Foreigner

Chapter 37

Gaining the Seven's trust has been nothing but following orders without protest.

No clever tricks. No witty remarks. Just silence and obedience. Like a dog.

I'm compromising my morals each time they ask me to beat up or blackmail someone who's just daring to rebel against the Seven's tyranny. It's never the strong ones. Never someone who could fight back. It's always a scholarship kid with a mouth too big or a freshman with more courage than sense.

The old Lukas dies a little every time I get a new order.

I think about that a lot now—how many versions of me I've already buried just to survive. The boy who fought back against Julian. The one who tore Monroe apart with a grin. The one who kissed Christian because it felt like fire in the middle of snow.

Dead. Gone. Ashes under someone else's shoes.

The past two weeks have gone by in a blur of robotic movement—tasks, footsteps, voices I don't listen to. It's as if I'm witnessing myself doing these things from miles away. I don't feel my hands anymore when they hit. I don't feel my face when my lips threaten.

I'm not really here anymore.

But maybe that's the safest option.

Preserving my sanity.

They've kept their promise. I've seen him walking down the far end of a hallway a few times, hood pulled up, backpack slung low like always. He doesn't look at anyone. Doesn't speak.

I stop walking when I see him. Just for a moment.

But he never stops.

¤ ¤ ¤

The bed's too wide, the walls too white.

The silence isn't peace—it's punishment.

Room 437 is private, a reward, according to Vic. Privacy. Status. Control. But it's just exile with better lighting.

I don't sleep. Not really. When I do, I fall into the same loop. Either I'm running down the halls of Whittiker, searching for Christian, screaming his name while he bleeds out behind some corner I can't reach—

Or I'm back in Estonia, but the school isn't a school anymore. It's a house. My house. Isadora's laughter is coming from the attic, my mother's voice calling me for dinner, Christian's footsteps approaching behind me like he lives there now. And then the fire starts. It eats the walls. I try to scream, but my voice melts first.

I always wake up at the same moment—just as the roof caves in, or just as I catch sight of a knife driving toward Christian's ribs.

Cold sweat. Heavy breathing. Sheets tangled around my legs like restraints.

I sit up in the dark and press my fists into my temples, trying to will the images away. They never leave completely. They just quiet down, like the rest of me.

Across the room, the wall where I've taped my schedule is still perfectly aligned. The assignments from last week are folded in a neat stack on the desk. Everything's tidy. Efficient.

Dead.

The radiator clicks in protest. The air smells like sterilized nothing. There's no hoodie on the back of the chair. No sketchbook half-hidden under a pillow. No sarcastic remarks about the cafeteria food from the other side of the room.

Christian's gone. Not far, but far enough.

I haven't heard his voice in two weeks.

I don't know which is worse: that I miss it, or that I'm starting to forget the exact sound of it.