Seven

Mirella’s

The first thing I noticed when I entered the classroom was that the Legions sat at the back.

Good.

At least they didn’t take the front seats like they owned the place.

For once, I was glad to see them behind everyone else.

Maybe it meant there was some kind of balance here — a small pocket of normalcy in a place that already felt too strange.

But as I looked closer, I realized something else. Every single one of them was here. The entire group — the blonde girl from yesterday, the boys who followed Kaelen around, and Kaelen himself.

Of course he was here.

He sat at the end of the last row, one arm resting lazily on the desk, half-turned toward the window. His expression was unreadable, the kind of calm that didn’t belong to someone our age. I told myself not to look again, but somehow, I did. His eyes weren’t on the teacher. They weren’t even on his book. They were somewhere else entirely — detached, as if the class was beneath him.

I sat near the middle row, close enough to hear the whispers, far enough to avoid attention. Iris had warned me that the teachers didn’t interfere much here. The Legions didn’t just rule the students — they had control over the teachers too. I thought she was exaggerating, but as soon as class began, I understood what she meant.

Our first subject was History. The teacher walked in carrying a stack of books and a face that looked like it hadn’t smiled in years. He didn’t introduce himself. He just dropped the books on the desk with a thud, wrote his name — Mr. Halden — on the board, and began reading from a textbook.

His voice was flat. Lifeless. It wasn’t teaching; it was punishment.

No one interrupted him, not even to answer. I tried to follow along, but it felt impossible to care about wars and treaties when his tone sounded like a funeral prayer. Halfway through the lecture, I started counting the seconds between his pauses just to stay awake.

Then, suddenly, he stopped reading.

His eyes lifted from the book and scanned the room. “You,” he said, pointing at a boy in the front row. “Who led the rebellion of Aurelian Year Twenty-Six?”

The boy froze. He glanced sideways, searching for help, but no one dared whisper. “I—I don’t know, sir.”

Mr. Halden sighed, a deep, weary sound. “Then perhaps you should start paying attention.”

He turned to another student, then another. The pattern repeated — question after question, all directed at those sitting in the front. Some tried to answer, most failed. The teacher’s disappointment grew heavier with each wrong reply.

That’s when it clicked.

The Legions weren’t sitting at the back because they preferred it. They’d chosen to. They made everyone else sit in front — so when teachers started picking on students, it wasn’t them on the spot. They could relax, untouched, watching the rest of us take the hits for them.

I glanced back. The blonde Legion girl was smirking, tapping her pen against her desk in a slow rhythm. Kaelen hadn’t moved. His eyes were still fixed somewhere near the window, like he was watching something only he could see.

The rest of the day went the same. Each class blurred into the next, the teachers either too scared or too uninterested to control the room. The Legions talked when they wanted, laughed when they pleased, and everyone else just learned to pretend they didn’t notice.

By the third class, I stopped pretending.

During a short break, I went to sharpen my pencil near the back, trying to keep to myself. That’s when I heard it.

“Wipe it,” a female voice said, calm but cruel.

I turned slightly. One of the female Legions — the same blonde one — was sitting on a desk with her shoe stretched out. In front of her knelt a girl I recognized from orientation — a scholarship student.

“I said wipe it,” the blonde girl repeated, her smile sharp. “You stepped on me earlier, remember? Accidents have consequences.”

The girl stammered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t care what you meant. Wipe it. Use your lips.”

I froze. Surely, she was joking. No one would actually—

But the girl did. She bent her head and pressed her lips against the shoe. Once. Twice. The sound made my stomach turn.

Laughter followed — quiet but cruel. Phones were out. Some of the Legions were filming.

“Good girl,” the blonde said, patting her on the head like a pet.

I couldn’t move. My chest felt tight. I wanted to stop it, to say something — but the silence in the room was too thick. Everyone pretended they didn’t see. Some even smiled, like this was normal.

I looked toward the back again, and my gaze met Kaelen’s.

He was watching me. Not the girl. Me.

His expression didn’t change, but his eyes lingered — steady, cold, unreadable. It wasn’t curiosity. It wasn’t kindness either. It was like he was studying how I’d react, waiting for me to speak up so he could decide what kind of person I was.

I forced myself to look away.

He was probably just like the rest of them — silent, powerful, cruel in his own quiet way. I didn’t know why his stare unsettled me more than the others’, but it did.

The girl finally stood, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. No one helped her. No one even looked at her. When she walked past me, her eyes were empty.

I sat through the rest of the class in silence. My thoughts wouldn’t stop racing. Maybe Iris was right. Maybe surviving here meant keeping your head down and pretending not to see.

But how long could I do that before becoming just like them?

When the final bell rang, I packed my things quickly. The hallway was crowded, full of students pushing past one another. Some laughed, some whispered, and a few — the unlucky ones — were being cornered by the Legions.

I walked faster.

At one corner, I saw two boys holding another student against the lockers, demanding his lunch credits. A girl in uniform walked past them like it was nothing. No one helped. It was a system built on fear — and everyone had learned their place in it.

I kept my head down and walked toward the dorms. I didn’t want trouble. I just wanted to get through the day without drawing attention.

At dinner, Iris chatted about assignments and the dorm curfew, but my mind wasn’t really there. I kept thinking about the girl from earlier — the way her voice trembled, the way she lowered herself because someone stronger told her to.

That could’ve been me.

I pushed my tray away, appetite gone. “Do teachers ever do anything about the Legions?” I asked.

Iris looked uncomfortable. “No. They’re funded by the Academy’s sponsors. Everyone knows not to cross them.”

“Everyone except me, apparently.”

She gave a half-smile. “You’ll learn.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to learn how to be silent. I just wanted to understand why no one fought back.

Later that night, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. The room was quiet except for the faint hum of the lights. Iris had already fallen asleep, her breathing soft and steady.

But my mind wouldn’t rest.

Kaelen Durov. His name kept looping in my head again, just like it did the day before. The way he looked at me in class — calm but piercing — left a strange ache in my chest. It wasn’t attraction. It was something heavier, something I didn’t want to name.

I closed my eyes, hoping sleep would take me quickly.

It didn’t.

Because when I closed my eyes, he was all I saw.