Chapter 55
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
The morning chime drags me from my bed far too early for my liking.
I barely have time to tug on the new uniform dress that was delicately folded over my chair.
It’s soft lavender, stitched finely with gold and complete with a piano aptitude pin affixed to the collar.
I step in front of the mirror, taking in the way it clings to my form.
The hem falls in a soft swish a few inches above my knee.
It’s stunning, even nicer than the ones Maverick had made for the other girls.
There’s a knock. Vincent’s here again. Of course he is.
He’s been showing up every day, leaning in my doorway with his crisp posture and infinite patience.
He doesn’t linger in the hall. He walks straight in, slow yet certain, and sets himself against the desk like it belongs to him. The overhead lights catch on the faint glint of his pale blue eyes. He looks measured, determined. He didn’t come here to check a box.
Colt strolls in behind him and settles by the wall, guard-dog casual, arms folded, watching like he’s front row to something worth betting on. Vincent holds up a schedule, taps the edge against the desk once, and speaks:
“What do you want?”
It’s so direct my mind stutters. “Excuse me?”
His gaze catches mine, holding it. “Tea in the mentor’s lounge?
” He flicks his wrist for dramatic effect, words tipping sarcastic.
“Solo sessions in the piano room? An afternoon in the garden? I can move your diagnostics. Have Colt smuggle you candy, whatever you want. Which is it?” His tone is dead serious now.
There’s no bite, no judgment or dry remark.
Just that assessing look that makes me feel like he’s seeing directly into my soul.
I want to laugh. Why is he playing with me like this?
“You can’t just do that.”
“Yes,” he says simply, “I can.” The certainty in his voice isn’t for show. It’s not about power. He’s not trying to drown me; he’s throwing me a rope, and the flash of care in his face has him begging me to take it.
Colt tilts his head, a slow smile spreading over his features. “Oh, this is going to be good.”
Vincent starts swapping blocks on the schedule without waiting for my answer. Garden hours slip into the space where an evaluation used to be. He moves an “Investor Presentation” off entirely. Every group drill’s block disappears, replaced with piano or simply “downtime.”
“What’s the point?” I ask, an ache settling over my ribs. I don’t deserve special treatment. Not after what I did.
“The point,” he says, pen still in motion, “is that you’re capable of more than sitting in this room waiting for someone to decide what happens to you.” There’s a softness buried in it, one most people would miss.
Something tightens in my chest. “I’m not sure what I’d pick.”
“Pick one thing.” Vincent sets the pen down, folding his hands on the desk.
I don’t let myself think about it any longer. “I want to see Brielle.”
That stops him. Not his usual cautious pause; he stills completely. His eyes sharpen, running quick calculations I can’t read. He knows exactly how complicated that is. How much Maverick will hate it.
“That,” Vincent says after a beat, “might take work.”
Colt lets out a low whistle, clearly entertained. “Oh, I like this game.”
Vincent ignores him. “If that’s what you want, I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime—” He crosses the room to me in a matter of seconds, holding the schedule out. “You’ll take the rest.” I take it, and he moves his hands up to my neck, adjusting the pin slightly and straightening my collar.
“It looks sharp on you.” He nods, something like guilt flashing in his eyes.
“You deserved to have it a long time ago,” he adds under his breath.
He nods to Colt as he passes, taking his leave wordlessly.
He didn’t wait to be thanked, didn’t press me for my opinions or demand a performance.
To him, this isn’t a grand gesture. It’s expected.
Bare minimum, even. And I can’t really decide how I feel about that.
I stare down at the paper. Trace my fingers along the blocks. Garden hours. Music. Downtime. They’re small things, but they feel…possible. For the first time in weeks, something warm threads through the numbness.
I’m not whole yet, but maybe I could be?
That’s the part that terrifies me. Because he meant it. Because if I start to believe him, and it’s taken away… I don’t know if I’ll survive the pain it leaves behind.
My new schedule starts tomorrow, which means today I’m at the mercy of whatever V and Colt have in store.
I don’t have to wait long.
Colt kicks the door shut with his boot, balancing a tray in one hand and something folded under his arm.
“Lunch,” he announces. He sets the tray down on my desk, then flicks the folded thing onto the floor. A gray blanket.
I blink. “What’s that for?”
He smirks. “You think I’m gonna let you sit here stiff as a board while you eat? Nope. We’re having a floor picnic.”
“I don’t think there’s a protocol that covers this.”
“There is now.” He drops down onto the blanket without waiting for me, long legs stretched out, leaning back on his hands. “C’mon.”
Reluctantly, I slide off the bed and settle across from him.
The tray between us looks almost normal like this: sandwiches, fruit, bottled water.
Like we’re not buried underground, wrapped in white walls and locked doors.
We eat in silence for a while. I stab at sliced pears that smoosh against my fork.
Every bite is bland, though I’m sure it was always that way.
Colt doesn’t press, but words crawl up my throat—an admission neither of us asked for.
“I hurt people.”
He glances up, chewing slow. “You flared.”
“I—what?”
“Flared.” He swallows, then sets his sandwich down. “Look, it’s hard to explain. But it’s fine. You didn’t mean to.”
“That doesn’t change that it happened!” I fight back a swell of tears, holding his gaze. “You didn’t see it. I was tearing at the walls without even touching them! The ceiling was bending and things kept breaking and I—”
“You think you’re special for that? You think you’re the first girl who’s ever lost control?
” I stare at him. He’s too calm. Too matter-of-fact for the nightmare I’ve been living.
He tilts his head, eyes softening. “Mays, every single girl down here is here because of a flare. Brielle. Ivy. Hell, even Avery before she went all glassy. All of them. That’s the price of admission. ”
I flinch. “Why?” The word hangs between us. Colt rubs the back of his neck.
“Hell if I know. Carr says it’s in your DNA, some ’genetic anomaly.
’ He’s been tearing girls apart for a decade trying to name it.
” He shakes his head. Rakes a hand through his hair.
“He keeps saying it’s caused by too much emotion—like that covers it.
Grief, rage, panic. Doesn’t matter. You feel too much, you flare, you scare someone.
Next thing you know, you’re down here, getting told you’re lucky.
Easy for them, right? Blame the girls and pretend that’s an answer. ”
My chest tightens. “So I really am…different.”
“I mean—yeah. But different doesn’t mean wrong—” He stops. Frowns. “Okay, it feels wrong. I get that. But you didn’t deserve this—you don’t deserve this.”
“Feels like I do.” I run my fingers along the rough edge of the blanket, tearing my eyes from his so I don’t have to face how much he cares.
“I know.” He nudges my knee with his boot. “That’s the part they’re good at.”
That startles me. I bring my head up and meet his caramel eyes. There’s so much warmth nestled in the hearth of his irises. So much life I’ve come to know—and so much I haven’t learned. He reaches for my hand, but stills.
“You’re not some wild animal that needs taming. You’re a teenage girl who got slammed with something she didn’t ask for and is just—” He gestures helplessly, exasperated. “Just trying to keep her head above water while a bunch of men in suits decide how much of her is worth keeping.”
“They told us—”
“Yeah, I know what they told you.” He laughs, bitter. “You’ve been saved. They’re here to polish you up, fix your rough edges, make you perfect little graduates. Bullshit. They don’t care about making you better. They care about cutting out whatever they can’t control.”
Something shifts in my chest, but the hollow ache doesn’t fade. “I’m never going to be enough.”
Colt folds his legs under him and leans forward, elbows braced on his knees, voice laced with heat.
“You were enough before they ever dragged you down here. That flare wasn’t even your fault, Mays.
Carr knew exactly what he was doing when he sent you into that trial.
” He sits back on his heels. Shakes his head.
“It didn’t go how he planned, but you’re still here.
That alone should tell you the system’s rigged.
” His voice cracks rough on that last word. He swears under his breath.
I bite back a hundred more questions that would send us into a spiral. I need to stay in the present, at least until I can figure everything out. “What am I supposed to do?”
He exhales hard, shoulders sagging. “What you’ve been doing. Breathe. Fake the drills. Eat their food. Keep moving. That’s all survival is. Living one step longer than the game was built for.”
The memory of Mister M’s words in the ballroom crashes into me.
“Everything within these walls is a game. You just haven’t learned to play.”
A game. That’s all this is. A sick, awful game.
One I’ve been losing for too long.
I choke down a deep breath. The sandwich in my hands blurs beneath the tears brimming in my eyes.
Colt taps my leg again, soft. “And for what it’s worth? If I had the answer to what causes flares, I’d give it to you. I don’t. None of us do. Carr plays God with a clipboard, and the rest of us just watch.” His mouth twists, ugly with guilt. “I hate watching.”
My whole body stiffens. The gears in my head turn and sputter, but nothing forms. Clearly, world-crushing realizations are not made to be had when you’re eating sandwiches on the floor.
The silence sits between us, heavier than the invisible walls pressing in.
I don’t know what to do with it, so I decide to change the subject.
I glance at the blanket, at the crumbs between us, then back to him.
“You always eat like this?”
Colt lets out a small laugh, leaning back on his hands again. “What, on the floor? Only when I’ve got my boss breathing down my neck.”
I blink. “Mister M?”
“Hell no.” He lets out a laugh. “Carr moved me under Harrow last week. Full reassignment.”
The words snag sharp in my chest. Colt—under Vincent? I try to picture it, but the images don’t fit. Colt’s edges are all roughness and sarcastic jokes. Vincent’s are layers of polished glass, cut precise.
“He tells you what to do?”
“He doesn’t have to. Other day I got smart with him. Half a joke, nothing big. He looked at me and said, ’Don’t make me wish I’d taken my chances with Ralston.’”
I bite back a laugh at the absurdity of it. “He said that?”
“Yeah.” Colt tears his sandwich in two with more force than necessary. “And the worst part? He meant it. I shut up so fast I swear he could’ve heard my teeth rattle.”
He shakes his head, grinning despite himself. “He’s got this way of making you feel like you’re two inches tall just by existing in the same air. Can’t decide if it’s terrifying or impressive.”
I stare at him, sandwich forgotten in my hands. “Maybe both.”
It should scare me more than it does. That he can cut Colt down like that. That he has that kind of weight, that quiet power. Maverick has to shout, preen, posture, spin threats like sugar. Vincent? He doesn’t even have to move.
The worst part? I think I understand it.
I’ve felt that look on me, the one Colt’s describing.
The one that makes you forget how to breathe.
Colt makes him sound like a stone wall you’d break yourself against if you pushed too hard.
And maybe that’s true for others. But I’ve seen him tilt, bend, break rules he shouldn’t just to keep me steady. And it’s confusing.
It’s easier to hate Maverick. Easy to see his smirk and know it’s poisoned. But Vincent… Vincent is harder to bear. Not because he cuts, but because he doesn’t. He gives me air when I’m drowning, then watches as the system pulls me back under. He knows what this place does, yet he stays.
Still, he lets me believe, for a second, that I matter. And that hope burns deeper than any truth Maverick could spit at me.