JORDAN-
The gates of Thornfield Academy squatted low and mean in the dying September light—blackened iron twisted into sneers, hungry to shred anyone reckless enough to cross. Gothic spires stabbed at clouds swollen with rain, while beyond the gates sprawled a campus parents loved to name-drop between sips of gin. Ivy clung to crumbling stone that had been swallowing secrets longer than anyone alive could remember.
Up close, it reeked of bleach and rotting lies.
James Blake—never Jordan, not anymore—stood with a battered duffel strap gnawing into her shoulder, just another face in the late registration line. Except she wasn't. The third name in two years, this one eight months old and still foreign on her tongue. Every time it slipped past her lips, it tasted like rust and borrowed time.
She pressed two fingers to the compass pendant buried under her shirt—a reflex too close to prayer. The chain hummed warm from her skin, the compass face rubbed smooth by restless worry. North, always north, Dad's voice growling whiskey-coarse in her memory—back when there was still laughter, before blood slicked the floor and men died for truths no one should've known.
She shoved that memory into a locked box. Not now. Not here, where anyone could be watching. The program demanded invisibility, and she wasn't ready to die because she got sloppy.
The transformation took grit and a silent count to three. Shoulders sank into that lazy masculine sprawl, chin tipped up like she had the right to look the world in the eye, hands buried in jeans two sizes too big. That walk—weight in the heels, elbows cocked—she'd drilled it in a dozen mirrors until it felt less like armor and more like skin. Own the sidewalk. Half the illusion was attitude.
The courtyard gleamed like a teen drama set: black blazers with fancy gold trim, sharp enough to cut glass, laughter that sounded rehearsed. Students clustered in tidy galaxies, shimmering with scrubbed-clean privilege she couldn't fake. Not that clean. Not when you've knelt on cold tile with your father's blood drying under your nails.
She'd done the research—manila folders full of donor lists and scandal footnotes, background for a cover story that had to hold. Thornfield Academy: finishing school for blue-blood sociopaths and hedge fund brats. Where old money taught its spawn to smile like sharks. A campus so marinated in legacy that a ghost could slip between the marble pillars unnoticed—if she kept her shoulders square and remembered to breathe like a boy.
Perfect place to vanish.
The registration table gleamed with institutional smugness. Behind it perched a woman with shellacked blonde hair and pearls fat enough to stop bullets. She radiated brittle disdain that could peel paint. No greeting, not even eye contact—just a manicured hand snapping out, palm open.
"Name?" Connecticut ice over lacquered contempt.
"James Blake." Jordan kept her voice in the sweet spot—low enough to slip past suspicion, not so gravelly it reeked of trying too hard. Each consonant clipped clean. A lie worn smooth from use.
Manicured fingers flicked across an iPad with the efficiency of someone dissecting frogs. "Dormitory Three, the West Hall, second floor. Room 247." A brass key skittered across the table. "Orientation tomorrow at four sharp. Dean Blackwood doesn't tolerate tardiness."
Dean Blackwood. The name slid into Jordan's mental ledger, inked beside a dozen other facts that might save her skin. She pocketed the key, its cold weight pressing promises into her palm. "Thanks."
The woman's gaze already sliced past her to the next kid in line—just another ghost to be catalogued and ignored.
"Hey, you look as lost as I feel."
Jordan turned, fight-or-flight hammering her pulse before she caught herself. The voice belonged to a boy about her age, sandy brown hair still damp with sweat, a lacrosse stick slung over one shoulder. Brown eyes held an easy warmth that felt dangerous in a place like this—genuine seemed extinct at Thornfield.
"First day?" he asked, shifting the gear bag at his feet. His Thornfield polo clung to shoulders built for contact sports, but his smile carried none of that aggressive edge most jocks wore like cologne.
"Yeah." Jordan kept her voice in the practiced range, measuring each word. "You?"
"Teddy Phillis." He stuck out a hand, callused from stick-work but clean under the nails. "Just transferred from Riverdale Prep. Coach Myers convinced my parents this place has better college scouts."
Phillips. The name pinged something in her mental files—old Connecticut money, the kind that bought senators and buried scandals. But this kid seemed unaware of his own pedigree, more focused on her response than his family crest.
"James Blake." The lie slid out smooth as practice could make it. She shook his hand, brief and firm, then let go before he could notice how soft her palms were despite the calluses she'd built up.
"Cool. You trying out for any teams? We could use fresh blood on lacrosse." Teddy's gaze lingered just long enough to make her chest tighten. Not suspicious—something else. Interest that felt personal, not tactical.
Heat crept up her neck. This was dangerous territory, the kind that got covers blown and people killed. "Maybe. Still figuring things out."
But even as she said it, something treacherous fluttered behind her ribs. When was the last time someone had looked at her like that? Like she mattered, not just as a target or a problem to solve?
She really wanted to play lacrosse, she was better than half the boys back when she had a normal life. But being a girl was an absolute no when it came to playing a guys sport.
"Well, if you change your mind—" Teddy started, then stopped. His eyes went wide, focused over her shoulder.
Jordan turned, scanning with the mechanical calm of someone who'd learned to count exits before counting friends. That was when it hit her—the prickle that wasn't curiosity or bored faculty attention. This felt predatory. Deliberate, like a sniper steadying his breath.
Half-concealed under an ancient oak stood a man in his mid-forties, built broad and hard like rebar stuffed into khakis and a Thornfield polo. His spine didn't bend; it braced, parade-rest perfect. Years out of uniform, but the muscle memory still coiled under his skin.
DEREK HAYES – ASSISTANT ATHLETIC DIRECTOR flashed on his name tag. But those weren't soccer-coach eyes. Steel-gray, cop eyes—ex-cop, maybe worse. The kind of stare that peeled back skin and sifted through marrow.
"That's Hayes," Teddy murmured, voice dropping low. "Don't let the tag fool you, he is actually head of security, basically. Word is he used to be FBI or something. Stares a lot. Creeps everyone out."
For a heartbeat, the world narrowed. Hayes's gaze locked on Jordan, and it wasn't James Blake he was seeing. It was her—the slip under the mask, the breath too shallow, the pulse flutter at her throat. His gaze dropped, sharp and unhurried, catching the chain just visible above her collar. A flash of worn gold, memory and promise soldered into metal.
When his eyes flicked back up, there was something in them that made the air taste of copper.
He knows.
"You okay?" Teddy's hand brushed her arm, warm and steadying. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Jordan forced herself to breathe, to let the panic slide off her bones. "Just tired. Long ride."
But her gut dropped, cold and heavy. Every nerve shrieked: run, vanish, call the handler. Hayes had enough to pull at loose threads until the whole cover unraveled. Enough to make phone calls that would bring men with guns and no interest in keeping her breathing.
"Come on," Teddy said, shouldering his gear bag. "I'll show you to the dorms. Better to stick together on the first day, right?"
She wanted to say no, to walk away before this got complicated. But Hayes was still watching, and running without protocol was suicide. Breaking cover was worse.
So she nodded, falling into step beside Teddy as they headed toward the dormitory. His presence felt solid, reassuring in a way that made her chest ache with want for something she couldn't afford.
The dormitory loomed ahead, a cathedral of stone and whispered judgment. Somewhere behind those grim windows waited Room 247—cell dressed up as sanctuary, where she'd lie awake counting heartbeats and telling herself it was enough to still be breathing.
She clenched the brass key until it bit crescents into her palm, sharp pain blooming into something real. This was supposed to be her refuge. A place where the third iteration of herself could finally stop looking over her shoulder.
But as they climbed the stone steps, Hayes's stare burning between her shoulder blades and Teddy's easy warmth radiating beside her, one thought clanged through her skull with the finality of a coffin lid:
Welcome to Thornfield. Try not to blow your cover before the first day of classes.