Adam had slept well.
That alone felt suspicious after the week he'd had. He sat in the basketball club locker room with his shirt already on, one foot planted against the bench while he tightened his shoe, and nothing in his shoulders carried the usual tension of an exam morning.
His backpack sat untouched beneath the bench. No textbook. No notes. No calculator. Just his clothes, his shoes, and the quiet certainty that he'd finally reached the one test nobody could make complicated.
No books. No calculus. No sitting in the library for four hours pretending to understand things. Just a ball and a court. I got this.
He rolled his shoulders once and looked at his reflection in the narrow mirror beside the sinks. His medium afro taper was still clean from that morning, the fade close around his ears while the hair on top sat naturally over his hairline.
He looked awake. His honey-brown eyes looked awake too.
Benchmarked against Cooper Flag. The man went first overall. Fine. Still got this.
The other students were stretching, bouncing basketballs lightly between their hands, or talking in clusters while they waited.
Adam leaned back against the lockers with his arms folded, six-foot-two frame loose against the metal, listening to someone complain about having to run drills before breakfast even though breakfast had been hours ago. He laughed, low and easy, and for once the laugh didn't feel like something he had to manufacture.
Then the invigilator entered with a clipboard.
The room quieted by degrees.
He explained the structure first. Body measurements. Athletic testing. Skill drills. Scrimmage. Interview. His voice had the flat rhythm of someone who'd delivered the same instructions too many times to care whether anyone found them intimidating.
The non-supernatural students would be assessed relative to established athletic standards, with Cooper Flagg's combine profile serving as the upper reference template.
Height, weight, wingspan, defensive metrics, vertical ability, change-of-direction speed. Everything would be adjusted against what each student's physical measurements indicated they should reasonably accomplish.
Then the invigilator reached the final section of the document.
"For students registered under supernatural athletic classification, the FSS Supernatural Athletic Standards Initiative applies. Their results will be evaluated against the corresponding governmental benchmark rather than the civilian athletic scale."
Adam's folded arms loosened.
There was a pause while the invigilator looked down the list.
"Mr. Greene."
Adam's eyebrows lifted.
Wait. My name? Why is my name... oh no.
The invigilator continued without looking up. "Your classification has been confirmed. You will not be assessed against the civilian ceiling."
The room had become very quiet.
Adam stared at the clipboard.
Something inside his chest dropped before the rest of him caught up.
He'd been expecting to be measured against people.
Instead, someone had apparently built a measuring stick specifically for him.
The first test was height. He stood barefoot against the measuring apparatus while the examiner lowered the bar onto his hair and recorded the number. Shoes followed. Then weight. Then wingspan, his arms stretched straight against the horizontal measure while another examiner read from one fingertip to the other. Standing reach came last, his fingers extending upward until the tips met the marked scale.
Each number disappeared onto the clipboard almost immediately.
There was no celebration when his measurements came out. No surprised laughter. No one comparing their numbers with his.
That was the first thing he noticed.
The lane agility drill came next.
Adam crouched at the starting cone, one hand hovering above the floor. The whistle sounded, and he exploded sideways. His shoes slapped the court twice before he changed direction, crossed the middle, dropped his hips, and drove back through the cones. He finished hard enough that his final step squeaked against the hardwood.
Someone behind him made a quiet sound.
Adam turned toward the timing board.
The number meant nothing.
The civilian students had their own times posted beside their names. Adam's was entered into a separate column marked with a government classification code.
He couldn't compare.
But one thing was for sure,
He would actually have to put it his max effort today, or else.
The three-quarter sprint went faster.
He pushed from the baseline and felt his body stretch into the run, legs cycling faster than the students around him could follow with their eyes. The court disappeared beneath his shoes in long sections. He crossed the line and slowed only after several more steps, turning back toward the examiner.
A couple of students stared.
The examiner didn't.
That was worse.
The vertical came after.
Adam bent his knees, swung both arms, and launched. His fingers reached far above the marked target, and when he landed, the gym gave him a few scattered noises from the other students. The examiner wrote something down.
Adam looked at the sheet.
Again, nothing.
Okay. So that's how we're doing this.
The body-fat measurement was almost insulting in comparison. The examiner pinched the measuring device into position, checked the result, and marked it within the athletic range.
Another student stepped forward afterward and received a quiet explanation about the penalty associated with exceeding the standard given they're a member of an athletic club, his face tightening as the examiner pointed toward the percentage.
Adam watched for half a second.
Then he moved on.
The skill drills were better.
The ball came naturally.
His right hand pushed it low, left hand caught it, crossover, behind the back, hesitation, change of direction. The cones passed beside his shoulders while the ball stayed exactly where it needed to be.
He didn't have to think about his hands anymore. They knew the route before his conscious mind finished processing the next turn.
At the shooting stations, he hit the first corner shot cleanly.
The ball touched the net without grazing the rim.
The second came off the dribble. He planted his left foot, rose, and released over an imaginary defender. Swish.
Then the opposite corner betrayed him.
He caught the pass, squared, released.
The ball struck the back rim hard and kicked away toward the baseline.
Adam watched its entire flight.
Too much wrist.
He caught the next pass and adjusted.
The scrimmage was where the difference became obvious.
Five on five. Timed possessions. Every scoring action, assist, defensive play, turnover, and decision recorded.
On one possession, Adam took the ball near half court with a defender already moving toward him. He shifted once, accelerated, and was past him before the defender's second step finished. Two more players collapsed toward the lane. Adam planted, rose, and finished through the space between them before either could establish position.
The bench made a noise.
On the next possession, someone read him correctly.
Adam drove left, expecting the defender to open his hips.
The defender didn't.
Adam saw the trap half a second too late, pulled the ball back, and had to throw it out to the wing before he was forced into a turnover or worse, hurting the defender with his superior strength and speed.
The next time, he didn't use his speed.
He brought two defenders toward him, waited until the weak-side player took one step inward, then passed to the open shooter before the gap even looked open.
The shot went in.
Adam nodded once.
That felt better than the dunk.
During a dead ball, one of the opposing players wiped sweat from his chin and glanced toward Adam.
"Guess it's fair for everyone now."
Adam's jaw shifted.
He looked at the floor.
For one second, his fingers tightened around the basketball hard enough to whiten his knuckles.
Don't.
He tossed the ball to the referee.
He didn't answer.
The interview was easier.
They sat him across from the coach and the invigilator, and for the first time all morning nobody cared how high he could jump.
They asked what he would do if the defense collapsed on a drive.
"Depends where the help comes from," Adam said. "If the big steps up early, I don't force the finish. Hit the corner or dump it inside. If the help comes late, I keep going because I've already made the defense choose."
The coach leaned forward.
"What if the passing lane isn't there?"
"Then I reset. I used to think making the play meant finishing the play. It doesn't. Sometimes the right decision is admitting the first decision was bad."
The coach wrote something down.
Adam leaned back.
That part he knew.
When the interview ended, nobody told him his score.
After a shower and a change of cloths, he passed by the hallway to his locker with the results still somewhere behind closed doors.
His locker stood open when he reached it. He didn't actually need anything from inside. He'd left it open because people usually saw an open locker and kept moving.
Today, apparently, nobody cared.
The first-years from the café appeared around the corner together.
"Sorry, Adam."
He looked over.
They stopped in front of him.
"We heard the full moon's tomorrow."
Adam closed his eyes for half a second.
"Yeah."
"Do you get the urge to devour people?"
"No."
"Do you transform without wanting to?"
"Usually not."
"Do your eyes glow?"
"Sometimes."
"Can you smell what we had for lunch?"
Adam looked at the locker beside his head.
"Yes."
The girls exchanged looks.
One of them leaned closer.
"Oh my God! What did we have?"
Adam stared at the opposite wall.
"Food."
The answer came out flatter than he'd intended.
The full moon was tomorrow.
The exam had taken the one thing he'd been counting on and put it behind a separate government standard. Someone had made the fairness comment. Now four first-years were standing in front of him asking whether he could smell their lunch.
His jaw tightened again.
I'm going to say something.
He didn't.
Not yet.
The corridor changed before he had to.
Luna appeared at the far end.
She took in the girls, Adam, the open locker, and the expression on his face in one sweep. Then she walked directly toward them.
"You. Go."
The girls looked at her.
Luna pointed toward the other end of the corridor.
"Now."
They went sheepishly.
Adam watched them disappear.
Luna stopped beside his locker and looked him over.
"You look like you're having a midlife crisis."
Adam let his head fall back against the locker.
"The exam got reclassified. There's a whole governmental benchmark for supernatural athletes. I thought the basketball test was my trump card, and now apparently I have to beat whatever government thinks a werewolf should be capable of. If I don't, I could actually get expelled."
Luna stared at him.
"Toughen up. You're an apex predator."
Adam turned his head toward her.
"That doesn't really help with the paperwork."
"I don't care about your paperwork."
"Good talk."
"I'm here for something specific."
Adam waited.
Luna shifted her weight.
"Full moon's tomorrow."
That brought his attention back.
"What about it?"
"What did you decide about yesterday?"
Adam frowned.
Yesterday.
The conversation they'd had while walking away together. The full moon. What happened when it came. What they could do to keep themselves from losing control, specifically what they could do to keep Adam from losing control.
The plan they'd discussed had been practical enough to require an answer.
He'd apparently forgotten to provide one.
"I haven't really thought about it. I'll figure it out."
Luna stared at him.
"You're a fucking idiot."
Adam opened his mouth.
The emergency bell rang.
The sound ripped through the corridor, sharp and continuous, sending doors opening farther down the hall as students started moving toward the designated assembly areas.
Adam pushed away from the locker, "Come on."
"Wait."
He stopped.
Luna looked toward the side rather than directly at him. Her fingers brushed once against the ends of her snow-white hair before dropping again.
"One more thing."
Adam waited.
She spoke faster this time.
"I'm thinking about cutting it. Straight, shoulder-length. Blunt ends, some soft layers, side-swept bangs over the left side. What do you think?"
Adam blinked.
Of all the things she'd said today, that was the one he hadn't expected.
He looked properly at her hair.
The white strands fell past her shoulders in their usual shape, framing her face. He pictured the version she'd described, the cleaner line, the sharper side, the way the shorter shape would change the balance of her face.
That's actually...
His mouth pulled upward.
"I think it'd look solid."
The smirk arrived before he could stop it.
Luna's eyes narrowed.
"Wipe that smirk off your face."
Adam laughed.
He couldn't help it.
There was something about the way she'd said it, flat and annoyed, while the color was already rising across her cheeks and she was deliberately looking somewhere beside his face instead of at him. She noticed the blush a second later and looked even more irritated by it.
Adam laughed harder.
The emergency bell continued ringing above them while students streamed through the corridor, but for the first time since the exam had started, the pressure in his chest loosened.
Luna stared at him with pink still visible across her cheeks, trying very hard to look like she wasn't affected by anything at all and trying not to punch his face.
Adam was still laughing when they started moving with the crowd.