Chapter 7 Amara #2
The lock clicks. My jaw drops.
Eve sees my face and laughs, soft and sharp. “You learn things when your boyfriend is a determined asshole.”
She pushes the door open and motions me inside.
The room is full of dust and shadow. There are rows of shelving that tower overhead, stacked with boxes, folders, books so old the leather flakes at the touch.
It doesn’t feel like a library.
It feels like a crypt.
Eve shuts the door behind us and switches on a desk lamp. Its cone of light carves a circle in the gloom. She walks the aisles as if she knows them, tracing her fingers along the spines of ledgers and yearbooks.
“Watch the floor,” she says. “Last time I was here, I tripped on a loose tile and landed on my ass. Hurt for a week. Or maybe that was the anal we had that night. Either or.”
I pick my way over, peering at the labels on the shelves. There are boxes for every year since the school’s founding. Some are marked “Incident,” others “Board Minutes.” Most just bear a last name and a number.
Eve stops at a cabinet and tugs a drawer open. The papers inside are typed, yellowed, and stamped with the Marcus family seal. She pulls a folder, flips through it, then sets it on the table.
“You wanna know the rules, you have to read the original playbook,” she says, her voice low.
I join her. My hands hover over the folder, unwilling to touch it. “What’s in there?”
She sits, gestures for me to do the same. “Every Hunt. Every Runner, every pairing, every outcome. This is how they decided your fate before you were even born.”
The words thud in my stomach. “You’ve read them all?”
She grins, but there’s no joy in it. “I made it my job. Issy was first to read these, but she told us if we wanted to know, we’d have to figure it out for ourselves. Something about not wanting to do our work for us.”
The folder is heavier than it looks. My fingers tremble as I open it.
Inside are dossiers. Girls’ faces—some smiling, some blank. There are write-ups of their family histories, the names of the boys chosen for them. Next to each is a page of notes: compliance ratings, aptitude, reproductive information, medical charts, ‘bonding outcomes.’
Eve leans over and points at a chart. “See this? They tracked every relationship. Who ran, who resisted, who submitted. It’s all here.”
I scan the pages, my eyes snagging on the names. Roth. Bonaccorso. Greenwood. And mine, over and over: Marcus.
I look up, throat raw. “They never even tried to hide it.”
“Why would they? Westpoint’s not a school. It’s a breeding program.”
She says it so simply, as if it should be obvious.
My skin crawls. “How did you—” I try to find words, but nothing fits. “How did you figure this out?”
Eve snorts. “We put more and more information together with each Hunt. You and Jules… you’re the last one.
The last pairing they need to complete the next generation of control.
Caius and O… they were smart. He got her out.
They have their baby now somewhere out in the fucking woods.
They’re thriving. We chose to stay and fight.
We need to move faster, Issy is due soon and then they’re gunna come collect her baby.
Payment. Always the first born. Rhett thinks he can protect her, but he can’t.
No one can. Except if we band together and fuck this place from the inside out. Make us all safe.”
I flip the next page and see my mother’s name. I read the bio twice, three times. The pairing. The compliance score. “They did this to her, too?”
Eve is quiet a moment. “All of them, Amara. Every girl who ever came through here. You just got the front-row seat because your family’s at the top of the heap.”
The words settle in my chest, heavy and final.
We page through the records in silence. Every few sheets, Eve stops me and points out a detail.
“Look—see how they paired the daughter of a senator with the son of an oil tycoon? Or how this one was slated for military legacy, even though she flunked out in her second year? We’ve had scholarship women, women sold for debts, all have one thing in common…
high IQ, breeding hips and a disposition that is meek. It’s all about the next power move.”
My pulse spikes. “So my whole life—my mother dying, my father never looking at me like a real person—it was all… preordained?”
Eve nods. “I’m sorry.”
The apology almost undoes me. “How can you stand it?”
Eve’s eyes are tired, but kind. “Because I get to choose what I do with it. That’s all there is, in the end.”
I keep flipping pages, hands numb. Every girl’s story ends the same—claimed or broken or dead. My mind whirls, desperate for a loophole.
At the back of the folder is a list. Hunt Runners, 2025 Candidates.
My name is circled in red.
I want to cry, or puke, or both.
Instead, I close the folder and look at Eve. “What now?”
She smiles, fierce and a little wild. “Now we figure out how to rig your Hunt.”
I nod, but the rage inside me is no longer cold. It’s molten.
The archives are silent as a tomb. But when we leave, I can feel a thousand ghosts at my back.
And I promise every one of them that I will burn these fuckers at the stake.
The world feels strange now. Eve is laying on my bed, texting someone, giggling, while I sit at my desk, unable to think.
“Get dressed,” she says, suddenly jumping to her feet. “We’re getting out of here.”
I blink at her. “Where?”
She tosses a hoodie at my face. “Coffee shop. Off campus. No Board, no boys, no ghosts. Just caffeine and normal people who give zero fucks about legacy.”
I don’t argue. The idea of air that isn’t filtered through tradition sounds better than therapy.
After I dress, we cut through the quad, then the old staff lot, until the Gothic arches of Westpoint shrink behind us.
A few blocks away, Eve ducks into a side street and gestures at a squat brick building squeezed between two used bookstores.
The sign in the window says THE MUSEUM, but the only artifacts inside are chipped mugs and a pinball machine older than my father.
The place smells like burnt espresso and vanilla. The heat hits my face and instantly softens the knots in my stomach.
At the far corner, two women wait in a booth. Both look like they could shatter me with a word, but in totally different ways.
The first is Dahlia Bonaccorso. She’s not tall, but she takes up space—jet black hair scraped back in a severe ponytail, eyes sharp, nails blood red.
She’s wearing a tailored skirt and white button-up blouse, but the way she sprawls in the seat says she doesn’t give a shit if it gets coffee on it.
Her phone buzzes twice, but she ignores it.
The other is Isolde Greenwood. She’s beautiful in a way that doesn’t feel engineered—like she woke up, shrugged on the first sweater she found, and went out to hunt something.
There’s a silver locket at her throat and a ring on every finger.
She smiles when she sees us, one hand on her stomach, the other extending in an excited wave.
Eve slides in next to Isolde and nods at me to take the spot beside Dahlia.
“Girls, this is Amara,” she says. “Officially in the club.”
Dahlia doesn’t shake my hand. She just looks me up and down, then gives a slow, approving nod. “Nice to meet the new princess.”
Isolde offers her hand, warm and dry. “It gets easier,” she says.
I order a coffee. Black.
Eve wastes no time. “We went through the archives last night,” she says. “Amara’s in.”
Dahlia cocks an eyebrow. “In…?”
“To destroy them with us,” Eve says. “She’s gunna help us take them down.”
Dahlia sips her espresso, thoughtful. “Wild that you trust her so quickly, Eve.”
Isolde picks up a napkin and starts sketching, her nails clicking on the table. “Well, I think it’s fantastic. The more the merrier.”
She draws three circles and connects them with lines, writing a name in each. “Plus, we have to bring them down somehow.”
I watch her diagram grow, a snarl of names and numbers, until my own is at the very center.
Dahlia leans in, her voice low. “My family—well, let’s just say I grew up seeing how the sausage gets made. Everyone has secrets. Everyone has a price.”
She glances at Eve. “We already have access. But what we need is leverage.”
Isolde nods. “And someone who can walk through the front door without raising suspicion.”
They all look at me.
I choke on my coffee, a spatter landing on the table.
Eve laughs. “You’re not alone anymore. We’ve all been through it.”
Dahlia shrugs. “My Hunt was a joke compared to yours. I can’t even explain how fucked up it all was, but Bam was there, helping me through. Now we’re partners in crime, literally.”
Isolde’s smile fades. “My sister didn’t make it.
She fought too hard, and the Board erased her.
Said it was an accident. I never bought it.
I came here to kill them all and ended up falling for Rhett, running in the Night Hunt and well…
listen. Amara. We are in a siege, not a ground war.
We are building our defenses and planning our offenses.
We’re just about ready to take them all out. ”
Her eyes burn with quiet fury.
“So what do I do?” My voice sounds small, but I’m not sure it’s weakness anymore.
Dahlia leans back, folding her arms. “You do what you always do—smile, nod, and get close enough to find their pressure points. Meanwhile, we work the outside. My father’s people can dig up dirt on half the Board.”
“Glad he’s talking to you again, Lia.” Isolde pushes the napkin to me. “Every system has a flaw. Yours is your last name. Use it.”
Eve grins. “And if you ever need a safe house, our place is open.”
I look at their faces, at the tired hope in their eyes, and realize I want what they have—a cause, a reason, a pack.
“I’m in,” I smile.
The rest of the morning blurs into warmth—too many refills, half-cocked jokes, plans drawn and redrawn on the surface of cheap napkins. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel alone.
We trade numbers and make a pact, inked in the dregs of our drinks.
When we finally step back into the cold, Eve throws her arm around my shoulders. “Welcome to the resistance,” she says.
Dahlia snorts. “Don’t say that out loud, you dork. They probably tap our phones.”
Isolde laughs, head back, a full sound that shakes her shoulders. “Yeah, well, hopefully they enjoy the sounds of my screams when this baby finally decides to pop.”
Their chatter fades out as we all part ways.
I walk back to Westpoint with a new fire in my chest, the kind that doesn’t burn you up, but lights the way forward.
I know what I am now.
And I know what I have to do.