Lunch at Northside Preparatory Academy is less of a meal and more of a survival exercise in managing sensory overload and synthetic carbohydrates.

  I sat on the edge of a concrete planter in the courtyard, picking at a sandwich that claimed to be turkey but smelled suspiciously like recycled yoga mats. The sun beat down through a persistent smog layer, casting a jaundiced light over the student body. It was hot—that sticky, humid heat that makes clothes feel like a second, unwanted skin.

  I was alone.

  Technically, three hundred teenagers surrounded me. To my left, the Glams were livestreaming a tutorial on how to apply chromatic eyeliner without blinding yourself. To my right, a group of freshmen were trading illegal download codes for retro video games. The air buzzed with the hum of a dozen different drones patrolling the perimeter.

  But the silence in my head was deafening.

  My wrist felt light. Too light. The hard-reset switch on the side of the unit was still flipped to OFF.

  I had silenced Handy to protect my feelings. To stop the flow of data that insisted Danny Troy was a walking red flag. I wanted to live in the moment, to pretend that the connection in the greenhouse was just two lonely people finding an anchor.

  But avoiding the data didn't make the reality disappear. It just left me sitting on a planter, eating fake turkey, feeling a hole in my chest where the static used to be.

  Across the courtyard, Danny wasn't there.

  He hadn't been in fourth period. He hadn't been at his locker. He was ghosting the school, just like he had ghosted me in the hallway this morning.

  Give me space.

  The words echoed in my skull, bouncing around with the same annoying persistence as a pop song chorus.

  I dropped the sandwich into the wrapper. The smell of the soy loaf turned oily in the heat. This is stupid, I told myself. You are Nikki Nova. You fight monsters on rooftops. You do not mope over a boy who wears too much leather and reads Frankenstein.

  But the wolf inside me wasn't interested in bravado. It was pacing. It was whining. It missed the pack. It missed the smell of mint and iron.

  And honestly? I missed the noise.

  I missed Handy’s sarcastic commentary on the nutritional value of my lunch. I missed having a second brain to help me process the mess of my life. Isolation wasn't strength. It was just loneliness with better PR.

  I wiped my hands on my jeans and reached for my wrist. My finger hovered over the switch.

  If I turn him on, he’s going to say ‘I told you so’.

  Let him. I deserve it.

  Click.

  The unit hummed against my skin. A warm, familiar vibration.

  For a second, nothing happened. Then, a static crackle popped in my auditory implant, followed by the smooth, synthesized voice of my only consistent ally.

  “System reboot complete,” Handy announced. “Uptime: three seconds. Current mood: Vindictive.”

  “Hey, Handy,” I whispered, keeping my head down so the Glams wouldn't think I was talking to my sandwich.

  “Oh, she speaks,” Handy drawled. “I thought we were giving everyone the silent treatment today. Did you run out of brooding capacity? Or did you just realize that navigating a high-threat environment without tactical support is a terrible idea?”

  “Both,” I admitted. “And I missed your sunny disposition.”

  “Flattery is inefficient, Nikki. But continue.”

  A holographic display flickered into existence behind my eyelids—a stream of green text scrolling too fast to read.

  “So,” Handy said, the text slowing down. “Let’s review the morning. You ignored my data. You approached the anomaly. The anomaly rejected you. You engaged in emotional spiraling. And now you are eating processed soy loaf in a radiation zone. How am I doing?”

  “Accurate,” I grumbled. “Painfully accurate.”

  “I tried to warn you. The interference pattern around Subject Troy isn't just noise. It’s a warning system. His or yours, I’m still calculating.”

  “He looked… scared, Handy,” I said, picking at the concrete edge of the planter. “He didn't look like he hated me. He looked like he was terrified of me.”

  “Or terrified for you,” Handy corrected. “If he is aware of the Pandora signature emitting from his own person, his withdrawal creates a 40% increase in your immediate safety. Logic dictates isolation.”

  “Logic sucks.”

  “Agreed. But it keeps your heart beating.”

  I looked up, scanning the crowd again. My eyes drifted to the far end of the courtyard, near the science wing annex. Shadows stretched long there, cast by the brutalist architecture of the library overhang.

  There. Gray hoodie.

  Danny was sitting on a bench, obscured by the shade of a genetically changed oak tree. He wasn't reading. He was just sitting there, hands clasped between his knees, staring at the pavement.

  He looked small.

  The "cool mystery guy" armor was gone. He just looked like a kid who realized his knees were about to buckle. My heart gave a stupid, hopeful lurch.

  Go to him, the wolf urged.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Don’t,” Handy warned. “I’m reading his bio-signature from here—or trying to, through the scrambler fog. His tension levels are off the charts. If you approach, you risk triggering another flight response. Or worse.”

  “Or worse what?”

  “Or worse, you trigger whatever he’s trying to hold back.”

  A breeze caught his hair. He didn't move. He looked like a statue carved out of regret.

  “I can’t leave him like that,” I said. “He threw me a lifeline in the alley, Handy. He hummed me back from a seizure. I owe him.”

  “You owe him nothing. The transaction was balanced. He stabilized you; you didn't eat him. Fair trade.”

  “It’s not a trade. It’s a partnership.”

  I stood up. My legs felt steady. The nausea was gone, replaced by a steely resolve. I was done with the Ice Queen routine. We were both monsters hiding in plain sight, and if we didn't stick together, the city was going to eat us alive separately.

  “I’m going over there,” I announced.

  “Nikki, I strongly advise against—”

  “Note the objection. Proceeding anyway.”

  I stepped away from the planter and tossed the rest of my sandwich into a recycling bin. I adjusted my bag, feeling the weight of the pom-pom knife against my hip.

  I started walking across the quad. The sun beat down on my neck. All I saw was Danny.

  Thirty yards. He didn't look up.

  Twenty yards. My heart was hammering.

  Ten yards.

  I took a breath, preparing to speak.

  Then, the sound cut through the air. A high-pitched, mechanical shriek.

  Whirrrrr-EEEEEEE-krtz.

  My head snapped up.

  Above the courtyard, hovering near the third-story windows, was a drone. A Surveillance Hawk—a sharp, angular wedge of black metal with a single, glowing red eye.

  It was wobbling. Its rotors sounded like a blender full of silverware. Smoke trailed from one stabilizer.

  “Handy! What is that?”

  “Malfunction,” Handy barked. “Guidance system failure. It’s losing altitude.”

  The drone dipped, correcting violently. It spiraled downward, gathering speed.

  Directly below it, near the fountain, was a cluster of freshmen. They were huddled around a tablet, totally oblivious to the ten pounds of spinning metal plummeting toward their heads.

  “Impact imminent,” Handy warned. “Trajectory intercept: The kid with the braces.”

  I moved. Or, I tried to.

  My muscles coiled. But I was thirty feet away. Too far.

  The drone shrieked again, entering a terminal dive.

  “Look out!” someone screamed.

  The freshmen looked up. They froze.

  I pushed off the pavement, sprinting. Too slow. I’m too slow.

  But someone else wasn't.

  From the shadows of the oak tree, a gray blur launched itself into the light. Danny.

  He didn't run. He exploded from his seated position. One second he was a statue of misery, the next he was a streak of motion that defied physics. He covered the distance in two strides.

  He went for the drone.

  He leaped. He cleared the fountain, soaring six feet into the air.

  The drone came down. Danny went up. They met in mid-air.

  Danny punched it.

  His right fist lashed out, connecting with the reinforced chassis.

  CRUNCH.

  It was the sound of metal buckling under extreme pressure, like a car crash condensed into a single knuckle-strike. Sparks showered down like confetti.

  The drone didn't just stop. It folded. The chassis caved in and knocked the entire machine sideways with the force of a cannonball. It flew across the courtyard and slammed into a brick keeping wall.

  SMASH.

  Danny landed in a crouch, one hand planted on the concrete. He skidded two feet, his sneakers leaving black rubber burns on the stone.

  Absolute, vacuum-sealed silence descended on the courtyard.

  The freshmen stared with mouths hanging open. My heart was in my throat.

  “Handy, did you see that?”

  “I saw it,” the AI replied, his voice strangely flat. “Replaying impact metrics. Nikki, that was approximately four thousand pounds of force per square inch. He punched through the structural integrity field.”

  Danny stood up slowly. He wasn't breathing hard. He looked at the wreckage, then down at his hand.

  The freshmen murmured. “Did you see that?” “He destroyed it.”

  Danny stiffened. He realized he had just shattered the "normal transfer student" cover in front of three hundred witnesses. He shoved his hand into his pocket. Fast.

  But not fast enough.

  I saw his hand. It should have been pulp. Punching metal and carbon fiber out of the air should have swapped his bones for titanium or dust.

  It was pristine. Pale. Smooth. Not a scratch.

  Super healing.

  “Nikki,” Handy said, urgent. “Look at your HUD. I’m pulling data from the drone’s last transmission. It pinged something.”

  A replay window popped up in my vision. It was grainy footage from the drone’s camera, spinning and distorted. The drone’s targeting system snapped onto Danny. A red box formed around his face.

  Subject Identified.

  The text on my HUD flickered. Red letters flashed for a microsecond.

  ASSET...

  The rest dissolved into static before my brain could parse it.

  “Handy, what did it say? It flashed red.”

  “It flagged him,” Handy said. There was a millisecond of processing lag. “Threat identification. High priority.”

  “Because he punched it?”

  “Possibly. Or because it recognized him.”

  I looked back at Danny. He was retreating. He had his hood up now, weaving through the stunned crowd toward the side exit.

  He wasn't running like a hero. He was running like a fugitive.

  I looked at the drone wreckage again. The metal was twisted. I looked at my own hands and clenched a fist. I knew what it took to dent steel.

  It wasn't just adrenaline. It was engineered.

  “His strength,” I whispered. “It mirrors mine.”

  “Perfectly,” Handy confirmed. “Force output is nearly identical to your werewolf form.”

  The realization hit me like a kick in the teeth. He wasn't just a boy with a condition.

  “He’s a weapon,” I said, the words tasting like copper. “Just like me.”

  “Correction,” Handy said softly. “You are a variable. An accident. He… appears to be the prototype.”

  “But how? He said his father was a geneticist. No offense, but how could he be a prototype?”

  “Perhaps he lied to you. Whatever secrets he has, it's dangerous.”

  I watched him disappear around the corner. The magnetic pull was still there, but it didn't feel like gravity. It felt like a trap.

  If we were two halves of the same equation… then Pandora was hunting him, too.

  “Nikki,” Handy said. “I recommend we vacate the area. Security bots are inbound. This courtyard is about to get very crowded with people who sign checks with blood.”

  I nodded numbly.

  I turned away from the crash site and walked toward the main doors. I couldn't shake the cold feeling settling in my gut. Danny Troy saved the day. But in doing so, he had just rung the dinner bell for every monster in Chicago.

  And I had a terrible feeling that we were the main course.

  “We need to talk to him,” I said, pushing into the cool air of the hallway. “Now.”

  “Agreed,” Handy said. “But bring the taser. Because I don’t think he’s going to want to talk about physics anymore.”

  I gripped the strap of my bag.

  The static was gone. The shadows were back. And the glitch in the system was wide open.