"Camden Blake. Cam, if you prefer. I'm twenty-six. From Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. I've been working in CS since high school and throughout college. It's the only thing I've ever been good at, honestly—even if it doesn't make enough to help my family the way I wish I could."
"What's CS?" Ren asked, eyebrows drawn together.
"I think it's Computer Systems," Thalia guessed, brow furrowed.
"Close, Aphrodite," Camden said with a wink. "Computer Science. TI, basically. I work with systems, code, stuff like that."
"That's impressive," Anastasia said.
Cam shrugged one shoulder. "It's useful. But in here?" He laughed dryly. "Not sure how much good it'll do."
There was a beat of silence. A shared understanding: brains wouldn't matter if your neck was slit open before dawn. Or so they believed.
"Well... you all already know I'm the oldest," said a oldest of the Lions, his voice lower, a little reserved. "Thirty-one. Name's Mateo Atilano. From Cusco, Peru. I'm a barista at my uncle's coffee shop. Not glamorous, but it was all I managed. Keeps me sane enough." He ran a hand through his thick hair, then offered a tired smile. "And I make the best cappuccino on three continents. If anyone ever wants a post-Trials pick-me-up."
"That's what I'm talking about," Alessandro grinned.
"Now that is a skill," Thalia said, offering him a thumbs-up.
Then Elijah leaned back in his seat, raising his hand casually. "Elijah Rourke. You can call me Eli. Twenty-two. From Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. I work two jobs—lifeguard at Clifton Beach, and a snake charmer."
Camden blinked. "Wait. Like… actually charming snakes?"
"Yeah," Elijah said, grinning. "For real. Train them. Mostly for performances and handling. Venomous and non. It's niche, but someone's got to do it."
"That's... extremely Australian," Thalia giggled, her laughter warm and teasing. "Honestly never even heard of a job like that, but I love it. And it fits you. You've definitely got the whole 'dangerous charm' thing down, Snakebite."
Elijah puffed up a little. Her attention clearly pleased him.
"Freakiest country in the world, dude," Camden muttered. "You've got my respect. I hate snakes. That whole pre-entry thing was torture."
At the mention, a cold ripple moved through the group. The pre-entry assessment. That hazy, brutal blur of trials and tricks and horrors none of them wanted to relive. No one spoke for a moment. They didn't need to. It was all there—in the way shoulders tensed, eyes flickered, jaws clenched.
The Owl stayed quiet through it all.
They were observing, processing, collecting.
Anastasia's cleverness. Thalia's light. Ren's kindness. Camden's burden. Mateo's steady calm. The Lions' team had been the most open so far, it could be a strategy, at the same time as it could be stupidly genuine.
Each of them, a puzzle piece.
Some of them would not make it out.
But they—the Owl—would.
And the first step to surviving was knowing exactly what kind of prey the others were.
"I'm downright terrified to even imagine what that sadist might have planned," Ren admitted, voice trembling, complexion pale as ashes. "If this is just the prelude, then the trials themselves will probably make what we endured in the assessment look like a leisurely school trip. And the fact that they built twenty-five of those hellish compounds, filled each with twenty-five desperate people, just to pluck one from each?" He swallowed. "It's horrific. Four people died in mine before we ever got to this place. They didn't even make it here."
"Six died in mine," Thalia murmured, her tone brittle and haunted. "Didn't even survive the week. I heard some sites forced participants to fight each other. Others were subjected to psychological torment. They tailored the trials, tested different methods. Some of them were... savage. Vicious."
"No one died in mine," Alessandro muttered, gaze hollow. "But they were broken. All of them. Mentally, emotionally, physically. By the end, they were just... shadows. Honestly? Death might have been a kindness."
Elijah's jaw tightened. "And all that," he said darkly, "just to not get picked. Imagine failing to qualify for a chance to compete for twenty-five million pounds. That's enough to crush a soul. Everyone there needed the money. We all need the money. But that's probably what makes it fun for Lucien. He threw 625 desperate people—most drowning in debt, some with absolutely nothing—to the wolves, then cherry-picked twenty-five of us. And now he's ready to bleed us for entertainment."
A grim, suffocating silence blanketed the table. All twenty-five of them were quiet now, no longer strangers, but co-survivors of some unspoken trauma. You could practically feel the ghosts pressing against their shoulders.
"This vibe is giving funeral," Klara muttered from two seats to Elijah's left.
That snapped him out of it. He blinked and glanced around, noticing the clusters of teammates seated near him. To his right were the familiar faces of the Serpents—his teammates, though he'd barely clocked their presence until now. Opposite them sat the four who had allied themselves with Rafael—the bastard Shark, he fucking hated him. The Eagles were clumped next to the Shark, while the Bears had filed in near the Serpents. It hadn't been planned, but the entire table had subconsciously aligned themselves along those early team divisions.
And they were all watching this exchange with careful interest.
"Maybe we should get back to introductions?" Thalia suggested gently, tilting her head, her voice like the first breeze after a storm. "This mood's heavy. Look, the pre-entry assessment was obviously traumatic for all of us, but the trials ahead might be worse. We should at least get to know one another before this place tries to tear us apart."
"I agree with Afrodite," Alessandro said, nodding gravely. His thick Florentine accent broke through the gloom like warm espresso. "For that, I'll go next then. Alessandro Giordano. Twenty-two years old. Born and raised in Florence, Italy. Friends call me Alesso. I'm a copywriter, kind of, but mostly I'm a Literature student. I want to be a writer one day."
"I'll hop on the wagon after Casanova," Samira grinned, clapping her hands once. "Samira El-Dahabi. I'm twenty, from Cairo. Mira for short. I work weekdays in an Arabic restaurant, and weekends behind the bar at a downtown pub. Been saving up to study Electrical Engineering abroad. So yeah, I want to be an engineer."
"There's still time," Thalia said, and her smile... glistened.
It was unfair, the way it landed—bright as sunlit marble, unfiltered, unguarded. A smile capable of moving mountains and melting glaciers. The emotion that pooled in those crystalline eyes of hers made something inside the Owl twist. Their chest tightened. Their pulse quickened. A fire flickered where ice had long settled.
And just like that, the Owl forgot the reason they had come.
They had entered this nightmare with a cause—one far greater than wealth. It wasn't about the money. Not for them. They were here with conviction, a mission. They had sworn they would not be distracted.
But then she walked in.
Thalia Drakos was... unholy in her beauty. Ethereal. Larger than life. Her presence pulsed like an undertow beneath still waters—silent, deadly, inescapable. She radiated this effortless gravity, this impossible intensity, from her voice to her gait, from her scent to her soul. Everything about her was crawling under the Owl's skin now, infesting their blood like a slow venom.
And it was not rational.
It wasn't just intrigue. It wasn't just desire. It was obsession. An urge. A compulsion.
The Owl's instincts screamed with urgency—not just to watch her, but to keep her. To draw her into their orbit. To protect her. Or claim her. Or maybe both. Even if they were separated for now, divided by the first stage and its arbitrary teams, they needed her. The gut-deep certainty roared like thunder beneath their calm expression.
And it terrified them.
Because they'd never felt this before. Never lost control like this. Never looked at someone and thought, You are mine. You don't know it yet, but I will make you see it.
And deep down, they sensed—just sensed—that spark wasn't one-sided. It was there, quiet but alive, flickering beneath the way Thalia's eyes lingered a beat too long, how her smile tipped just slightly when they spoke.
There was something waiting to catch fire between them.
And the Owl? They had every intention of setting it ablaze—until it scorched the heavens and burned a path through the nine circles of hell.