The woman in the pencil skirt and white blouse handed me an ID with the mechanical politeness of someone who'd rehearsed this humiliation a thousand times. "This will be your room, Ms. Fontanilla. It's the only space available. Your roommates are your siblings," she said, voice flat as office glass.
I scanned the dormitory like a soldier assessing a perimeter. Oxemburge University—boarding school for the sons and daughters of the underworld—was the last place I wanted to be. Four beds faced one another beneath a sliding glass door that opened onto a narrow balcony. A dresser sat empty; a side table waited with a single drawer. I sat on the edge of the bed nearest the door and began to unpack with the slow, careful motions of someone practicing patience as a weapon. I had brought only essentials: a phone, a few clothes, a couple of books, toiletries—and the best friend that never left my side: a pistol.
The name on the registration pinched at me: Fontanilla. Three demons already slept in this room, I thought, then added myself and felt the joke curdle. Four. Great. A convocation of monsters, pretending. They would be my roommates until someone decided otherwise.
I slid the pistol into the empty drawer, wiped it clean, thumbed the safety with a kind of intimacy, and shut the drawer. Leo. Max. Ace. Their faces rose unbidden, each a map of advantages and dangers. I could not spare the attention to pretend to like any of them. I would be invisible. Invisible suited me. Silence suited me. It bought me time, and time was how I planned to end this.
Walking to my first class, I felt the absurdity of it all—the world I had missed while a child, and the education I'd received in its stead. At ten, Damian had taught me to fight with my bare hands. At eleven, he'd shown me how to field-strip a pistol. By twelve, I knew drugs by color and smell; by fourteen, I knew the gears of an empire and how to pry them loose. At fourteen I had killed for the first time—an event that carved me into who I am: Xena, the name whispered and feared where shadows congregate.
The lecture hall wasn't a hall of ordinary learning. Oxemburge collected heirs of crime: syndicate princes, shady politicians' children, mafia scions, assassins-in-training, and a handful of commoners to varnish the roster. The professor droned about theory while the room thrummed with secrets. I watched them—the privileged, the vicious, the smug. I barely stifled a bitter smile. They thought their diplomas made them untouchable. They had no idea what lived beneath my skin.
At lunch I tried to disappear behind headphones and a loud playlist. It was the simplest defense: sound as armor. Someone yanked one earbud from my ear. I chewed, paused, glared up. A girl with three companions—two boys and a girl—smiled like predators. "New? That's our table," she said like she owned the cafeteria air.
I slid the earbud back in and nodded—no battle today. But she jabbed it out again, hard this time. Annoyance flared hot. I stood, level, and met her. She grabbed my arm.
"Who do you think you are?" she spat.
"Who I need to be," I said, removing her hand with slow, deliberate motion. "I don't care."
Their laughter echoed. I turned, half tempted to make a show of the pistol in my pocket. Instead I left, steps measured, letting my mock cheer for a nearby exchange ripple through the room to mask the heat in my throat. I was buying time, laying groundwork. Oxemburge was a field study in human weakness; I would harvest it later.
Outside on the quad, I saw them—Legolas Fontanilla, called Leo by everyone who wanted it easy—mired in a kiss with some kid who looked sixteen. I barked a loud, deliberate cheer. "Whoo! Go Legolas! I'm rooting for you, asshole!" My voice cut through the afternoon like a knife. Heads turned. Leo's face flushed, the girl's lipstick smudged at the corner of his mouth. They laughed. The little humiliation did what I intended: it cracked their armor for a second and I smiled, small and venomous.
Back at the dorm, I found my busted earbud and the source of its destruction. Legolas lounged with the casual arrogance of someone who expected the world to bend when he sneezed. "Enjoying your first day?" he asked, eyes slitted, amused.
Anger burned white-hot under my skin. He watched me like a scientist watching an experiment. Before he could relish it, I jabbed my fist toward his face. He caught it as if he'd expected the movement his whole life. The room went quiet. Everyone watched.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked, voice flat as a knife.
"You started it, Xena," he said, half-laughing. "That chant—what was it? 'Go Legolas'—was that for me?"
I snatched my arm back. He kept his hold on my wrist. "Gross," I said and tried to wrench free. He stepped closer, his tone slipping into something predatory. "That didn't feel like cheering to me, Xena."
Repulsion spiked. I twisted, hauled my arm away, and shoved past him. His palm clamped my forearm with a pressure that promised trouble. I pulled harder. He let go with a lazy, amused hiss.
"dream on," I muttered—an old curse, the kind you whisper when a fly lands on your teeth. I slammed the door behind me and leaned against it, pulse thudding.
"Xena?" The voice came soft and warm. Ace—Damian's youngest—sat on the bed nearest mine, smiling with a kindness that felt like sunlight in a room full of dark. He slid close and wrapped his long arms around me. The contact was harmless and electric. When the world around me was made of knives, his hands were an odd peace.
"Have you eaten?" he asked.
I didn't pull away. Not because I liked his touch—because I trusted him in a way that made no sense. He was Damian's child, and the impossible thing was that he did not seem designed to be cruel. He had a warmth that didn't fit the blueprint. For a moment, I forgot tactics and plans. For a moment, I was just a girl tired of fighting.
"I need rest," I said, voice thin and near to breaking. He loosened his hold, brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, and left me with a small smile that felt like a promise he did not own.
After he left, I stripped off my jacket and laid my head against my arm. The earbud—broken, dear—glared at me like a theft. I stared at the ceiling, thinking in small, cruel plans. By dusk I would weave another thread into my tapestry of revenge. When Damian's family fell, it would be total. I would not spare any of them—Leo, Max, Ace—no exceptions. I would be Xena: the deadliest thing in Damian Fontanilla's world, a traitor with a smile that cut like a blade.