutting my credits.”
Henry tilts its head, studying me, and a flicker of what looks like fear sparks behind the robot’s eyes. Then it moves quickly, dragging Rosamund out of the room in a hold she can’t break.
The moment Rosamund is gone, Charlotte closes the gap between us and throws her arms around my waist so roughly that my body folds.
“Why the hell did you do it, Lore?” she cries. “Why?”
I hug her back, only half-aware as my hands ghost up her waist, my mind still stuck on the falling civil credits. She smells of sweat, blood, and every good thing I have left.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Lore. I should’ve—I’ll kill Rosamund for this.”
I stare over Charlotte’s shoulder at my Bond screen as the civil credits keep falling: 1,346… 1,298… 1,247…
Behind us, the light of the Sono-Chamber dims and vanishes.
Jerome finally turns, an energy drink leaking down his wrist from a crumpled can, his chest still bare beneath the brocade robe.
He surveys the scene: Charlotte’s clawed cheek, me gagging as if I might vomit, and the sour stench of monkey feces hanging in the heat.
His voice drops in disgust. “What the fuck?”
Charlotte snaps upright and wipes blood from her chin with the back of her wrist. “Excuse me, Professor. Miss Prew attacked us. Henry removed her.”
Henry appears again in the doorway and bows, a gesture so graceful it almost seems mocking. Jerome exchanges a glance with the robot, then waves a hand at Charlotte.
“Henry will take you to a medic.”
“No.” Her eyes flash darkly. “I will not leave my friend.”
“It’s either a medic or wait outside my door. Pick fast, sweetheart.”
Henry moves forward like a closing gate. Charlotte breathes heavily through her nose, then shoots me a look that says, I’m not finished. As she follows Henry out the door, my attention returns to my Bond screen.
992… 923… 887…
“Waldsten?” Jerome says, watching my vacant stare as if he’s studying a bug in a jar.
I don’t respond because a suspicion has crept into my mind, howling as if something is dying in my heart: the last words I spat at Edmund, the secret I cut him open to insult him with.
You really are a beast.
Now, the beast is going to kill me for it.