REN PLUTO
Ren hated stairs he couldn't see the bottom of.
This wasn't a staircase. It was an instrument of slow death. A thousand steps of slick black iron bolted directly into the cliff face, glistening with sea spray and decades of bird lime. The fog wrapped around it like a wet shroud, so thick Ren couldn't see the candidate ten feet ahead.
He could hear them, though. That was worse.
Click. Click. Curse.
Zelie Mortmain's remaining heel finally snapped on the rusted grating. The sound was sharp, final—a three-inch spike of Italian leather tumbling into the abyss.
"This is just..." Ravi's voice floated down, high and breathless. "This is a safety hazard! This can't be up to code!"
Ren scoffed, the sound ripped away by the wind. "Code is for people the school doesn't want to die, dumbass."
He muttered it to himself, but the truth of it settled into his bones like cold water. This wasn't negligence. This was design. A filter. The staircase was engineered to break them before they ever reached the door. One loose bolt. One moment of vertigo. One misplaced foot.
Fifty-point deduction. Permanent.
The ocean below was a black mouth, hungry and patient.
Ren heard the sniffling next—wet, hitching sobs barely audible above the wind. Jules. Of course. The kid was probably crying so hard he couldn't see his own hands.
Jesus.
Ren kept one hand on the freezing rail, the other jammed in his pocket, knuckles white. His eyes burned from the salt spray, but he kept them moving. Cataloging. No secondary handholds. Sheer drop. Rusted bolts with thirty percent material loss. This wasn't a commute.
It was a kill box.
Ten minutes that felt like a lifetime.
Then his boots hit mud.
The path opened onto a narrow strip of churned earth wedged between jagged black rocks. The fog peeled back just enough to reveal what waited: a structure that looked like it had been coughed up by the ocean and left to rot.
Deathpig Hall.
Ren's skin crawled before his brain caught up. His instincts—honed by nineteen years of surviving rooms with men who hit first and asked never—screamed at him to stop walking.
The building was a tactical nightmare. A slab of blackened stone shoved onto the ass-end of the island, so close to the cliff that the spray was actively eating its foundation. It smelled like low tide, wet animals, and a thousand years of structural neglect.
One entrance.
One.
Fatal funnel, Ren thought. His throat tightened. If this place burns, we're all cooked.
He let the other Pigs shuffle past him—a wet, miserable herd of lambs funneling into the slaughterhouse. Ren peeled away from the group, pressing his back against the damp stone wall just inside the entryway. Let the cold seep into his blazer. Let his eyes adjust.
He wasn't looking at the peeling wallpaper or the dead chandelier caked with grime. He was counting.
Six other people in his "unit."
Four visible security cameras. Three active. One with a severed wire. Interesting.
Zero visible staff. Zero visible exits beyond the door they'd just used.
This wasn't a dorm. It was a containment block.
Ren swept his gaze over his new liabilities. His unit. His potential corpse pile if he guessed wrong about any of them.
Ravi Dasa. Rank 455. The nervous puppy, currently patting his damp hair dry and looking around like he expected a camp counselor with hot chocolate. He'd be the first to crack under pressure. The type to try "making peace" with a guy already holding a knife.
Zelie Mortmain. Rank 430. Staring at a patch of black mold on the wall like it had personally insulted her bloodline. Furious about her broken heel, about the smell, about the sheer aesthetic violation of it all. She wasn't processing the danger. She'd sell them all for a warmer room and a working shower.
Sayer. Rank 485. Still swallowed by that hoodie. She'd found a dark corner and was just... staring. Hadn't spoken a word since the ferry. Might as well have been furniture. Useless.
Jules. Rank 490. Huddled by the door, trying to muffle his sniffling with a wet sleeve. A walking kick-me sign. He'd be a target for everyone with something to prove.
Maven Blackthorn. Rank 500. Dead last. She was actively trying to hide behind Ravi's slightly broader shoulders. Pale. Vibrating. Looked two seconds from fainting. Extreme liability.
And then:
Nyx. Rank 495.
She'd taken the opposite wall from Ren. Back covered. Hand resting on the kinetic baton strapped to her thigh. Her eyes weren't on the floor or the peeling paint. They were scanning. The staircase. The cameras. The ceiling beams.
She was doing the exact same thing he was.
Their eyes met across the lobby. A flat, cold, mutual assessment. Two predators in a cage full of meat.
Ren gave a barely-there nod.
She didn't return it. But she didn't look away either.
"Welcome home, Pigs."
The voice was smooth. Cultured. Silk wrapped around a blade. It made Ren want to break something.
He looked up.
Darian Blackwood stood on the first-floor landing, looking down at them like specimens pinned to a board. He hadn't taken the stairs. Of course not. He probably had a private, heated tunnel. A separate entrance for the separate species.
His rank glowed in cool holographic blue on the ID card clipped to his perfect chest: 001.
Ren glanced down at his own. Still flickering red. Still 498.
"I am your designated Horacatein Leader for induction." Darian descended without sound. His leather shoes didn't whisper on the steps. He moved like oil. "Deathpig Hall is reserved for those students Vara Rose has deemed... statistically improbable to succeed."
He stopped on the bottom step, elevated just enough to look down at all of them. He didn't raise his voice. Didn't need to.
"You are here because you are flawed." His gray eyes swept the room like a searchlight. "Trash that couldn't make the cut for Tier Three. How befitting."
Ren felt it. The familiar heat. The corrosive burn spreading through his veins, settling behind his ribs. The same feeling he got when his stepfather started a lecture—the quiet part before the yelling. Before the hitting.
Don't let him see it.
The voice in his head was cold steel. He wants the fear. Fear is currency here.
Ren leaned back against the damp stone. Crossed his arms. Made his face a blank wall.
Darian kept talking. Ren stopped listening. He watched the man's throat instead. Watched the pulse point. Filed it away.
"Your suite is on Sub Level Four." Darian skimmed his eyes over the group—Ravi, Sayer, Zelie, Jules, Maven. Furniture. Dismissed.
Then his eyes landed on Ren.
And stopped.
Darian saw the one person in the room who wasn't cowering. Saw the boredom painted over the rage. And he knew—with the instant recognition of one predator spotting another—that it was fake.
He smiled. It wasn't a smile. It was a baring of teeth.
Darian stepped off the landing and crossed the lobby in five silent strides. Stopped inches from Ren. Close enough that Ren could smell him—clean soap and something metallic underneath. Fresh blood on stainless steel.
"Try not to enhance the already potent aroma of failure down here," Darian murmured. Low. Private. An insult meant for an audience of one.
Ren didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe.
He knew this game. Knew guys like Darian. Born with silver spoons so far up their asses they shat money. They'd never earned anything in their lives—including the fear they demanded from everyone smaller.
They needed you to flinch. Needed you to be impressed by the suit and the hair and the shiny 001 on their chest.
Ren's mouth curved. Not quite a smile.
"Cute speech." His voice came out rough. Gravel. "Your daddy write it for you, or did you buy it with the rest of your personality?"
A collective suck of air from the other Pigs. Jules actually stepped back. Nyx's hand tightened on her baton.
You didn't talk to Tier Ones like that. You definitely didn't talk to Rank 001 like that. Not on Day One. Not ever.
Darian's perfect face didn't change. But his eyes tightened. A fraction of a millimeter. A micro-expression of pure, undiluted annoyance.
Gotcha.
The savage rush hit Ren like adrenaline cut with battery acid. He's not a machine. He just plays one on TV.
"Disruptive behavior will negatively impact your Horacatein score before classes even begin, Mr. Pluto." Darian's voice was still silk, but now the silk was wrapped around a garrote. He knew Ren's name. Of course he did. He'd probably memorized every face in the bottom tier.
"Your rank is 498." Darian leaned in. Close. Intimate. "It is very hard to fall further. But I assure you, there is a 500. And it has a lovely view of the incinerator."
"Let it drop to 600." Ren pushed off the wall. Into Darian's space. Close enough to see the tiny perfect pores on his skin. Close enough to smell the threat underneath the soap. "See if I care. I'm not here to play your little video game."
Lie. Massive, perfect lie.
He had to be here. Getting kicked out wasn't an option. It meant going back. Going back meant his stepfather. Going back meant death, one way or another.
But guys like Darian could never know you needed anything. Need was a handle. Need was a leash.
Darian held his gaze. The air in the lobby went thick as concrete.
Then Darian smiled. A real one this time. Cold. Sharp. Full of promises—all of them bad.
"Enjoy the basement, Ren." He stepped aside with a theatrical flourish. "I'm sure you'll fit right in with the rest of the vermin."
He turned. Glided to the door. His entourage materialized from the fog outside—Phina Craven and three other high-rank strangers. They fell into step behind him like sharks following blood.
The heavy door slammed shut.
The silence that followed was crushing.
Ren let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.
His hands, jammed deep in his pockets, were shaking. He hated that. Hated the tremor, hated what it meant, hated that Darian had gotten that much without even trying.
He turned to face his unit.
They were all staring at him. Not like he was a person. Like he was a bomb that had just failed to detonate.
Ravi looked horrified. "He... he could have had us all Purged for that. He's Rank 001."
Zelie was examining her broken heel. When she looked up, there was something new in her expression. Interest. A slow, dangerous smile spread across her painted mouth. "Well. At least it won't be boring."
Ren's eyes found Nyx.
She was pissed.
"Great." Her voice was as rough as his. She hefted her duffel bag. "Five minutes in. You just painted a target on all our backs. Good tactical work, genius."
"Better a target than a doormat."
The words came out sharper than he intended. But he didn't take them back.
Nyx held his gaze. Something passed between them—not agreement, but recognition. Two people who understood that the only way out of a cage was through the bars.
She looked away first. Not defeated. Just done with the conversation.
Ren grabbed his battered duffel. Didn't wait for the rest of them. Didn't care if they followed.
He headed for the stairs—the ones leading down. Sub Level Four. Deeper into the dark.
He needed to find their room. Needed to find the exits. Needed to find a lock that actually worked.
Because he knew one thing for sure:
The monsters weren't just outside the gates.
They were running the place.
And he'd just pissed off the king.