Chapter 4 #3
The first voice is disapproving. Judgmental. The kind of tone that comes from people who follow rules because they're afraid of what happens if they don't.
"She was on the verge of crying, Margot." This voice is softer. Older. Maria, I think—the name floats up from somewhere, a detail I must have absorbed without realizing. "Said she hadn't heard from her pen pal in over a month. A month. You know how much those letters mean to her."
Pen pal.
The words strike my heart, fair and square.
Pen pal. Month. Letters.
"Still." Margot's voice is petulant. "Rules are rules. You can't make exceptions just because some crazy Omega gets weepy."
"She's not—"
"Oh, come on. You've seen her record. The body count? The 'episodes'?" Margot laughs—an ugly sound, cruel and dismissive. "Who would want to talk to someone like that? Honestly, whoever this mystery man is, he's probably dead. Or smart enough to stop responding to a lunatic."
The laughter continues, grating against my ears.
Something hot and violent coils in my chest.
Crazy. Lunatic. Who would want to talk to someone like that?
They don't know.
Don't understand.
Don't see the girl beneath the body count—the one who writes letters with care and precision, whose words on the page are thoughtful and vulnerable and nothing like the instability they're mocking.
I know her handwriting better than my own.
Know the way she loops her Y's and dots her I's with tiny hearts when she's feeling playful.
Know the particular shade of pink wax she uses on every seal.
Know that every letter arrives with four drops of blood—always four, never more, never less—and I've never asked why because some rituals are sacred.
S.E.
Cotton candy girl.
My pen pal.
The realization crashes through me like a tidal wave.
It's her.
My hands are definitely shaking now.
The envelope in my grip suddenly feels like something precious. Something vital. Something I need to protect at all costs.
Footsteps approach from the back room.
I compose my face into careful neutrality—the blank, unapproachable expression I've perfected over years of hiding everything I feel. By the time Maria emerges from behind the staff door, I'm just another customer waiting at the counter.
"Oh!" She startles slightly at the sight of me. "I'm so sorry for the wait. I didn't hear the bell—"
"It's fine." My voice is even. Controlled. Betraying nothing.
She approaches the counter, her movements slightly flustered. This is the woman who took S.E.'s letter. The one who showed kindness when the rules demanded cruelty.
I decide I don't hate her entirely.
"What can I help you with today?" she asks, professionalism sliding back into place.
I hold up my own envelope. "Sending this."
She takes it, her eyes scanning the address—a P.O. box number at a facility two sectors away. The same address I've been using for five years.
"No problem." She starts processing, fingers moving through familiar motions. "Anything else?"
"Just a question." I keep my voice casual. Idle. "The rules about Omegas and postal services. They're real?"
Maria's expression tightens.
"Yes. New directive came down last night. Packless Omegas can no longer access mail services."
"Seems... harsh."
"It is." She sighs, stamping my envelope with more force than necessary. "But that's Ruthless Academy for you. Nothing makes sense here except the cruelty."
I nod slowly.
"Though—" she pauses, glancing up at me with something like hope, "—there are loopholes. Temporary pack arrangements. Workarounds. If you know any Omegas who need help, there might be options."
Interesting.
I file the information away for later.
"Thanks," I say, as she finishes processing my letter. "Have a good day."
"You too."
I turn to leave—
And freeze.
The counter to my left.
There's a letter sitting on it.
Pink envelope.
Darker stains on the wax seal.
Familiar handwriting.
Her letter.
The one Maria accepted as a "final courtesy."
The one that's addressed to a P.O. box I know intimately.
The one meant for me…
"Huh." Maria's voice comes from behind me, confused and slightly worried. "Where did I put that girl's envelope?"
My hand moves before I can think about it.
Practiced.
Precise.
The escape artist's sleight of hand—the skill that kept me alive in the performance troupe, that let me palm keys and slip locks and disappear things right under people's noses.
The pink envelope vanishes into my jacket like it was never there.
"Have a good day," I repeat, already moving toward the door.
Maria doesn't respond.
She's too busy searching the counter, her brow furrowed, trying to figure out where the letter went.
She won't find it.
The morning light hits me as I step outside, warmer now than it was before. The campus is starting to wake up—distant sounds of activity, students beginning their daily routines of violence and survival.
I stop on the steps.
Pull out the stolen envelope.
The pink wax seal gleams in the sunlight, marked with four drops of dried blood that I've been receiving for five years without ever asking why. Her handwriting—familiar as breathing, precious as air—spells out the P.O. box address I check obsessively every week.
S.E.
Cotton candy girl.
The beautiful, broken, bloodstained Omega who crashes into strangers and blushes when they hold her wrist and says things like smoking alone is lonely as fuck, don't you think?
She's been writing to me for five years.
Sealing each letter with her blood.
Waiting for responses, I've apparently been failing to send consistently enough.
Forty-seven days, she said to Maria. She hadn't heard from me in forty-seven days.
The guilt is immediate and crushing.
I've been here—at this goddamn academy—for three weeks. Three weeks of settling in, of reconnaissance, of tracking down intel on the Eastman heir we're supposed to eliminate.
Three weeks of not having access to my regular mail drop.
Three weeks of her thinking I abandoned her.
Thinking I died.
Thinking she was finally, completely alone.
I bring the envelope to my nose, breathing deep.
Cotton candy.
Frosted sugar.
Cherry blossom.
The scent is already fading—paper doesn't hold it as well as skin—but it's there. Proof. Confirmation. The final piece of a puzzle I didn't know I was solving.
My pen pal.
The girl I've been writing to since I was nineteen years old, desperate and drowning in the aftermath of escaping the performance troupe, clinging to anonymous correspondence like a lifeline.
She's here.
In Ruthless Academy.
A packless Omega with a body count and mismatched eyes and the kind of instability that should terrify me but instead makes me want to wrap her in my arms and never let go.
Fuck.
The situation is complicated.
More than complicated—it's a disaster waiting to happen.
We're here to hunt the Eastman heir.
She's here, surviving the same nightmare we were sent to navigate.
Our pack is Omegaless—a situation that's becoming increasingly untenable in a society that penalizes unmated groups. The pressure from our families to find an Omega, to complete the bond, to produce heirs for the empire...
It's relentless.
And here's this girl—
My girl—
Writing letters in blood and dancing in violence and smelling like everything I never knew I wanted.
I lift the envelope higher, studying the seal.
Four drops of blood.
Her commitment.
Her sacrifice.
I found her.
Not on purpose.
Not because I was looking.
But the universe, it seems, has a fucked-up sense of humor.
The irony isn't lost on me.
I'm supposed to be hunting the dangerous girl—the Eastman heir—who poses a threat to everything my pack has built.
Instead, I've found her.
My pen pal.
My secret.
The one person outside my pack who knows anything real about me, even if she doesn't know my name.
Even if I don't know hers.
But I know her scent now.
Know her face.
Know the way she blushes and pouts and says random things about smoking alone, being lonely.
I know she's here.
And nothing—nothing—is going to be the same.
I turn the envelope over, reading the return address—her P.O. box, the one I've been sending responses to for five years. Then I flip it back, running my thumb over the wax seal, feeling the slight ridge of dried blood beneath my fingertip.
A smile curves my lips.
Not the friendly kind.
The kind that promises mischief and chaos and the understanding that the game has just changed in ways no one saw coming.
"Cotton candy," I murmur, the words barely a whisper in the morning air.
The envelope gleams pink in the sunlight.
Her blood marks it as hers.
Her scent lingers on my skin.
Her face is burned into my memory—mismatched eyes and pink hair and that sharp, bright smile that hides something broken underneath.
"So you're my secret admirer."