Dreyden slept for two hours.
Not because he was tired.
Because his body was still a body, and bodies made mistakes when you forced them awake too long.
When he opened his eyes, the room was still dark. The Triangle's lights outside the window gave everything a sick, sterile glow—like the academy couldn't stand the idea of true night.
He didn't move immediately.
He listened.
Not for footsteps.
For patterns.
The dorm hallway had a rhythm: distant patrol drone hum every ninety seconds, the faint click of a door latch here and there, a cough from someone pretending they weren't awake at this hour.
Tonight, that rhythm was almost normal.
Almost.
A half-beat of delay in the drone pass.
A second pass that shouldn't exist.
A silence that lasted too long.
He exhaled softly through his nose.
They were still watching.
Of course they were.
He sat up and reached for his tablet.
Then stopped.
And didn't turn it on.
Because the last signal hadn't come through his tablet.
