Chapter 2 Julian
She’s been here a week and I’ve been taking notes. Her likes, dislikes. I may or may not have punched out a couple guys who looked at her a bit too long.
Today, I’m sitting on a bench under an alcove, watching her.
Amara Marcus moves through the quad like she’s trespassing on her own story.
She glides, which is typical for her lineage, but underneath the choreography, there’s a fracture.
She walks with her spine rod-straight, chin set, but her hands betray her.
Even from thirty meters, I see the perpetual fidget: thumb on left, then right, a twisting at the wrist, a covert tug at her blazer cuff.
On my lap is a leather-bound notebook. The cover is hand-tooled, the pages thick. I keep it because it’s the only thing my father ever gave me, and I like the way the gold-tipped paper shines under lamplight. Inside, every page is a study in engineered compulsion.
This weeks notes fill the better part of three pages.
Times, locations, people she’s interacted with.
Her breakfast is at 7:15 sharp—oatmeal, two boiled eggs, black coffee, always alone at the corner table.
Not quite in the legacy section, but not in the poverty section either. More in no-mans-land.
At 9:30, she’s in Literature, seat A5, back row, leftmost chair, as far from the professor as possible without being rude. At noon she traverses the quad, always the same route, even when it’s raining. At 2, she ducks into the library and doesn’t resurface until 4, sometimes later.
Her entire schedule is a study in boredom. Predictable, reinforced, but with just enough deviation to suggest she’s aware of being watched.
This pleases me.
I sketch her path with a Montblanc pen, black ink because red is vulgar.
My strokes are precise. At the end of each line I make a small mark: a diagonal slash for every behavior that deviates from routine.
Today, by 10:15 a.m., there are already five.
An extra pause at the stairwell; a look over her shoulder; the way she slows, then speeds up again, after crossing the main quad. None of these are accidental.
She’s noticed me.
The game is supposed to be mutual. I hunt, she flees, we escalate until the first one flinches. But Amara doesn’t run when she sees me. She observes, logs, and reacts only by tightening the mask around her face.
Most men would find this infuriating. I find it exhilarating.
I’m not watching her for pleasure. I am not, despite popular opinion, a stalker.
What I am is curious. Curious as to why the Board would assign her as my Hunt, why my father—the great Governor Roth, butcher and architect—would sign off on a pairing so obviously volatile.
Curious as to why, despite every rational warning in my head, I want to unravel her so much I can taste it.
She stops in the courtyard, a porcelain statue adrift among the concrete, and looks up, directly at my corner.
I go perfectly still. Her eyes sweep the quad, pausing on the alcove, and for a full three seconds I think she sees me.
I hold her gaze, unblinking, until she moves again, cutting left toward the library.
I savor the afterimage. Then I write: 10:22 a.m., direct visual contact, no visible flinch. Possible confirmation: aware of surveillance.
A junior walks past with a girl in tow. He points up at the stonework and the girl giggles. I imagine he is telling her a story about the suicides that supposedly happened up here. All legacies have their rituals. My current ritual is one of patience.
I wait until the quad is empty before closing my notebook and sliding it into the inside pocket of my jacket.
At 10:30 exactly, I leave the alcove and descend the back stairs, timing my pace to arrive at the north corridor just as the next class change starts.
The hallways here are rivers of chaos. Students shoulder past, necks craned for gossip or prey, eyes glazed with the effort of pretending not to care.
I cut through the current, invisible in the way only someone who has mastered attention can be: always just outside the field of vision, always one step ahead of the observer.
I hit the main hall and start looking. Amara is not on the main floor. I circle, scanning for her. I turn a corner and she’s tucked into the farthest bench, just barely inside the library, knees drawn up, a book open but untouched.
I watch her from my spot against the wall, just long enough to memorize the way she’s folded in on herself before she opens the book and looks down for a brief moment.
She’s reading The Ethics of Disobedience, but she’s not actually turning the pages.
Her gaze is fixed on the opposite wall, where the sun throws fractured light through stained glass.
The color catches on her hair, making her look sickly, almost spectral.
There’s a bruise on the inside of her wrist.
For a moment, rage surfaces.
Who gave her that?
She knows I’m watching. Of course she does. All her tells are sharper now: the flick of the eyes, the way her leg tenses when I shift my weight.
After five minutes she closes the book and stands, never once looking in my direction. She walks to the reference desk and checks out the volume. I hear her say thank you in a voice so faint it’s nearly a sigh.
When she leaves, I give it thirty seconds before following. Thirty seconds is the difference between coincidence and intent.
Outside, the sun is too bright. I slip on sunglasses and look around the quad.
Amara is already gone.
I allow myself the luxury of a smile.
I know where she’ll be at noon.
On the way back to my dorm, I stop by the second-floor bathroom and wash my hands, twice, letting the water run cold and clear over my wrists.
I stare at myself in the mirror. The face that looks back is almost angelic, if you don’t know how to read faces.
If you do, it’s a face designed for strategy.
Every line is a weapon. Every smile is loaded.
I like myself best when I am about to ruin someone.
And Amara Marcus will look so beautiful as she unravels by my hand.
That afternoon, she slips up. Tiny, but critical.
Just past three, Amara exits the library by the west corridor instead of her usual route.
She’s alone, her bookbag slung low, her eyes fixed on her shoes.
She’s so distracted she doesn’t see the custodial cart blocking the corridor.
She sidesteps it, almost colliding with a freshman.
In the shuffle, her earring, left side, sapphire stud, catches on the freshman’s shoulder.
It drops to the marble in a soundless tumble.
Neither of them notice.
I do.
Bending, I grab the earring, palming it before anyone can see. I run my thumb over the back and place it in my breast pocket. The plan crystallizes.
At 3:45, I intercept her on the east staircase. I time it so that she has no escape route except past me.
She sees me at the landing, her eyes going wide, then narrowing. She checks her pace, but only slightly. I step aside, just enough to let her by, but not enough to feel safe.
As she passes, I say, “You dropped this.”
She freezes.
I hold out the earring, flat on my palm, the sapphire glinting under the halogen lights.
She takes it. Her fingers brush mine—ice cold, but they twitch at the contact.
“I didn’t realize it was gone,” she says.
I smile. “Good thing I was there.”
For a moment, she looks at me. Really looks. Not the sidelong, polite glance of the morning, but a direct stare, as if she’s memorizing every inch of me.
“Thank you,” she says, voice rough. She puts the earring in, turning her face away to shield the process.
I let her pass, but not before adding, “You’re welcome, Amara.”
I hear her footsteps echo down the stairs, too quick to be calm.
She didn’t even ask my name, but now she knows I’m watching her, which will rattle her.
Exactly what I want.
There’s a rule among predators: never interrupt another’s kill unless you want a fight.
So I’m careful when I see Eve Allen approach Amara in the east quad.
I told them I didn’t need help.
Eve Allen is Westpoint’s resident martyr—the scholarship girl with a spine like steel cable and a perpetual air of someone about to punch a hole through your rationale. She doesn’t belong in this ecosystem, which is precisely why I find her presence so fascinating. Precisely why she belongs.
She’s good for Colton.
Not so much for me. I want to track my girl in peace.
Amara is at a bench, meticulously avoiding the main dining hall for lunch today. She’s got her eyes closed, allowing the sun to soak into her skin. She doesn’t notice Eve until the other girl is standing over her, hands jammed into her coat pockets.
I watch from behind a stone column, close enough to hear but just out of sight.
“Someone’s been watching you.”
Amara blinks. “Yeah, I mean, lots of people are. It’s normal, didn’t you say?”
“It’s not,” Eve cuts in. “It’s Roth. Julian Roth.”
There is a pause, and I taste the silence on my tongue. Amara’s face goes paper-white.
“Roth… as in Governor Roth’s son? I don’t even know him,” she whispers.
Eve shrugs, shifting her weight. “Doesn’t matter. The Board picked you for him. He’s playing with you because that’s what he does. If you don’t push back, he’ll gut you just to see how the pieces fit together.”
She says this with the calm of a surgeon discussing a routine amputation. I admire her for it.
Amara recovers quickly. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because if the Board wants you hunted, someone should teach you how not to die.”
“I… I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
I step into the open, clapping slowly. Both girls freeze.
“Such nobility, Miss Allen,” I say, an amused smirk spread over my face. “It’s touching.”
Eve turns, gaze flat and unfazed. She’s shorter than I remember, but she projects force like a nuclear reaction. “I don’t recall inviting you.”
“I thought I told you to stay out of it.”
“She needs help, Julian. It’s not fair she has to walk the halls alone. You know what the legacies are like. Colt says I can, so you can take it up with him.”
I ignore her, fixing my attention on Amara. “You should be careful with your friends, Miss Marcus. Some of them are more interested in your survival than your happiness.”
Amara stares at me, lips parted. Her eyes are huge and unblinking. She doesn’t flinch when I move closer, but there’s a shallow pulse in her neck.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks.
“Because I can’t help it.” I let the truth sit there, unadorned.
She blinks. “And if you could?”
I smile, slow and deliberate. “Then I’d do it anyway. Only it would be less of a game.”
Eve steps between us, her arm angled protectively in front of Amara. “You don’t scare me,” she says.
I lean in, just enough for Eve to close her eyes and inhale sharply. “You should learn to distinguish between fear and respect. One’s a survival instinct. The other is an invitation.”
Eve’s jaw flexes. “She deserves to know what game she’s in.”
I circle them, studying them both. Amara’s fingers clench her book. Eve’s stance is defensive, but her chin is lifted, eyes level. The dynamic is exquisite: Eve knows I could flatten her. I’d have to deal with Colton, but if she doesn’t piss off, that’s a consequence I’m willing to toy with.
I address Amara, not Eve. “What makes you think this is a game?”
She holds my stare, and something in her eyes shifts. Not anger, not fear, just hunger for understanding, the same hunger that drives me.
Before she can answer, I turn on my heel and walk away. I feel their gazes burn my back, one in confusion, the other in pure, distilled rage.
I like the way it feels.
As I round the corner, I check my pulse. It’s elevated. Not from fear, but from anticipation.
Eve Allen thinks she can protect her. She’s welcome to try.
The only person Amara needs to protect her, is me.
Which, ironically, is also the one person she needs protecting from, because when she falls for me, and she will, I will have the power to shatter her heart.
Or to allow it to beat the rhythm of my name.