Day 3 - Pt. 1/3

Verena had been gone for less than ten seconds when the air above every table chimed.

Then the message, a neat ripple of gold text on black field, shining like polished glass.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION
Type: Bond Assignment
Time: 1600
Contestant: Cassie Lin

On the first day, they would have flinched, argued, demanded explanations, or stared at the screens as if refusing to read them might **** the message back into whatever pocket of reality had produced it. Now the sound only made forks pause and shoulders settle into braced positions. The Hotel was speaking again. The only real question was how much of the morning it intended to take.

Cassie stared at the message.

Her fork remained in her hand, prongs pressed lightly into the remains of a cinnamon roll she had been pretending not to enjoy. A smear of icing clung to the edge of the plate. She lowered the fork with exaggerated care, as if sudden movements might make the screen add more instructions.

“Well,” she said, but no one helped her.

Van read the message twice, though the second reading did not add any loopholes. “Four o’clock.”

“Yeah, I got that part.” Cassie leaned back in her chair. Her expression had gone bright in the dangerous way it did when she wanted everyone to think she was angry before they noticed she was embarrassed. “Bond assignment. Sounds very official. Very sterile. Like we’re scheduled to assemble furniture.”

Fiona’s eyes moved from the message to Cassie. She said nothing, which was more careful than Fiona usually chose to be.

Claire reached for her tea and found the cup already empty. She set it down again.

Cassie’s gaze flicked from Claire to Van, quick enough to almost be nothing, then back to the screen. The glance left a trace anyway. Van did not know what to do with it, and for once did not try to make the uncertainty disappear under an apology.

“I’ll try to make it something good,” he said.

Cassie’s head came up.

He held up both hands, not defensive exactly. Open. “I know neither of us scheduled it. I know the word assignment is doing a lot of ugly work. But if we have to go, I don’t want it to be something you just survive until the clock runs out.”

Cassie studied him for a moment.

The old answer would have been easy. She could have accused him of sounding too comfortable. She could have asked whether he had gotten a taste for mandated romance after Claire. She could have set fire to the whole breakfast with three sentences and then called the smoke an improvement.

Instead, she looked back down for a moment before meeting his eyes.

“Fine,” she said. “Then no malt shop.”

Claire blinked.

Cassie pointed at her without looking. “Sorry, princess. I’m glad your little soda-fountain morality play went well, but if I am being dragged into my first actual date by a hotel with boundary issues, he is not wasting it on a milkshake and a jukebox.”

Claire’s mouth opened, closed, then curved despite herself. “I will try to survive the insult.”

“You do that.”

Van rested his forearms on the table. “You’ve never been on a date?”

Cassie’s eyes sharpened. “Don’t say that like I’m some kind of museum exhibit.”

“I wasn’t. I just didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, some of us were busy. Hero work, training, school, not dying, not getting mandatory events with some idiot with nice smiles and tragic playlists. You know, life.”

Naomi’s hand tightened around her mug, but she smiled into it.

Van nodded with the solemnity of a man receiving operational parameters. “No malt shop. No tragic playlists.”

“And nothing boring.” Cassie stabbed the cinnamon roll again, then seemed to remember she was supposed to be too irritated to eat it. She ate the bite anyway. “If the Hotel is going to make this weird, it can at least be weird with some kind of effort.”

“I can work with that.”

Fiona finally spoke. “Can you?”

Van looked at her. “Probably not, but I can fail in a more ambitious direction.”

Cassie pointed the fork at him. “That. Do that. Ambitious failure beats boring compliance.”

The notification dimmed, having done its work. No one pretended it was nothing. No one made the old arguments either.

Cassie pushed her chair back. “I have power testing, right?”

“Great. Fantastic. I’ll spend the morning being studied like a hostile alien and then go on my first date at four.” Cassie stood, plate in hand. “Very normal day. Ten out of ten. No notes.”

She carried the plate to the sideboard before anyone could decide whether that was retreat or composure.

Van watched her go, then looked to Fiona and Evelyn. His ribs seemed to ache in advance.

Training Room Two looked less like a gym than a place where **** had been raised in captivity.

The floor was padded in dark blue panels. The walls were smooth white broken by recessed storage alcoves, weapon racks with nothing sharp in them yet, and modular blocks that looked like furniture until Van noticed the scuff marks along their edges. Half the room had open mat space. The other half had movable cover, low barriers, railings, false doorways, and a raised platform no higher than a curb but somehow more ominous than the rest of the room combined.

Alpha stood in the center of it all as if the morning had been invented for her personal use.

Her blonde twin tails bounced when she turned. Her workout clothes were tight enough to look poured into place and bright enough to be used for emergency signaling. She had a clipboard in one hand, a whistle around her neck, and the smile of someone who believed liability waivers were a form of foreplay.

“Master!” she called. “You arrived alive, upright, and only mildly sleep-deprived. Excellent starting condition.”

Van stopped just inside the door. “That is the most energetic medical assessment I have ever received.”

Alpha swept toward him, already looking him over with cheerful precision. “Today, we are starting your long path from victim to victor! And the first lesson is you letting me throw you down repeatedly.”

Fiona came in behind him. “I already hate this.”

“Wonderful. Strong emotional engagement improves retention.”

Evelyn entered last, eyes moving over the room before they settled on Alpha. She took in the mat layout, the cover blocks, the observation display, the ceiling sensors, and the absence of anything obviously sharp. “Falling safely.”

Alpha put one hand to her chest as if Evelyn had recited a sacred text. “Miss Cross understands. Heroes dream of flight, strength, invulnerability, laser eyes, dramatic entrances, and outfits with questionable ventilation. Survivors learn how to hit the floor without donating bones to it.”

Van looked at the mat. “I’m not opposed to survival, but I would like to clarify that my bones and I have a long-standing arrangement.”

“Then today we preserve the relationship.” Alpha tossed the clipboard into the air without glancing up. A wall slot opened and swallowed it with a neat mechanical chirp. “Please stand in the center of the mat so I can put my hands on you repeatedly for your own safety.”

Fiona’s head turned slowly.

Alpha beamed at her. “Your concern is adorable, but unnecessary. I am an excellent instructor and only emotionally hazardous.”

“She says things like that and expects us to just move on,” Fiona said.

Van stepped onto the mat. “I think moving on is how she wins.”

“Good instinct, Master. Now, first rule: do not catch yourself with a locked arm. That is how wrists become modern art. Second rule: protect the head. Your brain is important, and several people have already invested emotionally in its continued function. Third rule: breathe. People forget sometimes. It is very silly and the body files complaints.”

Evelyn took a place near the edge of the mat. “His center of balance is too high.”

“My center of balance is where God put it,” Van said.

Fiona folded her arms. “God did a sloppy job.”

Alpha tapped Van’s shoulder. “Relax.”

He tried.

She tilted her head. “Less like a man being fitted for a coffin.”

He tried again.

“Better. I am going to tip you now.”

“Like furniture?”

She gave him a suggestive glance, “Like precious furniture, Master.”

Her grin returned and she set one hand on his shoulder and the other lightly against his side. Van stiffened a heartbeat before Alpha turned him, removed his balance with insulting ease, and deposited him on the mat.

He landed with a thud that sounded worse than it felt.

For a second, he stared at the ceiling.

Alpha leaned over him. “Good news. You fell for me! And you found the floor.”

Van took a breath. “Was it lost?”

“No, but for a moment, you were.”

Fiona made a noise behind her hand and pretended it was not a laugh.

Van started to push himself up. Alpha caught his wrist before he could put weight on it.

“Slowly Master, it’s going to be a long day.”

“I thought the goal was getting back up.”

“The goal is getting back up in a way that does not make the next thing worse. You aren’t learning how to fight. You are learning how to survive someone else’s fight.”

Van stopped moving.

Evelyn watched that instruction settle in. Alpha released his wrist and tapped the mat beside him.

“Again.”

Van turned his head toward Fiona. “I don’t suppose you want to trade places.”

“No.”

“Worth asking.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Alpha’s smile widened. “That is the sound of education beginning.”

Mirel Dane did not begin with comfort.

She waited until all six women had entered the assessment wing, watched the door seal behind them, then turned to a transparent display where their names already waited in a vertical list.

The room was larger than the classroom where she had lectured them the previous day, with a high ceiling, movable partitions, sensor grids, a half-circle of chairs, racks of equipment, and several doors leading into side chambers. One wall was glass looking into a pool room. Another contained panels that could become targets, restraints, cover, or medical beds depending on the cruelty of the hour.

The Hotel had given most of them the same clothes for the session: cotton pants, simple tank tops, soft athletic shoes. Clean, functional, and insufficient in the way everything the Hotel provided was insufficient. Claire had arrived in fitted athletic training gear from her own wardrobe, a result of her VP score. The difference was not flashy but it did stand out.

Cassie struggled unconsciously with the hem of her shirt. Her clothes had predictably rearranged themselves into tighter, shorter versions of the other girls’ simple attire. She was getting used to the fit, but couldn’t help the exposed feeling.

She also noticed the bare shoulders, the curves highlighted by soft fabrics, the way Naomi kept adjusting the hem of her tank as if modesty could be improved by willpower. Cassie looked away, then caught herself looking back at Claire’s legs when she shifted nervously in her chair.

Great.

Fantastic.

Apparently her hyper awareness of her shrinking clothes has installed a spotlight on everyone else’s fit as well. Now, she was turning into the fashion police.

The last two times she had pushed her power hard, someone’s clothing had paid the price. First during the transformation vote, she destroyed Van’s shirt and exposed him in a room full of strangers. Then in the jungle, she was **** to use too much power and blasted Claire naked. Fiona’s towel malfunction the night before had only made the tally worse, and Cassie was determined that surprise and embarrassment were all she felt about it.

Now she had a date at four o’clock and a science dungeon to clear while half-dressed in front of her teammates.

Her hand sparked unconsciously. She closed it into a fist, smothering the plasma quickly.

Mirel turned from the display. She looked worse in the brighter light. Not sick, exactly, but worn thin in a way sleep would not fix. Her hair was pinned back without vanity. Her coat was clean. Her eyes were not.

“Today’s assessment has three purposes,” Mirel said. “First, to establish baseline capability after your recent transformations. Second, to identify failure conditions before those failures occur in a battlefield. Third, to provide opportunities for small point awards when a measurable limitation is overcome.”

Lizzy looked up before she could stop herself. Naomi’s attention moved from the pool room to Mirel. Katherine’s fingers paused over her tablet.

Cassie leaned back in her chair. “So we perform tricks and get allowance money.”

“You perform controlled exercises and receive system currency if you demonstrate adaptive improvement.”

“That is the same sentence with a lab coat on.”

Mirel looked at her for a calculating moment. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Cassie had been ready for denial. Agreement left her with nothing to hit back at.

“The system is manipulative,” Mirel continued. “The reward structure is coercive. You know that already. None of that makes currency useless. You have limited privacy, possessions, clothing, access, and movement. If the system offers some kind of leverage, take it. You do not become virtuous by leaving perfectly good tools on the floor.”

Katherine crossed one leg over the other. “A bleak little pep talk.”

“I am not paid to be uplifting.”

“Are you paid?”

Mirel gave her a tired look. “That is a longer conversation than today permits.”

She touched the display. The names rearranged themselves by some logic no one saw. “These are tactical baselines with medical monitoring. You are not here to satisfy my curiosity. You are here because eventually you will fight together, and secrets become dangerous when they reach the battlefield before your allies do.”

Mara sat near the end of the row, hands folded neatly. “And the parts we do not understand yet?”

Mirel did not answer quickly.

“Transformations rarely operate in isolation,” she said at last. “They attach to existing instincts, habits, fears, preferences, and stress responses. The Hotel is efficient. It does not spend power building a new road where your mind has already paved one.”

Claire’s hair shifted against her back. She caught the movement with one hand before it became noticeable.

“You always talk like the answer is two inches to the left of what you’re saying,” Cassie said.

Mirel’s expression flattened. Not cold, exactly. Tired in a way she could not name. “Then learn to look two inches to the left.”

Van’s third fall was better than his first. Still ugly, but less catastrophic.

Alpha crouched beside him, tapping two fingers against the mat near his shoulder. “You are trying to negotiate with gravity after it has already won. Earlier decisions, Master. Earlier.”

Van rolled onto his back. “I am beginning to hate gravity.”

“That isn’t nice, Master! You have beautiful feelings and you broadcast them adorably.” Her face crinkled as she made a tiny moue of disapproval. “No more hating gravity.”

Fiona shifted her weight.

Alpha looked delighted. “Miss Kavanagh, your disapproval posture is improving. You are very stable through the hips.”

“Comment on my hips again and I’ll test your warranty.”

Alpha gave her a measuring look, but returned her attention to Van. “Tempting, but we are on Master’s lesson.”

Evelyn stepped closer. “He is bracing because he wants control before the fall has finished. He needs one instruction, not three.”

Alpha gestured grandly. “Please provide one.”

Evelyn looked down at Van. “Do not stand up.”

Van pushed himself onto one elbow. “I’m sorry?”

“When you hit the ground, your first instinct is to prove you are not helpless by rising immediately. Stop. Identify where you are. Protect your head. Find cover. Then move.”

Van absorbed that with a look of concentration.

Fiona watched him take it in. There was less flailing when someone gave him a clean rule. He did not become confident, but the panic found a shape.

Alpha rocked back on her heels. “Beautiful. Harsh, efficient, emotionally economical. I approve.”

“I wasn’t seeking approval,” Evelyn said.

“That makes it even better! Don’t you love spontaneity?”

Van sat up more carefully. “So falling down is not the failure.”

Alpha’s eyes brightened. “He learns.”

“Staying down stupidly is the failure,” Fiona said. “Standing up stupidly is also a failure. There are many ways to reduce stupidity.”

Van looked at her. “That was almost advice.”

“It will be if you survive long enough to use it.”

Alpha sprang to her feet. “Progress, Master! Now we add some direction.”

The room shifted. Low blocks slid from the floor along silent tracks, rising into cover points. One panel lit red. Another blue. A soft tone chimed from somewhere above them.

Van watched the moving barriers. “The floor does tricks.”

“The floor has completed more combat modules than you,” Alpha said. “Respect the floor.”

He stood. And Alpha positioned him facing the open mat. “I will displace you. Miss Cross will call a direction. You will fall, orient, and move to the indicated cover. Miss Kavanagh will judge whether your movement would embarrass your ancestors.”

Evelyn moved to the side where she could see the room. “Left cover first.”

Alpha stepped in and in a flash, Van went down.

“Left,” Evelyn called.

He started to rise.

“Do not stand,” she said.

He caught himself, crawled awkwardly behind the low block, and nearly hit his head against the edge.

Alpha applauded. “Ugly, but alive.”

Fiona nodded once. “Better.”

Van looked up from behind the block. “I will treasure that begrudging comment forever.”

“Don’t. I have higher standards.”

Claire’s first test involved a darkened room, moving objects, and the new area mapping power granted by her transformation.

Mirel did not ask her to perform in front of everyone immediately. The partitions shifted, creating an enclosed test lane with a waist-high wall and several suspended panels. Small drones moved behind them with faint mechanical whispers.

“Do not **** it,” Mirel said from the observation line. “Let it breathe.”

Claire stood at the start marker, one hand at her side, the other near the fall of red hair over her shoulder. “Let it breathe?”

Claire closed her eyes because her irritation was using energy she needed elsewhere.

At first, nothing happened except the awareness of being watched. Then a faint pressure moved along her scalp, not unpleasant but too intimate to be neutral. Her hair stirred. A few strands rose from her shoulders as if lifted by water. She felt the air move where the drones passed, or thought she did, except the sensation arrived from the wrong place. Not skin. Not hearing. Something distributed.

“Left panel,” she said.

A drone chirped.

“Correct,” Mirel said. “Again.”

Claire’s hair shifted.

“High right. Two moving. One slow, one...” Her brow furrowed. “One stopped.”

“Correct.”

The third pass was faster. Claire missed one, caught another, then turned sharply before a drone darted around the low wall.

Her hair snapped toward it before she spoke.

Mirel marked something on the display.

Claire opened her eyes. “What did it do?”

“What it was designed to do.”

Mirel adjusted the test. The drones withdrew. The room brightened. “Second condition.”

The side door opened and a staff mannequin stepped into the lane. It was blank-faced, human-shaped, and bland enough to annoy by existing. It moved behind Claire in a silent arc.

Her power was tracking the mannequin. She was becoming familiar with the new sense she had, but using it actively like this was disorienting. She couldn’t see in the darkened room but had a growing certainty to her movements.

A second mannequin entered from the opposite direction, this one moving fast and carrying a padded baton.

Claire’s hair reacted faster, strands lifting toward the threat.

“Faster movement receives priority,” Mirel said. “Your power is just a sensory organ. It is reacting to your perception of danger. It’s like when a baseline human’s hair stands on end if they sensed danger, but for you it’s magnified.”

The mannequins moved again. Claire focused on the work because work was safer than focusing on the language. She detected both approaches, misjudged the second angle, corrected, then managed to step aside before the baton touched her shoulder.

Claire stepped out of the lane. Her hair settled slowly over her shoulder. Lizzy gave her a small nod as she passed.

“Your hair is so pretty, Claire.” She pulled at her own brown locks in mild jealousy. “Sometimes I wish my hair was more colorful, but I don’t think it would suit me.”

Claire sat beside her, “Your hair suits you perfectly, Lizzy.” She touched Lizzy’s hair briefly. “It looks like dark honey.”

Lizzy’s smile spoke volumes, but she couldn’t muster a response so she turned back to see who was next instead.

Alpha’s hands were everywhere.

Not in a way Van could object to without sounding ridiculous. She adjusted his shoulder because his shoulder was wrong. She moved his elbow because his elbow was trying to become a casualty. She tapped his knee, shifted his foot, pressed a palm between his shoulder blades to make him bend, and once grabbed the waistband of his training pants with cheerful professionalism to stop him from overbalancing.

Fiona’s patience began losing pieces.

Alpha ignored the rising tension in the room.

“Master, you have a surprisingly cooperative body, but you are holding a lot of tension. Stop arguing with your body and do what it needs you to.” The last part was said with a leering whine and a pout.

Van wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. “I promise I am not arguing with my body on purpose.”

“That is what makes it tragic.”

Evelyn watched the next fall with arms folded. “He improves when the instruction is external and immediate. He performs worse when asked to self-assess mid-motion.”

“Very good,” Alpha said. “Master is not ready to think while falling.”

“Master is standing right here.”

Alpha swept his leg.

He went down. Shoulder rolling, chin tucked, breath knocked loose but not stolen.

“Cover,” Evelyn said.

He moved before looking, this time he reached the block cleanly.

Alpha’s movement stopped mid stride, whistle stopped swinging against her chest. The pause lasted less than a breath. Van was too busy being proud of not smashing his face into the mat to notice. Fiona did notice. Evelyn’s attention left Van and settled on Alpha.

Then Alpha clapped, bright again. “There. That almost looked like survival.”

Van leaned his forehead against the cover block. “I have never been so flattered.”

Fiona came closer. “Again.”

Van peered up. “I thought she was in charge.”

“She is. I’m annoyed enough to step in.”

Fiona crouched in front of him. “You keep waiting to check whether you’re allowed to move. Stop. If someone gives you a direction in a fight, move. Ask for explanations later.”

Van pushed himself upright behind the block. “That is actually useful.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure you want to waste it on me?”

The words came out too light, but Fiona did not let them stay light.

“Stop doing that.”

Van blinked.

“Making your survival sound optional.” She stood, but she did not step back. “It is annoying. Also tactically stupid.”

Evelyn said nothing. She did not need to.

Alpha clasped both hands under her chin. “Growth through insults. Efficient and emotionally layered.” She batted her eyelashes at Fiona, “I knew you cared about the Master!”

Fiona pointed at her. “Do not ruin my point by liking it.”

“I like many things I’m not supposed to touch,” she pouted at Van.

Evelyn’s head turned to face the coach, but the smile Alpha gave her had no hint of theatre in it.

Lizzy’s test lane looked simple, which made her distrust it. One hallway, lots of collapsed pipes, one small cube at the end.

Mirel said, “Each pipe is a different material with wildly different density. Furthermore, the walls are out of play. Imagine there is a great fire or vacuum, some danger you cannot risk allowing into the hallway. You must phase through the gaps to collect the cube.”

Lizzy stared at the hall. “This feels like the kind of simple where the audience gets to laugh when a giant boxing glove knocks me into some water.”

“It just might,” Mirel said. “Now, begin.”

The first attempt Lizzy stepped into the hall, body blurring at the edges, then emerged on the other side with a small metal cube in hand. She placed it on the circle.

Cassie gave a low whistle. “Still weird.”

Lizzy smiled despite herself. “Thank you?”

“I didn’t say bad weird.”

Second pass: the pipe’s density was increased by degrees and the cube was larger and heavier. Still her result was clean.

Third pass: Mirel changed the densities halfway through. Lizzy stumbled coming out and caught herself against the table. The cube stayed in her hands.

“Again,” Mirel said.

Fourth pass: increased temperature, flashing lights, and a sudden screaming alarm tone. The environment was chaos.

Lizzy flinched. The hem of her shirt flickered translucent and snapped back. Her hand went to the vanishing hem before she could stop it.

Mirel’s voice changed slightly. “Do not chase the mistake. Finish the task.”

Lizzy swallowed, nodded, and moved.

The cube was larger and heavier than before and it nearly slipped through her fingers at the end of the hall, but she held it. As she exited, she had to make a choice. The cube was so heavy and dense that she had trouble moving it through certain pipes. She was **** to crawl on her knees while bending awkwardly to carry the cube through sections with lower density. She walked on her knees at one point, crawled for a bit and eventually had to bend backwards to push the cube through an opening while lying on a bent pipe, phasing her hands and arms while keeping her back and legs solid. When she emerged, her face was pale and damp at the temples. Her shirt was still there, so were her pants. She still had the cube.

She placed it on the circle. Only then did she breathe.

Mara looked on with concern, “God, Lizzy. My knees hurt watching that!”

Lizzy was flushed with success at her phasing and relief that her clothes were all accounted for. “I’m sure it will hurt later, right now I’m just glad I made it.”

Mirel walked closer. “You keep treating this like a childhood regression. Stop watching your clothes so closely.”

Lizzy looked back sharply.

“It is not,” Mirel said. “Your power has expanded beyond the control framework you built for it. The old framework is not shameful. It got you this far, but now it’s too small.”

Lizzy stood very still, “So what do I do?”

Mirel let her have that, then added, “You can build a larger one. Do it the same way.”

Katherine crossed one leg over the other. “That sounded almost like encouragement.”

“It was encouragement. Don’t get confused here, I’m not a cheer mom nor am I your best friend. But, I want you all to succeed.” Her gaze was unfocused, lost in memory for a moment. “Desperately so, but you have to do the growing yourself.”

Lizzy returned to the group, still pale but standing straighter. As she sat, Mara touched her shoulder in acknowledgement.

Lizzy did not look at her, instead she smiled at the floor.

Evelyn objected after Alpha put Van on his back for the eighth time.

He was winded, sweating, and red-faced, but he kept recovering with a stubbornness that made each earlier assumption less comfortable. Alpha had increased the pace in small increments. Van complained, but his body complied. His falls became less catastrophic. His turns came sooner. His eyes found cover faster.

The lesson was working. Alpha’s commentary was also getting worse.

“Master, excellent hip response.”

“Master, your breathing improved when I was on top of you.”

“Master, please do not tense every muscle when a woman approaches from behind. Save some panic for variety.”

Van had stopped answering after the fifth one. Fiona had begun watching Alpha the way she would watch a house fire. Evelyn remained silent longer than she intended because the technique under the performance was sound.

Then Alpha stepped close behind Van, placed both hands on his waist to reset his stance, and said, “There, much better Master. Your body learns beautifully when guided by a firm hand.”

“Enough,” Evelyn said.

Alpha looked over Van’s shoulder. “Oh?” she asked, forming the sound with a perfect circle of glossy, bubble gum lips. “You have a concern?”

“Your commentary is interfering with the lesson.”

Van looked relieved, then immediately tried not to.

Alpha released him and stepped back with flawless grace. “If my instructional style is distracting, maybe you’re willing to take a turn with your Master.”

Evelyn understood the trap as Alpha gestured toward the mat.

“Miss Cross, would you demonstrate?”

Fiona looked from Alpha to Evelyn. Her expression said she saw the big red “X” on the floor and would not be stepping on it herself.

Evelyn could refuse. Refusal would be reasonable even. She was not the instructor, and her objection had been to method, not principle. There were several clean exits.

Van said, “You don’t have to.”

Evelyn stepped onto the mat. “I know.”

Alpha hopped onto a block and sat cross legged, pleased enough to be unbearable.

Evelyn faced Van. He looked freshly alarmed, not because he objected but because he couldn’t figure out why Alpha looked so pleased with herself.

“This is not complicated,” Evelyn said. “You are making it complicated because you are trying to do three things at once. You want to obey the instructions, avoid hurting the person helping you, and look less helpless than you feel.”

Van rubbed the back of his neck. “That is uncomfortably well organized.”

“It is also inefficient. For the next drill, you will do one thing.”

“Which is?”

“When I move you, you follow the **** instead of resisting it.”

Alpha propped her chin in both hands. “Wonderful, Evelyn. I knew you were the direct sort.”

Evelyn ignored her. “Ready?”

“No,” Van said.

“Good.” She put one hand on his shoulder and another on his forearm.

He was warm from exertion. Warm, solid, slightly trembling from fatigue. Not weak. His breathing was still uneven, but he was listening. His eyes stayed on hers, waiting for instruction.

The sudden awareness of Van’s skin under her fingers irritated her before it became anything else.

“Do not brace,” she said.

“I’m trying not to.”

He laughed once, breathless. The sound moved through the contact more than it should have.

Evelyn shifted her grip, turned, and guided him down.

He followed badly but not disastrously. She went with him, controlling the descent, one knee on the mat, his shoulder against her forearm, his weight briefly caught across her line of balance.

Close, too close for the amount of attention she thought she had budgeted for this.

Van froze. “Did I do it wrong?”

“No.” Her voice came out steady because she had trained it to do so. “You stopped halfway through to freeze and check if I was approving.”

“I didn’t know I was,” he looked serious. “I can do better.”

Van was holding Evelyn’s wrist and shoulder as she pulled him up, the contact felt steadying and warm on skin in a way she didn’t expect.

Evelyn was confident and secure in the presence of men. She had been desired, pursued, underestimated, and used as an icon by men who sought her attention for every conceivable end. She was not a girl startled by the touch of a hand.

Despite that, when he held her close as he rose, she felt the tiniest flutter in her pulse. An echo of her less-confident youth when the touch of a boy’s hand held all kinds of questions and promises. She froze for the barest instant.

Fiona snorted. “You can let go, Van.” She was oblivious to Eveyln’s momentary unbalancing. “She’s a celebrity, but here she’s just helping you fall down better. Stop being weird.”

Alpha’s smile widened by a mathematical fraction, but everyone else was too busy to notice.

Evelyn reset the drill.

The second attempt was better. The third was worse because Van anticipated. The fourth improved because he stopped anticipating and listened. Each correction required touch: shoulder, wrist, upper arm, side. Each repetition made more sense to him and less convenient to her.

She immediately filed her response away; stress, sleep debt, physical exertion, long abstinence. She was not going to allow some sweaty young man to make her feel the foolishness of youth. This was not a mystery, she was merely feeling a need.

“Again,” she said.

Van followed the ****, rolled, and came up on one knee instead of trying to stand.

For the first time, he smiled because the motion had worked. Not at her. At the discovery.

Evelyn’s hand hesitated on his forearm. She released him.

Alpha’s voice floated from the block. “Excellent work, Evelyn. Your comfort with Master Van is a good match.”

Fiona turned on her. “I will throw you through the observation glass.”

Alpha pointed helpfully. “It’s Reinforced.”

Fiona had been watching Evelyn differently since the second demonstration.

Evelyn was still Evelyn Cross: polished, famous, terrifyingly composed, and difficult to imagine doing anything as ordinary as sweating. But there was skill under the composure. Not psychic pressure. Not reputation. She moved well. She placed her feet well. She knew how weight traveled through a body and where a person lost leverage before they knew they had lost it.

Fiona had always known Evelyn was powerful. She had not thought of powerful as something built in the hips, hands, and knees. That change in her assessment stayed with her when the drill ended. Fiona started to wonder how much of a fight Evelyn could give her.