Chapter 11
The Golden Ticket Burns
~SERAPHINE~
"Seraphine. Stay behind, please."
The words land like a death sentence.
I freeze mid-step, my foot hovering just above the ground, body caught in that terrible moment of suspension where you know something bad is coming but haven't figured out yet exactly how bad it will be.
Around me, the other students file out of the classroom—a river of bodies and scents and whispered conversations that part around me like I'm a stone in the current.
Some of them glance back, curiosity flickering in their eyes.
Others deliberately avoid looking, as if my impending misfortune might be contagious.
The mean girls from earlier pass closest.
One of them—the ringleader, with her glossy hair and venomous smile—pauses just long enough to whisper something to her friends. They all laugh, that sharp, cruel sound I've been hearing variations of since I was twelve years old.
I don't react.
One-two-three-four.
One-two-three-four.
My toe taps against the floor—tap-tap-tap-tap—four times before I force it still.
The classroom empties.
The door closes.
And I'm left alone with Professor Harrington, who's looking at me with an expression I've learned to recognize over years of receiving bad news.
Pity.
Resignation.
The face of someone about to take something from you and wishing they didn't have to.
"What's the matter?" I ask, my voice coming out flatter than I intend.
She gestures to the chair nearest her desk.
"Sit down, please."
I don't sit.
Sitting means vulnerability. Means accepting whatever's about to happen. Equals to staying still when every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, to fight, to do something other than stand here waiting for the next blow to land.
Professor Harrington sighs—a soft, resigned sound.
"I know Ms. Chen informed you about the rescheduled recitals," she begins, her fingers fidgeting with something on her desk. A paper. A letter. "The audition in three days. The opportunity with Ms. Martinez."
Opportunity.
The word tastes like ash on my tongue.
I've been calling it that too, haven't I? Opportunity. Chance. Possibility. All the pretty words we use to dress up desperate hope and make it look respectable.
"But I believe you should read this."
She holds out the letter.
My hand trembles slightly as I take it—not fear…just the fucking tremors that never quite go away—and unfold the paper with deliberate care.
The words swim before my eyes.
...effective immediately...
...auditions officially canceled for all packless Omega students...
...only participants with verified pack bonds or probationary pack arrangements will be eligible...
...minimum probation period of one month required for verification...
...we regret any inconvenience...
Inconvenience.
A giggle escapes.
High, bright, absolutely fucking unhinged.
Professor Harrington flinches.
I don't blame her. The sound coming out of my mouth right now would make anyone flinch. It's not laughter—not really. It's the noise your brain makes when it's trying to process devastation and comes up short. The sound of hope being ground into powder.
"They're calling it an inconvenience," I say, and my voice sounds wrong. Too calm. Too controlled. Like I'm reading a shopping list instead of my own death warrant. "They just took away everything I've been working for, and they're sorry for the inconvenience."
"Sera—"
"A month." I look up at her, and I know my eyes must be wild right now. Can feel the instability bleeding through. "A month of probation. That's the minimum?"
She nods slowly.
"Yes. Thirty days with a verified pack before an Omega is eligible for any performance opportunities."
"And I have three days."
"Yes."
The math is simple.
Even a broken brain like mine can do it.
Three days ≠ thirty days.
Game over.
Thank you for playing.
Please exit through the gift shop of disappointment.
I lower my voice, forcing it steady through sheer will.
"The auditions for Omegas with packs…will Martinez be there?"
Professor Harrington's expression softens into something almost tender. Almost maternal. It makes my chest ache in ways I don't want to examine.
"Yes." She leans forward, dropping her own voice to match mine. "Sera, listen to me. You're a prodigy in the making. I know you're independent, I know you don't want to rely on a pack, but I don't want your dreams to be taken away by this."
Dreams.
Such a fragile word.
Such a useless one.
Dreams don't survive places like Ruthless Academy. They get ground up along with everything else—hope, innocence, the belief that the world might eventually be kind.
"The opportunity to get scholarships, prizes, and obviously to be able to leave Ruthless Academy once and for all is up for the claim." She reaches out, almost touching my arm before thinking better of it. "It's like the ultimate golden ticket."
Golden ticket.
The words echo in my skull.
A way out.
A door to somewhere that isn't here. A chance to dance on stages that don't have blood dried into the floorboards, for audiences that won't watch me with predatory hunger, in a world where my designation doesn't determine my worth.
And it's locked behind a door I can't open.
Because I'm packless.
Because I've survived alone for years instead of finding Alphas to claim me.
Because the universe has decided, once again, that Seraphine Eastman doesn't get to have nice things.
I fold the letter carefully—two folds, not three, never three—and hand it back to Professor Harrington.
"Thank you," I say, and my voice comes out perfectly composed. Perfectly controlled. Perfectly dead. "For telling me in person."
She looks like she wants to say something else.
Something comforting, maybe. Something about hope, or other opportunities, or the way things might change if I just wait long enough.
But she doesn't.
Because we both know those words would be lies.
And whatever else Professor Harrington is, she's not a liar.
I turn and walk out of the classroom.
The campus is grey.
It's always grey—concrete and steel and the permanent overcast sky that hangs over Ruthless Academy like a physical manifestation of institutional despair. But today it feels greyer than usual. Heavier. Like the atmosphere itself is pressing down on my shoulders, trying to grind me into dust.
My feet carry me toward the forest.
I don't decide to go there. Don't consciously choose to walk this path, past the administrative buildings and the combat rings and the fountain where they sometimes hang bodies as warnings.
My body just... moves.
Following some instinct I don't understand toward a destination I'm not ready to name.
Why do I really have to rely on men to prove she can dance?
The thought surfaces unbidden, bitter and burning.
That I’m gifted.
That I’m worthy of freedom.
In an environment that's constantly testing and attempting to be rid of me.
I've killed sixteen people.
Maybe seventeen.
I've survived things that should have destroyed me. Danced in blood. Written letters to a ghost for five years just to prove I wasn't completely alone.
And none of it matters.
None of it counts for anything because I don't have an Alpha's bite mark on my neck and a pack bond humming beneath my skin.
Except...
My hand drifts to my hip, where a new awareness pulses beneath the surface.
Sage.
The sensation of our bond is there—faint but undeniable, a connection that isn't quite mine. I can feel him somewhere in the distance, a low thrum of concern and frustration and something that might be affection bleeding through the connection.
We're bonded now.
Technically, I have a pack. Or the beginning of one.
But probation is a month.
The audition was supposed to be in three days.
And even if Sage's pack accepted me—which they won't, can't, because I'm too broken, too dangerous, too crazy—it wouldn't be enough time.
It's never enough time.
I stop walking.
The edge of the forest looms ahead—that dark tangle of trees that marks the border between sectors, where academy rules dissolve and only the law of the jungle remains.
The Dead Forest.
Where I was supposed to cross in three days for an audition that's now been canceled.
Where anyone can kill or be killed.
Where the monsters roam free.
Perfect, I think, and the thought tastes like irony. Just fucking perfect.
My mind drifts to Sage.
I wonder if he's read my last letter yet.
The one I wrote two weeks ago, back when I was spiraling deeper than usual, back when the darkness was so thick I could barely breathe through it. The one where I talked about endings and beginnings and the exhaustion of carrying a weight too heavy for one person.
The one where I said goodbye.
Not explicitly.
I was too much of a coward to be explicit.
But between the lines...if he read carefully...if he knows me the way I think he does...
He would understand.
He would be angry…
A smirk curls my lips at the thought.
We're bonded now, which makes my intentions so much worse.
Because bonded means connected.
Bonded means he'll feel it when—
I stop that thought before it can fully form.
Not yet. Not now. Focus.
My brother's face surfaces in my memory.
Knox.
He cares about me. I know he does. In his cold, controlled, terrifying way, Knox Eastman loves his little sister.
But he's in a secure pack now. Has an Omega to love—a powerful badass woman who survived the walls of Dead Knot. He has a family. A future. A reason to live that extends beyond the burning need for vengeance.
And me?
What do I have?
I can't dance.
The thought lands like a blow.
I can't learn or excel.
Another hit.
I can't send letters.
The trifecta of destruction.
Soon they'll take my townhome away.
The knockout punch.
Everything I've fought for. Everything I've killed for. Everything I've survived for.
Gone.
Being stripped away piece by piece until there's nothing left but the empty shell of a girl who used to dream of Juilliard.