16:50 — Northwest Girls' Housing, Room 314
Alia had barely face-planted into her pillow when the interrogation began.
"So?" Zuri nudged her ankle with her toe. "Where'd she take you? Did you get detention? A silent lecture? Threats? Was it sexy?"
Alia groaned again, face still buried in bedsheets.
"She's not saying anything," Tessa whispered, spooning peanut butter straight out the jar like a nosy raccoon. "Which means it's juicy."
"Like. What did you do that Carmen personally walked you home? That's peak Sovereign behavior." Zuri leaned over her dramatically. "You didn't break the school, did you?"
"Why do you sound hopeful?" Alia grunted, muffled by fabric.
Before either of them could push harder, a sharp knock echoed from the door.
Three heads turned. Tessa froze mid-scoop. Zuri tiptoed toward the door with suspicion curling in her spine like smoke.
She cracked it open—then snapped to attention.
It was Ajax.
All 6'3" of towering, furious Sovereign, eldest-son energy.
Zuri immediately abandoned any alliance. "Alia! It's for you!"
And like the world's most eager betrayer, she stepped aside.
"Alia Danielle Savier." Ajax's voice dropped like thunder through the hallway.
Tessa muttered, "Uh oh."
Zuri whispered to Tessa, "Full government name?? She's DONE."
Alia rolled off the bed and grabbed the pass from her jacket pocket like she was walking to her own funeral. She slipped past her roommates with her chin up, shoulders back—but her soul visibly shrinking.
As soon as she stepped outside and shut the door, Ajax thrust out his palm.
Alia dropped the Sovereign pass into it, like a thief returning sacred treasure.
He stared at her with a rage so controlled it was terrifying. "Why did you go looking for the Vault?" he hissed. "Who even told you about it?"
"I was looking for files on Cade," she said, not missing a beat.
That took him aback. "You should've just asked me for that!"
"I did! And you said 'hm!'" she snapped back.
Ajax blinked, then ran a hand over his face as the memory returned. "Shit."
"I told you to keep your distance for a reason, Alia," he muttered. "Don't do that again. You'll get me—and yourself—in serious trouble."
Then he turned and left, not even giving her a backwards glance.
The door shut with the finality of a gavel strike.
Alia slumped against it for a second, dragging air into her lungs before stumbling back inside.
The moment she stepped in, both Zuri and Tessa were sitting up, eyes wide, jaws on the floor.
"...So both Carmen and Ajax called you out today?" Zuri asked slowly. "In the span of like—forty minutes??"
Tessa pointed. "She's glowing. No, like literally. She has the glow of someone who just broke a thousand rules and got away with it."
Alia groaned, threw herself into the middle of the bed, and pulled a blanket over her head. "I hate my life."
Zuri leaned over her blanketed form. "You're a menace."
Tessa poked the lump that was Alia's leg. "A gorgeous little criminal."
Alia muttered something unintelligible into the mattress.
But under that blanket… she was smiling just a little.
---
Later That Night
The lights were dim in the room. Tessa had fallen asleep with her arm draped off the edge of her bed, one contact lens case still open on her desk. Zuri was under her blanket, phone lighting her face, but her breathing had gone steady—she was out cold.
Alia lay on her back, eyes wide, watching shadows move across the ceiling. Ajax's voice still rang in her head.
"Don't do that again."
She rolled onto her side and reached under her pillow for her tablet. Just muscle memory.
She didn't open it. She just… held it.
There was this gnawing in her chest. Like she'd crossed a line she hadn't even seen until she was already on the other side. She should've felt proud. She got into the Vault. She kissed Carmen. She was unstoppable.
So why did she feel so… still?
The thrill was gone. The adrenaline had dried up. Now there was just her, in the quiet, in a twin bed too soft for how wired her brain still felt.
Her fingers brushed against the hem of her sleeve. Something was still there.
A faint lingering scent. Carmen's perfume maybe? Or just her imagination replaying it again and again.
"I really thought I saw a smile there."
Alia pressed her thumb to her lips, remembering how it felt to kiss her.
Remembering the way Carmen looked after.
Like she wanted to say something, but didn't.
The shadows moved again on the ceiling.
She finally turned on her tablet, but then turned it off and put it back
---
Alia couldn't sleep.
Her roommates were out cold, breathing like peace was their birthright, but her? She was stuck in that moment like gum on the sole of a shoe—annoying, persistent, and impossible to ignore.
She sat on her bed, knees drawn to her chest, hoodie zipped up all the way like it could shield her from the heat behind her eyes.
She thought about Carmen's hand on her waist.
The way she looked at her after.
Like maybe she saw more than she wanted to.
Like maybe she cared.
God.
That was the problem.
Alia could lie to herself all day about why she kissed her.
Because they were close.
Because it was quiet.
Because she panicked.
Because she wanted to shut her up.
But none of that held water. Not really.
She kissed her because she wanted to.
Because she meant to.
Because Carmen made her feel like a secret worth keeping.
And Carmen kissed her back.
Alia groaned softly and fell backward onto the mattress. The ceiling greeted her like an old friend. She blinked slowly, chest heavy.
"You kissed me back."
What if she said that again?
To Carmen's face.
The thought made her stomach twist like a wet rag.
She turned onto her side and stared at Zuri's back. The steady rise and fall of her breathing. The glow from her half-dead phone screen.
"I think I'm in trouble."
Not the kind you get scolded for.
The kind that changes everything.
---
06:30
The buzzer drilled through the air like a blade. Cold. Sharp. Merciless.
Zuri groaned into her blanket, one arm flung toward the ceiling in a dramatic stretch. "God, why do we live like this?" she muttered, already dragging herself upright like a half-resurrected ghost. Tessa was slower, eyes puffy with sleep but not quite fighting it. She rubbed at them and slid off her bed with a whispery, "C'mon, Alia... drills."
But Alia didn't move.
She was a lump. A whole human burrito, face planted so deep into her pillow she was basically one with the mattress.
Zuri turned. Blinked once. Twice.
Then: "Alia," she snapped. "Get up. I swear if we get docked again, I'm shaving one of your eyebrows in your sleep."
Tessa reached across the room gently, like that would make a difference. "Maybe she's sick or something..."
"I'm not sick," came Alia's voice, muffled by cotton and a soul full of regret.
Zuri marched over and peeled the blanket back like a mother done with the drama. "Okay, what happened? Did someone die?"
"Zuri," Tessa hissed.
But Alia didn't even flinch. She just rolled to her side, clutching her pillow, hair a mess, hoodie still on, eyes wide open but not really seeing.
"I just... don't want to go," she said, voice dry, barely above a whisper.
Zuri blinked, taken aback for a moment. "Wait, are you being for real right now?"
Alia nodded once.
Tessa crouched beside her bed, voice low. "Alia... what happened?"
She didn't answer. Couldn't. Not without unraveling the mess of last night—the kiss that shattered her, the vault, the way Carmen looked at her after. The way Ajax's voice echoed in her skull like a final verdict. You could've gotten me in trouble.
They were sovereigns. She wasn't.
She was just... her. The one who kept pushing. Kept needing. Kept wanting things she shouldn't.
So instead, she mumbled into the sheets, "I think I screwed everything up."
Neither girl knew what she meant, but they knew it was serious.
Zuri exhaled hard through her nose, tossed her drill jacket on the floor, and muttered, "Fine. Stay here and wallow in your mysterious heartbreak. But if they ask me where you are, I'm saying you spontaneously combusted."
Tessa stayed a moment longer, brushing a hand through Alia's hair before leaving.
And then she was alone again.
Wrapped in guilt.
Stewing in what-if's.
Too heavy to move.
Too shaken to name the reason why.
She couldn't face Carmen. Not today.
And maybe… not tomorrow either.