Chapter 263: "Is He Like Us?"

The fire pit felt different without him.

Smaller, somehow. Quieter. Like Phei had taken all the oxygen when he walked off toward the admin building, leaving the four of them sitting on log benches with nothing to do but wait and pretend they weren't slowly suffocating on thefumesof their owndenial.

Emily lasted approximately three minutes.

"You should go," Sierra said—not cruelly, just matter-of-factly, the way you'd tell an employee their shift was over and the store was closing in five. "We need to discuss some things. Privately."

The small girl practically vibrated with relief.

"Of course! Yes! Absolutely! I'll just—I'll go check on the—there's probably things I should—yes. Going now."

Shefled.

Fled was the right word for it. The girl had been wound tighter than a watch spring since the moment the three of them had arrived, standing at attention like a soldier awaiting court martial, sweat visible on her temples despite the cool afternoon air.

Every time Sierra had shifted, Emily flinched. Every time Maddie had laughed, Emily's eyes darted toward the sound like she was tracking a predator.

Main Legaciesdid that to people.

It wasn't intentional—not always—but it wasinescapable.

The invisible weight of their names pressed down on everyone around them, bending spines and lowering gazes and turning normal conversations into minefields that lesser families navigated on trembling legs.

Privilege so thick it had its own gravity. Entitlementdressed up as breeding. Hypocrisy wearing designer labels and fake concern. Emily was justcollateral damagein the war they waged on everyone who wasn't born with a silver spoon lodged in their windpipe—or at least a platinum card that could buy one.

Mayadidn't swim in those waters.

She'd left earlier, drifting away with that mysterious smile of hers, treating them like equals—or less, honestly.

Some days it felt likeMayalooked at everyone like they werevaguely interesting specimensin azooshe was visiting like Main Legacies were nothing. But Maya was... Maya. Whatever category she occupied, it wasn't one anyone else could access.

She didn't bend. She didn't break. She just existed above the mess, watching the rich kids play at suffering like it was performance art they'd paid extra for.

Emily was just a scholarship kid with Phei's fan account.

Thedismissalhad been a kindness, really. A liberation really. And the way she'd practically sprinted toward the trees made it clear she felt exactly the same way—grateful to escape the orbit of girls who could ruin her life with a single bored text, or worse, with bored pity.

Which left three.

Sierra. Maddie. Delilah.

The fire pit was cold. The afternoon light was starting to slant golden through the trees. And somewhere in that admin building, Phei was either saving himself or destroying everything—probably both, becausetrauma never travels alone, and when it does, it usually bringsreceipts.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

Then Sierra spoke.

"We need to talk about what's happening."

Neither of the other two pretended not to know what she meant.

"With Phei,"Sierra continued, voice flat. "The changes. Thetransformation. All of it." She looked at them, green eyes sharp. "Why are we pretending we don't see it?"

Silence.

The kind that stretched and ached and said more than words ever could.

Because they had been pretending. All three of them. No, actually not just three but all theMainandImmediateLegacies have beenpretendingthey did not see. Every single day, watching Phei become something impossible, something that defied every law of biology and genetics and common bloody sense—and not saying a word.

Not to each other.

Not to him.

Not even to themselves, really, in the quiet hours of the night when the questions gnawed and the implications loomed and the only defense was to roll over and force yourself back to sleep while your body remembered exactly how his hands felt when they weren't gentle anymore—when they pinned, when they claimed, when they left beautiful bruises they asked for that looked like ownership instead of accidents.

Maddie broke first.

"Okay but what if—"She sat up straighter, eyes suddenly bright with that manic energy that meant her brain was about to go somewhere unhinged. "—what if he's like, a government experiment? Like, super soldier serumtype shit? And the reason he's changing so fast is because they finally activated him?"

Sierra and Delilah looked at her.

Just... looked.

"Or!" Maddie barreled on, undeterred."What if he made a deal with something? Like ademonor adjinnor one of thosecreepy faethings from the old stories? Traded his soul forhotness? Because honestly, that tracks, have you seen his bone structure now, that's not natural—those cheekbones could cut glass and probably have. I'd let them. Repeatedly."

"Maddie."

"—or maybe he's been replaced! Body snatcher situation! The real Phei is locked in a basement somewhere and this is like, a clone, or a doppelganger, or—"

"Maddie."

She stopped.

Sierra's expression hadn't changed. Delilah was biting her lip, looking at the ground.

And in that moment, it was painfully, obviously clear: This wasn't a conversation between three clueless girls throwing around theories.

This was a conversation between three girls who already knew what they were avoiding—and one of them who wasdesperately, chaoticallythrowing upsmoke screens to avoid joining them.

Because admitting it meant admitting they'd watched a broken boy turn predator right in front of them. Watched the trauma carve him into something sharper, hungrier, more dangerous.

Watched the power imbalance flip until they weren't the ones holding the reins anymore—they were the ones getting pulled, getting used, getting wet despite themselves because the monster was prettier than the boy they knew ever was.

The silence returned.

Heavier now.

Because they knew. Or they suspected, which was almostworse—suspicionleft room for hope, and hope made you stupid. Hope made you cling to impossibilities rather than face the truth staring you in the face: that Phei wasn't just changing.

He wasawakeningandhunting.

And the sickest part? They were still sitting here, thighs pressed together, pulse jumping, waiting for him to come back and finish what trauma started.

How long were they going to avoid this?