Chapter 12 Julian
My hands are fused to the wheel. I’m too amped up to walk to the cabins, so I’m taking the back road around.
It’s a short drive but one that’s needed in order to keep me from storming into her dorm and protecting her from everything she experienced today.
Unfortunately, solidifying how we’re going to destroy the Board is more pressing.
The car’s engine is as smooth as my heart is not, but I keep my foot steady and let the cruise control do what I can’t: maintain a straight line.
I left the campus with a headache and an ache in my jaw from clenching it.
Every time I close my eyes, I imagine Amara on the medical bed, her knees forced apart by strangers who think breeding stock is a compliment.
I see her father’s eyes glazed and cold, a man who measures legacy by the health of his daughter’s cervix.
I want to crash the car just to feel something different, but I don’t.
She needs me.
And I need her.
Rhett’s cabin sits back from the main road, invisible unless you know where to look. Pulling into the side road, I park next to the row of cabins.
I kill the engine and let silence fill the car. My pulse is a slow, angry drum in my neck.
I don’t waste time with dramatics. I grab the bag from my trunk and make my way to the door, gravel crunching under boots. There’s no wind, no animal sounds, just the low hum of electricity running to the security system that Rhett had installed after the debacle with the Castillo’s.
When I open the door, the smell of whiskey, smokes, and cologne washes over me. It’s comforting. Reminds me of the days we all slummed it in the dorm.
Now everyone’s all grown up, and my turn is coming.
Can’t come fast enough, in my fucking opinion.
The first thing I see is Bam, barefoot in the kitchen, pouring brown liquor into a glass that’s got cracks running up the sides. He looks up, grins, and slams the glass on the counter.
“Julian fucking Roth,” he says. “You look like shit.”
Behind him, Colton sits at the long farmhouse table, hands folded, eyes as blank as moonlight on ice. There’s a chessboard in front of him, but the pieces are arranged in no order I recognize.
On the couch, sprawled like a king who never abdicated, is Caius Montgomery.
He hasn’t changed. If anything, he’s sharpened—cheekbones hollow, hair darker, suit tailored so tight it looks like he’s sewn into it. He holds a tumbler in one hand and a phone in the other. His eyes flick up at me, then back to his screen.
I shut the door, drop my bag, and say, “Hey fuckers. I almost didn’t come tonight, so thank your lucky stars I decided to slum it with you lot.”
Rhett appears from the back hall, sleeves rolled, eyes bloodshot and wild. He’s wearing the smile of a man who’s just survived a duel and can’t stop replaying the taste of victory.
He walks up, slaps me on the shoulder, then pulls me in for a hug. “Never doubted you’d show,” he whispers. “But I did take bets on whether you’d kill a Board member on the way.”
I shrug him off and step into the center of the room. All four look at me, the original and the revised, waiting for me to say something.
I must look ready for war because no one interrupts my train of thought. “Cai, nice to see you. The king has come down from playing in the woods. Any news?”
Caius finally sets down his phone, swirling the ice in his glass. He doesn’t speak for a full ten seconds.
“Do you remember the summer before high school graduation?” he asks, voice cold. “When we broke into the principals office and replaced every file with doctored versions?”
Bam nods, nostalgic. “Best week of my life.”
“We need to do that again,” Caius says. “But instead of files, we swap out the Board.”
He lets it hang. Rhett grins. “You mean kill them all?”
Caius shrugs, as if murder is just a midterm to pass.
I watch him, waiting for the other shoe. He doesn’t disappoint.
“The world doesn’t change unless you remove the ones who refuse to let go,” he says. “We take the Board, the Dean, Harrington. All of them. Bring them to the grounds, Hunt style. Let them die the way they want us to.”
Colton’s eyes never move, but his hands tense. Bam cracks his knuckles. Rhett just smiles.
Frustrated, I run my hand through my hair and sigh, “It’s not enough.”
Caius raises an eyebrow.
“They don’t just want us,” I explain. “They want the women. Our women. They want to take the firstborn, like it’s a fucking prize.
You know this. Rhett tried taking that out of his contract, but fact remains, as long as the Academy exists, they won’t stop until they get what they want.
Cai is untouchable out in Pineridge, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are safe. ”
Bam’s face goes hard. “No one touches my kid.”
Colton says, voice flat, “They won’t get close to Eve.”
Rhett says nothing, but I can see the pulse in his jaw. He’s thinking of Isolde, and the baby, and how much he’d give to keep them safe.
Caius holds up his phone. The screen is lit with a picture—Ophelia, holding a fat baby with a shock of black hair. Both are smiling, alive.
He sets it on the table. “Daisy’s flourishing and so is O,” he says, voice softer than I’ve ever heard it. “They won’t get her. They won’t get any of them.”
The room is silent, save for the slow drip of water from the faucet.
Looking around, I take note of the changes since the last time I was here.
The walls are lined with hunting trophies—elk, boar, a bear’s head that’s too big to be real.
Liquor bottles march along the shelf like soldiers.
There are stacks of paperwork and maps on every surface, a pile of tactical gear in the corner.
Rhett’s been busy while I’ve been trying to keep Amara safe.
Caius stands, stretching, cracking his bones, and crosses to me. For a second, I think he’s going to punch me. Instead, he grabs my shoulder and pulls me in, forehead to forehead.
“I missed you, asshole,” he says.
“Missed you, brother. I mean that.”
Bam interrupts, clapping his hands. “Group hug or Russian Roulette, let’s pick. We’re burning time.”
Colton moves to the window, surveying the trees. “Girls are at Bam’s,” he says. “Dahlia’s idea for girls night.”
I blink. “Amara’s with them?”
Colton shrugs. “No. They said they couldn’t find her.”
Anger surges through me. She needs support, now more than ever and no one is there for her. Not Eve, not her own fucking father. And I’m here. I want to see her, want to check the bruises on her wrists and the look in her eyes, but strategy first. Always.
Pulling out my phone, I shoot her a text: Sorry I can’t be there right now, baby girl. I will come see you soon.
Watching the sent turn into delivered and then read, I pocket my phone. Now she knows I’m thinking of her and haven’t forgotten what happened.
Rhett spreads the maps out on the table. It’s full of red circles and blue tracking lines. The Board’s houses. “We need to move tonight. Hunt is tomorrow,” he says.
Bam cocks his head. “Weapons?”
Rhett nods to the gear pile. “Everything we need. And then some.”
The plan is simple, in the way a guillotine is simple. Find the heads, line them up, let gravity do the work.
We pour drinks. The taste is acid on my tongue, but it burns the fear away.
Colton raises his glass. “To the last man standing,” he says.
I clink mine against his, the sound sharp as a bone snap.
Bam grins, already plotting. Rhett lights a cigarette and lets the smoke spiral toward the ceiling.
Caius refills his glass, then lifts his phone to snap a picture of the group, like it’s a high school reunion. For a second, we are young again. Untouchable.
Then the moment passes.
I go to the porch, letting the cold bite my skin. I stare out at the woods, at the sky low and heavy with storm.
I hear the voices behind me, the laughter and the bickering, and for the first time in years, I feel the sharp edge of joy.
We are going to destroy them.
We are going to win.
I stand there, hands in my pockets, until the others drift outside. They join me, shoulder to shoulder, eyes forward.
No one says a word, but it’s enough.
It tastes like destruction, rebirth and the blood of those who wronged us.
We are the last of our kind.
And soon, we will be the only ones left.
“How are we going to kidnap 14 people and transport them all in time for the full moon?”
“No worries, Jules, my cousin and his buddies are around. They’re already getting the tranqs ready. Easy as putting a baby to bed,” Cai grins.
Bam looks skeptical. “I dunno, babies are hard to put to bed aren’t they?”
Cai rolls his eyes, “Yeah, but whatever man, just… it’ll be fine. They know what they’re doing. They’ll have their men do a timed attack, transport them to the ritual field and we all just need to be there.”
He opens his phone, dials a number, and waits. “Slade,” he says, when the call is answered. “We’re good with the plan. You have the feeds?”
A low, rumbling voice on the other end. Even his phone voice sounds like a threat. That would be a man I wouldn’t fight unless I absolutely fucking had to.
“Good. Stand by,” Caius says, and ends the call. “Slade’s been on the campus security team for three months,” he explains. “He’s mapped every camera, every patrol route. He’ll get the targets in no problem.”
Bam lifts his glass, toasting the air. “To family.”
I look at my watch. The hour hand is almost at midnight, but no one is tired.
We spend the next two hours running scenarios. Who covers which exit, how to time hitting them all at the same time, what to do if one of us gets caught. Rhett has a flowchart for every possible fuck-up; Bam has a backup gun for every person in the room.
And Cai has the men, waiting, ready.
The plan is coming together.
I watch them all, weighing strengths and weaknesses. I know who will go balls to the wall, who will snap, who will laugh while pulling the trigger. I know myself.
It is all so beautiful, in its own way. The choreography of war.