In the shadow of the queen

The scent of formalin and chilled linoleum struck me the moment I reached the stairwell, and my stomach knotted tight on instinct.

Every step up the stairs dragged heavily. The dressing over the bruised, torn skin rubbed against the cotton of my boxers with every movement, and although no rigid metal sliced into me today, my groin felt raw, tender, and numb. My palms were damp. I wiped them nervously against my thighs, my pulse pounding straight into my temples.

I kept Loona’s words anchored in my head, clinging to them like a mantra—*You belong to me. Nobody touches you.*—yet as I shoved the heavy swing doors to the Anatomy lecture hall open, the panic nearly suffocated me all the same.

Two hundred people sat inside, and a handful of them had witnessed my absolute lowest point. The memory of the flat in Mitte burned like fresh acid in my chest: Julian’s dumbfounded grin, Mara’s voyeuristic stare, and above all, Sophie’s shrill, hysterical laughter over the wisp of black lace and the brass lock dangling between my trembling thighs. They had paraded me around as a ridiculous, emasculated sideshow.

I hunched my shoulders on reflex, kept my chin down, and pressed as close to the wall of the central aisle as I could. I just wanted to be invisible.

Down in the fourth row, the circle sat clustered together.

Sophie was leaning against the bench with a coffee cup in hand, flanked by Mara and Julian. They clocked me the second I started down the steps. Sophie raised her head, that exact smug, vicious smirk spreading across her features that I had dreaded all morning long. She nudged Mara with her elbow.

My heart hitched. An icy chill raced up my neck; I braced for the cutting remark, the loud crack about chastity belts meant to echo halfway across the hall.

"Well, look at that," Sophie began, raising her voice to draw ears as she scanned me with open mockery. "If it isn't our..."

She didn't finish.

Emma, seated directly beside Sophie, jerked upright all at once, as if jabbed with a needle. Her head snapped around, and for a fraction of a heartbeat, our eyes locked.

I flinched back on pure instinct, my whole body bracing for the next blow.

The blow never landed.

Emma froze. The instant her gaze registered me, every drop of color drained from her face. Her skin turned chalk-white, the shade of cold ash. Her pupils blew wide, dark and hollow, devoid of malice, devoid of disdain—filled with nothing but raw, unadulterated terror.

Her fingers, which had been holding a printed script, began to shake so violently the paper rustled in the quiet. She looked at me and didn't see the defenseless boy from stall three. She saw her own ruin. She saw the threat from the night before, the end of her career, Loona’s clinical reckoning hanging over her head.

"Shut… shut your mouth, Sophie," Emma croaked, the words barely more than a strangled gasp.

Sophie trailed off mid-syllable, her brow furrowing in confusion as she looked over at her friend. "What? Emma, what is—"

"Be quiet!" Emma hissed, panic tearing her voice until it cracked.

She ripped her gaze away from me, ducking her head so low between her shoulders that she nearly vanished behind the desk, her eyes darting wildly down at her empty hands. Her knees knocked under the bench with enough force to send a faint tremor through the timber. She avoided looking in my direction entirely, cowering as though my mere presence might inflict third-degree burns.

Sophie stared at Emma in disbelief, glanced back up at me with open confusion, looked back to Emma’s shaking hands, and watched her own arrogance evaporate on the spot. Mara fell silent too, the mockery catching in her throat. They had no idea what was happening—they only saw their untouchable queen collapsing into a heap of pure fright.

Standing on the steps, my head spun.

I had won no victory. I hadn't stared anyone down. I was standing there with weak knees, slick palms, and a racing pulse—yet the impossible had happened: it was true.

Loona’s protection hadn't been an empty promise. She had pulled the teeth from this vicious clique in a single stroke without even stepping foot inside the building. The mere shadow of her authority was enough to bring Emma to her knees.

A wave of dizzying, disorienting relief washed over me, chased by an awe so sharp it brought tears to my eyes. I scrambled two tiers higher, dropped onto an empty bench, and flattened my hands against the wood to hide the violent tremor in my fingers.

I stared down at the curve of Emma’s bowed back. She was terrified of me because I was Loona’s property. And as the lecturer stepped up to the podium, I buried my face in my hands—utterly consumed by a dark, fathomless gratitude for the woman who kept me chained, and who shielded me from the entire world in the very same breath.