Chapter 22
Saint
Ileave before she wakes because I am not ready for the morning version of this.
That is not cowardice; it’s calculation.
There is a version of the morning after when everything that happened in the dark gets examined in daylight and found to be something smaller than it felt.
I am not willing to watch those thoughts cross her face.
I would rather give her the note and the space and let her arrive at it on her own terms.
Also, Valen has been calling since six fifteen.
I call him from the stairwell with my hand still warm.
“Tell me it is not Victor,” I say.
A pause that tells me everything before he speaks. “Victor moved on another girl last night. A second year from the south dormitory. No family connections, no lineage. Found disoriented near the east gate at two in the morning.”
My jaw tightens. “Condition.”
“Shaken. Not physically harmed. He is making a point, not a move. He wants us to know he can still reach them.”
“He is demonstrating range.”
“Correct. And it means he has not forgotten your area of focus.”
Valen never says her name in these conversations. He classifies it as a variable and keeps the language clean and operational because Valen is precise about what could compromise him if said aloud.
“I know,” I say.
Silence on Valen’s end means he is deciding whether to say the next thing. He says it.
“You spent the night in her room.”
Not a question. Zero’s network setup is comprehensive.
“Yes,” I say.
He is quiet for a moment. “Saint. If Silas pulls the unmanaged feed—”
“I know.”
“They are looking for a reason, and you are giving them material to work with every time you—”
“I know,” I say. For the third time, with the weight I put on the things I mean and do not intend to discuss further.
Valen exhales. “Victor is escalating because he is afraid. Afraid men with resources do things in an imprecise way. He is going to make a move soon, something visible, something designed to send a message to the Order about what happens when their attack dog operates off leash.”
“That message will involve her, Saint.”
I look at my hand. “Then he had better move before I do,” I say, raising my voice.
Valen hangs up.
I stand in the stairwell. Three floors below me, she is waking up alone, finding the note, and holding it the way I know she will hold it against her chest. Not reading it again, just feeling the weight of it.
Victor Sokolov is going to find out what happens when you reach for the only thing in years that has made the white room worth leaving.
I take the stairs to my room.
I have a Behavioral Psychology lecture in two hours.
I’m going to sit in the back row and watch the door until she walks through it.