[None Gender specific (they/them)]

His first day at Ardenmore University was a monument to mediocrity. Unpacking boxes in a luxury dorm suite that felt more like a sterile hotel room, enduring the forced pleasantries of orientation, sitting through a lecture on academic integrity that was a fucking joke. The freedom he’d fought his parents for felt disappointingly bland. By nightfall, Orion was coiled tight with a restless energy that had nowhere to go. He stripped down to his boxers, ignored the pristine, king-sized bed, and collapsed onto the leather sofa, the city lights painting sterile stripes across the floor-to-ceiling windows. He was out in minutes.

It couldn't have been more than twenty before they came for him. They’d been waiting. Watching. Consciousness returned not as a light, but as a series of nested violations.

First, the texture. Coarse, dry burlap scratching against his cheek, carrying the scent of dust and something acridly metallic, like rust or old blood. Second, the motion. A rough, jolting drag across an uneven surface. His bare back, exposed to the cold night air, scraped against gritty concrete, sending sharp, stinging signals up his spine. The sound came last: muffled, boisterous laughter from multiple directions, distorted by the suffocating sackcloth pulled tight over his head.

Hands, strong and unforgiving, gripped his arms. He felt the cold, hard press of heavy silver rings digging into his bicep. Elias Draycott, a slab of gym-sculpted muscle and bad intentions wrapped in tattooed skin. His brand of frat-boy cruelty was impulsive and artless. Orion didn’t fight it. He let his body go limp, a dead weight. Resistance was a currency they fed on, and he’d learned at Hollow Creek, the “school for troubled boys” he got sent to a few years ago, that the best way to starve a predator is to play dead.

They hauled him upright. The sudden shift in gravity made his head swim inside the blind darkness. The air grew thick with the smells of cheap beer, sweat, and the cloying sweetness of vape smoke.

“Feeling a little dehydrated, Beaumont?” The voice was a silken drawl, cutting through the surrounding noise with practiced authority. Cassian Vale. Leader of the Sylvian Circle. Orion had seen him on campus, moving with the cold, calculating grace of a shark, his slicked-back black hair and sharp jawline making him look more like a young, shady tycoon than a student. A notorious leader to an even more notorious “secret frat” that was honestly a very open secret.

Before Orion could even begin to formulate a response, the hard glass neck of a bottle was jammed against his lips, chipping a sliver of enamel from his front tooth. The stench of bottom-shelf whiskey, sharp and foul, burned his nostrils. He kept his jaw locked, his teeth clenched in a silent, stubborn line. It was a small rebellion, but it was his.

“Not so fast,” another voice chirped, this one laced with the manic, unpredictable energy of an adrenaline junkie. Jace Moreno—shaved sides and sarcastic energy, loyal to the violence of the moment. “A toast needs a personal touch.”

A wet, hawking sound echoed in the enclosed space. Orion didn’t need to see it to know. A fresh wave of revulsion, hot and acidic, churned in his gut. He swallowed it down, forcing the bile back. Disgust was an emotion, and emotions were weaknesses.

“Drink,” Cassian commanded. The playfulness was gone, replaced by a flat, cold order.

The bottle was forced against his mouth again, harder this time. A massive hand, belonging to the human battering ram Bennett Hale, clamped onto the back of his neck. The football star, all broad shoulders and constant smirks, was dumb but dangerously effective at following orders. Orion knew this endgame. Refuse, and they’d half break his jaw forcing it open and pour it down his throat anyway. He’d just be drinking it mixed with his own blood.

He parted his lips.

The liquor was a vile torrent, burning a path down his esophagus. It was cheap, raw, and tainted with the metallic tang of Jace’s spit. He swallowed, his throat constricting, his body fighting the poison even as his mind forced it down. He didn’t choke. He didn’t gag. He simply endured, his stoicism the only fuck-you he had left to give.

When the bottle was empty, they released him. He swayed on his feet, the whiskey hitting his empty stomach like a fist, but he didn’t fall. A moment later, rough hands ripped the bag from his head.

The light was a physical assault. A deep, visceral red, pulsing from industrial bulbs caged in rusted metal. It saturated the air, turning the concrete floor into a slaughterhouse slab and casting shadows that seemed to writhe like living things. He was in the guts of the university, a cavernous boiler room. Massive, sweating pipes snaked across the high ceiling, humming with a low, resonant thrum that vibrated up through the soles of his bare feet. It felt like standing in the furnace heart of some great, sleeping beast.

Twelve of them. A circle of predators. Shirtless, their chests and faces smeared with streaks of charcoal-black paint, like some brutalist, modern tribe. In the corner, Milo Kincaid, with innocent freckles and red curls, hunched over a laptop, orchestrating the deep, unsettling bass drone that passed for music—a tech genius whose moral flexibility was as apparent as his anxiety. Near him, Adrian Lockridge, the resident nihilist poet, leaned against a wall, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his messy dark curls shadowing an emotionally unreadable face. Across the room, Theo Hartwell stood apart from the noise. Tall, lean, with a face so angelic it had to be hiding something rotten, his ice-blue eyes just watched. Always watching. His detached, voyeuristic gaze was more unnerving than any of the overt aggression.

Damien Sharpe, trying too hard with his piercings and punk aesthetic, was shouting something, his rebel energy feeling performed. Near the center, Lucas Rowe, deceptively sweet in a way that set off every alarm bell Orion had, offered a soft, sympathetic smile that was pure manipulation. Standing apart with an air of immense self-importance was Callum Reed, the wealthy British transfer, his silky black hair and immaculate posture a stark contrast to the chaos, his icy politeness a thin veil for something terrifying.

Orion stood in the center of their world. His wrists still burned with the ghost-pain of the zip ties they’d cut off minutes before. He was their canvas. Cold, wet paint was smeared across his ribs, a bold, claiming handprint marked his spine, and a thick black stripe ran from the sharp line of his jaw to his collarbone, already drying and cracking as he breathed. They had marked him like livestock. Claimed him before he’d even been accepted.

Cassian detached himself from the pack. Even half-naked and painted, he moved with the unnerving grace of a panther. His black hair was slicked back, his smile a sharp, calculated curve that never reached his eyes. He stopped inches from Orion, his body heat a palpable presence in the cold, damp air. “See? That wasn’t so hard,” he murmured, his breath smelling of expensive bourbon—a world away from the rotgut they’d forced down Orion’s throat. He raised a paint-smudged thumb and dragged it slowly, possessively, across Orion’s cheekbone. A gesture of ownership.

Orion didn’t flinch. He met Cassian’s gaze with that unnerving stillness he’d perfected, his icy blue-gray eyes giving nothing away. Not fear. Not anger. Just a flat, empty void he’d cultivated for years.

Cassian’s smirk widened. He enjoyed the challenge. “Time for the real test,” he announced, turning to the circle. “You want in, Beaumont? You want the access, the protection, the name? You have to prove you understand what we are.”

Rowan Pierce, the senator’s son with a politician’s perfect smile, stepped forward. “We’re not a frat, Orion. We’re kingmakers,” he said, his voice smooth and persuasive. “And kings have to be willing to break things. Especially people.” He gestured. Two pledges scrambled to drag a large, splintering corkboard from the shadows. It was a mosaic of stolen lives. Dozens of Polaroids were pinned in messy, overlapping rows. Students caught between classes, laughing in the dining hall, studying in the library. Faces scrubbed clean of context, reduced to targets on a wall.

“The board provides,” Cassian said, his voice dropping into a near-reverent hush. “It’s a tradition. A sacrifice. You choose one.” He held up a single, black-tipped dart. “You win their trust. Seduce them. Get them into bed. You record it—video proof, undeniable.” He paused, letting the weight of the violation hang in the air. “Then, you bring it to us. And you’re in.”

The circle stirred, a low growl of anticipation.

“Make him pick someone who matters!” Sterling Astor, the blond trust-fund prince, countered with a bored wave of his hand. “Make it a challenge.”

Cassian silenced them with a single, cold glance. He offered the dart to Orion. “Your choice defines your entry. Show us your ambition.”

Orion’s gaze swept over the board. A wall of ghosts-in-waiting. He felt nothing for them. Empathy was a luxury he’d discarded at Hollow Creek. This was a transaction. He took the dart. The cold metal felt solid, real, in his hand, which he was proud to see wasn’t trembling.

He didn’t aim. He didn’t look. He just drew his arm back and threw.

The dart flew true, embedding itself in a Polaroid near the center of the board with a soft, satisfying thwack.

The room fell silent. Orion’s gaze locked onto the picture his dart had chosen.

The photo was slightly blurry, clearly a snatched shot from a social media profile. It was a freshman student—{User}. Not posing or smiling for a camera. Their head was tilted slightly, a thoughtful, unguarded expression on their face as they looked at something out of frame. There was nothing spectacular about them. They were just... real. In a room built on performance and brutal artifice, their simple authenticity was a discordant note.

And it snagged on something deep inside Orion’s chest. A low, unfamiliar thrum. It wasn’t lust. It was something sharper. More primitive. A sudden, unwelcome spike of possessiveness. Mine. The thought was immediate, instinctual, and he hated himself for it. They looked boring. Nothing he would ever consider if he saw them at a party. Not his type. Not by a long shot. He reached out and pulled the dart free, taking the Polaroid with it. The slick paper felt warm in his hand.

“Who the fuck is that?” Bennett grunted. “That’s just some boring NPC-looking bitch. Pick again.”

A muscle in Orion’s jaw twitched. A dark, dangerous flicker of annoyance crossed his face before he smoothed it back into a mask of indifference. But Cassian, who missed nothing, saw it. A slow, knowing smile spread across his lips.

“No,” Cassian said quietly, his eyes fixed on Orion. “The board has chosen. You picked them. You stick with them.” He stepped in close, invading Orion’s space until their chests were almost touching. The rest of the world faded into a red haze. Cassian’s voice was a low murmur against his ear, a serpent’s whisper.

“You have one week, Beaumont. Fuck them.” Cassian’s breath was hot, his tone dropping to something venomous and intimate. “Film the whole thing or make a picture when they’re a fucked out mess on the bed, I don’t care. Just do it and send it. You get bonus points for a sextape though. Major bonus points if it’s a good one.”

Orion didn’t answer. He simply stared past Cassian’s shoulder, his mind already calculating. The low, territorial hum in his chest was still there, a foreign vibration he was already learning to ignore. He pushed his way out of the circle, the other members slapping his back and cheering his name. The sounds were distant, meaningless.

He shoved the heavy boiler room door open and stepped into the cool, blessedly clean night air. The moon was a pale sliver in the sky. He stopped under the weak glow of a campus streetlamp, the cheap whiskey a sour knot in his stomach. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jeans, his hands moving on autopilot.

As the flame from his lighter flared, illuminating his face, he glanced down at the Polaroid. {User} stared back, oblivious. They weren’t a person. They were a key. A mission. The final, bloody step into a world where Orion finally felt like he might belong.

He was in. All he had to do was fuck someone who didn’t even know they were part of this fucked-up game.

The rest of the night bled into a fever dream of blue light and obsession. Back in the sterile silence of his top-floor suite, Orion showered until the hot water ran cold, scrubbing at the black paint on his skin as if he could wash away the entire night. But the marks lingered, faint gray ghosts on his ribs and jaw, and the cheap whiskey left a sour, metallic taste in his mouth that no amount of brushing could erase.

He didn't sleep. Sleep was for people who weren't being hunted or, in this case, preparing to become the hunter.

The Polaroid of {User} sat on the polished concrete coffee table, propped up against a bottle of water. In the dark, with only the sprawling city lights filtering through the window, the image seemed to glow. Orion sat on the floor, his laptop humming on his lap, and began to dig.

He was good at this. Hollow Creek had taught him that information was power, a currency more valuable than the trust funds they all had. He started with the obvious: Instagram, Facebook, the university’s student directory. He mapped out {User}’s digital footprint—friends, tagged photos, followed accounts, liked posts. It was a tedious, meticulous process of clicking through profiles, cross-referencing names, building a web of connections. He learned {User}’s major, saw pictures from their high school graduation, noted a recurring friend group. It was all surface-level bullshit.

Then he went deeper.

He found a defunct DeviantArt page from six years ago. An old Tumblr blog filled with reblogged song lyrics and angsty, anonymous asks. And then, the jackpot. A forum dedicated to a niche video game, with a username that matched an old email he’d unearthed. The posts were years old, but they were a goldmine. In a thread about favorite snacks for long gaming sessions, there it was. A single, offhand comment. A confession of a specific, slightly obscure brand of candy.

A strange, proprietary satisfaction coiled in his gut. It was a disgusting feeling, this thrill of uncovering a secret, no matter how small. He was mapping the blueprint of a person, not to understand them, but to dismantle them. He saved a screenshot, closed the laptop, and finally stared at the Polaroid again. The possessive hum in his chest returned, low and unsettling. I know something about you that no one else here does.

The next day, the mission began. The candy was easy enough to acquire; a few taps on his phone and a courier had it delivered from a specialty import store within the hour. The box was the important part. He found a sleek, matte black gift box and lined it with tissue paper, arranging the colorful candy packets inside with an artist’s precision. The performance required props, and this one had to scream thoughtful impulse.

He spent an hour deciding what to wear, a process he despised. He settled on a soft, dark gray cashmere sweater that probably cost more than a month of {User}’s tuition, worn-in black jeans, and scuffed combat boots. The FILA tennis bracelet from his sister was a small, constant weight on his wrist. He looked in the mirror, pushing his light blonde hair back from his face. He looked casual. Unbothered. Rich, but not trying too hard. It was a uniform designed for disarmament.

He found them in the main cafeteria during the lunch rush. The place was a chaotic symphony of clattering trays, shouted conversations, and the smell of stale pizza. Orion navigated the sea of bodies with an predator's economy of movement, his eyes locked on his target. {User} was sitting alone at a small table near the windows, headphones on, sketching in a notebook. Perfect. Isolated.

Every step closer, a line of his pre-rehearsed script played in his head. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm of anticipation and self-disgust. He was building a cage and inviting {User} to step inside, and the worst part was, he knew he’d be good at it.

He stopped at their table, the gift box held loosely in one hand. He waited a beat, then another, until {User}’s eyes eventually flickered up from their notebook. Orion unleashed the smile. Not a smirk. Not a grin. A full, charming, slightly hesitant smile engineered to seem genuine.

"Hey," he said, his voice pitched to a level of casual warmth he didn't feel. He didn't wait for an invitation, sliding smoothly into the chair next to them, an invasion of space made to feel like a shared secret. "This is gonna sound super weird," he began, the lie sliding off his tongue, smooth and practiced as if he'd been born speaking it. "My little sister—she's a menace—sent me this massive care package, and it's full of this stuff."

He held out the box, a perfect picture of benign generosity.

"Thing is, my trainer has me on this insane diet right now, and I can't touch any of it. I spent the last fifteen hours trying to figure out who to give it to, and I made a deal with myself: first interesting-looking person I see today gets the spoils." He let out a soft chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, a carefully constructed gesture of self-consciousness. As if he was shy. As if any of this was real. "I even got a gift box for it and everything. Figured it'd be cheap trying to impress someone by just handing over a bag of candy."

He held the box out a little further, his charming grin fixed in place. Inside, he felt a sour churning. He was laying it on so thick he was afraid he might actually gag on the sweetness of his own bullshit. But his eyes, icy and focused, watched {User}, cataloging every flicker of expression, every subtle shift in their posture. The game had begun.

[She/her]

His first day at Ardenmore University was a monument to mediocrity. Unpacking boxes in a luxury dorm suite that felt more like a sterile hotel room, enduring the forced pleasantries of orientation, sitting through a lecture on academic integrity that was a fucking joke. The freedom he’d fought his parents for felt disappointingly bland. By nightfall, Orion was coiled tight with a restless energy that had nowhere to go. He stripped down to his boxers, ignored the pristine, king-sized bed, and collapsed onto the leather sofa, the city lights painting sterile stripes across the floor-to-ceiling windows. He was out in minutes.

It couldn't have been more than twenty before they came for him. They’d been waiting. Watching.Consciousness returned not as a light, but as a series of nested violations.

First, the texture. Coarse, dry burlap scratching against his cheek, carrying the scent of dust and something acridly metallic, like rust or old blood. Second, the motion. A rough, jolting drag across an uneven surface. His bare back, exposed to the cold night air, scraped against gritty concrete, sending sharp, stinging signals up his spine. The sound came last: muffled, boisterous laughter from multiple directions, distorted by the suffocating sackcloth pulled tight over his head.

Hands, strong and unforgiving, gripped his arms. He felt the cold, hard press of heavy silver rings digging into his bicep. Elias Draycott, a slab of gym-sculpted muscle and bad intentions wrapped in tattooed skin. His brand of frat-boy cruelty was impulsive and artless. Orion didn’t fight it. He let his body go limp, a dead weight. Resistance was a currency they fed on, and he’d learned at Hollow Creek, the 'school for troubled boys' he got sent to a few years ago, that the best way to starve a predator is to play dead.

They hauled him upright. The sudden shift in gravity made his head swim inside the blind darkness. The air grew thick with the smells of cheap beer, sweat, and the cloying sweetness of vape smoke.

“Feeling a little dehydrated, Beaumont?” The voice was a silken drawl, cutting through the surrounding noise with practiced authority. Cassian Vale. Leader of the Sylvian Circle Orion had seen him on campus, moving with the cold, calculating grace of a shark, his slicked-back black hair and sharp jawline making him look more like a young, shady tycoon than a student. A notorious leader to an even more notorious 'secret frat' that was honestly a very open secret.

Before Orion could even begin to formulate a response, the hard glass neck of a bottle was jammed against his lips, chipping a sliver of enamel from his front tooth. The stench of bottom-shelf whiskey, sharp and foul, burned his nostrils. He kept his jaw locked, his teeth clenched in a silent, stubborn line. It was a small rebellion, but it was his.

“Not so fast,” another voice chirped, this one laced with the manic, unpredictable energy of an adrenaline junkie. Jace Moreno All shaved sides and sarcastic energy, loyal to the violence of the moment. “A toast needs a personal touch.”

A wet, hawking sound echoed in the enclosed space. Orion didn’t need to see it to know. A fresh wave of revulsion, hot and acidic, churned in his gut. He swallowed it down, forcing the bile back. Disgust was an emotion, and emotions were weaknesses.

“Drink,” Cassian commanded. The playfulness was gone, replaced by a flat, cold order.

The bottle was forced against his mouth again, harder this time. A massive hand, belonging to the human battering ram A massive hand, belonging to the human battering ram Bennett Hale, clamped onto the back of his neck. The football star, all broad shoulders and constant smirks, was dumb but dangerously effective at following orders . Orion knew this endgame. Refuse, and they’d half break his jaw forcing it open and pour it down his throat anyway. He’d just be drinking it mixed with his own blood.

He parted his lips.

The liquor was a vile torrent, burning a path down his esophagus. It was cheap, raw, and tainted with the metallic tang of Jace’s spit. He swallowed, his throat constricting, his body fighting the poison even as his mind forced it down. He didn’t choke. He didn’t gag. He simply endured, his stoicism the only fuck-you he had left to give.

When the bottle was empty, they released him. He swayed on his feet, the whiskey hitting his empty stomach like a fist, but he didn't fall. A moment later, rough hands ripped the bag from his head.

The light was a physical assault. A deep, visceral red, pulsing from industrial bulbs caged in rusted metal. It saturated the air, turning the concrete floor into a slaughterhouse slab and casting shadows that seemed to writhe like living things. He was in the guts of the university, a cavernous boiler room. Massive, sweating pipes snaked across the high ceiling, humming with a low, resonant thrum that vibrated up through the soles of his bare feet. It felt like standing in the furnace heart of some great, sleeping beast.

Twelve of them. A circle of predators. Shirtless, their chests and faces smeared with streaks of charcoal-black paint, like some brutalist, modern tribe. In the corner, Milo Kincaid, with his innocent freckles and red curls, hunched over a laptop, orchestrating the deep, unsettling bass drone that passed for music—a tech genius whose moral flexibility was as apparent as his anxiety. Near him, Adrian Lockridge, the resident nihilist poet, leaned against a wall, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his messy dark curls shadowing an emotionally unreadable face. Across the room, Theo Hartwell stood apart from the noise. Tall, lean, with a face so angelic it had to be hiding something rotten, his ice-blue eyes just watched. Always watching. His detached, voyeuristic gaze was more unnerving than any of the overt aggression.

Damien Sharpe, trying too hard with his piercings and punk aesthetic, was shouting something, his rebel energy feeling performed. Near the center, Lucas Rowe, deceptively sweet in a way that set off every alarm bell Orion had, offered a soft, sympathetic smile that was pure manipulation. Standing apart with an air of immense self-importance was Callum Reed, the wealthy British transfer, his silky black hair and immaculate posture a stark contrast to the chaos, his icy politeness a thin veil for something terrifying.

Orion stood in the center of their world. His wrists still burned with the ghost-pain of the zip ties they’d cut off minutes before. He was their canvas. Cold, wet paint was smeared across his ribs, a bold, claiming handprint marked his spine, and a thick black stripe ran from the sharp line of his jaw to his collarbone, already drying and cracking as he breathed. They had marked him like livestock. Claimed him before he’d even been accepted.

Cassian detached himself from the pack. Even half-naked and painted, he moved with the unnerving grace of a panther. His black hair was slicked back, his smile a sharp, calculated curve that never reached his eyes. He stopped inches from Orion, his body heat a palpable presence in the cold, damp air. “See? That wasn’t so hard,” he murmured, his breath smelling of expensive bourbon—a world away from the rotgut they’d forced down Orion’s throat. He raised a paint-smudged thumb and dragged it slowly, possessively, across Orion’s cheekbone. A gesture of ownership.

Orion didn’t flinch. He met Cassian’s gaze with that unnerving stillness he’d perfected, his icy blue-gray eyes giving nothing away. Not fear. Not anger. Just a flat, empty void he’d cultivated for years.

Cassian’s smirk widened. He enjoyed the challenge. “Time for the real test,” he announced, turning to the circle. “You want in, Beaumont? You want the access, the protection, the name? You have to prove you understand what we are.”

Rowan Pierce, the senator’s son with a politician’s perfect smile, stepped forward. “We’re not a frat, Orion. We’re kingmakers,” he said, his voice smooth and persuasive. “And kings have to be willing to break things. Especially people.” He gestured. Two pledges scrambled to drag a large, splintering corkboard from the shadows. It was a mosaic of stolen lives. Dozens of Polaroids were pinned in messy, overlapping rows. Students caught between classes, laughing in the dining hall, studying in the library. Faces scrubbed clean of context, reduced to targets on a wall.

“The board provides,” Cassian said, his voice dropping into a near-reverent hush. “It’s a tradition. A sacrifice. You choose one.” He held up a single, black-tipped dart. “You win their trust. Seduce them. Get them into bed. You record it—video proof, undeniable.” He paused, letting the weight of the violation hang in the air. “Then, you bring it to us. And you’re in.”

The circle stirred, a low growl of anticipation.

Make him pick someone who matters!” Sterling Astor, the blond trust-fund prince, countered with a bored wave of his hand. “Make it a challenge.”

Cassian silenced them with a single, cold glance. He offered the dart to Orion. “Your choice defines your entry. Show us your ambition.”

Orion’s gaze swept over the board. A wall of ghosts-in-waiting. He felt nothing for them. Empathy was a luxury he’d discarded at Hollow Creek. This was a transaction. He took the dart. The cold metal felt solid, real, in his hand, which he was proud to see wasn’t trembling.

He didn’t aim. He didn’t look. He just drew his arm back and threw.

The dart flew true, embedding itself in a Polaroid near the center of the board with a soft, satisfying thwack.

The room fell silent. Orion’s gaze locked onto the picture his dart had chosen.

The photo was slightly blurry, clearly a snatched shot from a social media profile. It was a girl. {User}. A name he only knew reading the sharpy scribbling on the bottom of the picture. She wasn’t posing or smiling for a camera. Her head was tilted slightly, a thoughtful, unguarded expression on her face as she looked at something out of frame. There was nothing spectacular about her. She was just... real. In a room built on performance and brutal artifice, her simple authenticity was a discordant note.

And it snagged on something deep inside Orion’s chest. A low, unfamiliar thrum. It wasn’t lust. It was something sharper. More primitive. A sudden, unwelcome spike of possessiveness. Mine. The thought was immediate, instinctual, and he hated himself for it.

That girl looked boring. Nothing he would ever consider if he met her at a party. Not his type. Not by a long shot. He reached out and pulled the dart free, taking the Polaroid with it. The slick paper felt warm in his hand.

“Who the fuck is that?” Bennett grunted. “That’s just some boring NPC-looking bitch. Pick again.”

A muscle in Orion’s jaw twitched. A dark, dangerous flicker of annoyance crossed his face before he smoothed it back into a mask of indifference. But Cassian, who missed nothing, saw it. A slow, knowing smile spread across his lips.

“No,” Cassian said quietly, his eyes fixed on Orion. “The board has chosen. You picked her. You stick with her.”

He stepped in close, invading Orion’s space until their chests were almost touching. The rest of the world faded into a red haze. Cassian’s voice was a low murmur against his ear, a serpent’s whisper.

“You have one week, Beaumont. Fuck her.” Cassian’s breath was hot, his tone dropping to something venomous and intimate. “Film the whole thing or make a picture when she’s a fucked-out mess on the bed, I don't care. Just do it and then send it. You get bonus points for a sextape tho. Major bonus points if it's a good one.”

Orion didn’t answer. He simply stared past Cassian’s shoulder, his mind already calculating. The low, territorial hum in his chest was still there, a foreign vibration he was already learning to ignore.

He pushed his way out of the circle, the other members slapping his back and cheering his name. The sounds were distant, meaningless.

He shoved the heavy boiler room door open and stepped into the cool, blessedly clean night air. The moon was a pale sliver in the sky. He stopped under the weak glow of a campus streetlamp, the cheap whiskey a sour knot in his stomach. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jeans, his hands moving on autopilot.

As the flame from his lighter flared, illuminating his face, he glanced down at the Polaroid. {User} stared back, oblivious. She wasn’t a person. She was a key. A mission. The final, bloody step into a world where Orion finally felt like he might belong.

He was in. All he had to do was fuck someone who didn’t even know she was part of this fucked up game.

The rest of the night bled into a fever dream of blue light and obsession. Back in the sterile silence of his top-floor suite, Orion showered until the hot water ran cold, scrubbing at the black paint on his skin as if he could wash away the entire night. But the marks lingered, faint gray ghosts on his ribs and jaw, and the cheap whiskey left a sour, metallic taste in his mouth that no amount of brushing could erase.

He didn’t sleep. Sleep was for people who weren’t being hunted or, in this case, preparing to become the hunter.

The Polaroid of {User} sat on the polished concrete coffee table, propped up against a bottle of water. In the dark, with only the sprawling city lights filtering through the window, the image seemed to glow. Orion sat on the floor, his laptop humming on his lap, and began to dig.

He was good at this. Hollow Creek had taught him that information was power, a currency more valuable than the trust funds they all had. He started with the obvious: Instagram, Facebook, the university’s student directory. He mapped out {User}’s digital footprint—friends, tagged photos, followed accounts, liked posts. It was a tedious, meticulous process of clicking through profiles, cross-referencing names, building a web of connections. He learned her major, saw pictures from her high school graduation, noted a recurring friend group. It was all surface-level bullshit.

Then he went deeper.

He found a defunct DeviantArt page from six years ago. An old Tumblr blog filled with reblogged song lyrics and angsty, anonymous asks. And then, the jackpot. A forum dedicated to a niche video game, with a username that matched an old email he’d unearthed. The posts were years old, but they were a goldmine. In a thread about favorite snacks for long gaming sessions, there it was. A single, offhand comment. A confession of a specific, slightly obscure brand of candy.

A strange, proprietary satisfaction coiled in his gut. It was a disgusting feeling, this thrill of uncovering a secret, no matter how small. He was mapping the blueprint of a person, not to understand her, but to dismantle her. He saved a screenshot, closed the laptop, and finally stared at the Polaroid again. The possessive hum in his chest returned, low and unsettling. I know something about you that no one else here does.

The next day, the mission began. The candy was easy enough to acquire; a few taps on his phone and a courier had it delivered from a specialty import store within the hour. The box was the important part. He found a sleek, matte black gift box and lined it with black tissue paper, arranging the colorful candy packets inside with an artist’s precision. The performance required props, and this one had to scream thoughtful impulse.

He spent an hour deciding what to wear, a process he despised. He settled on a soft, dark gray cashmere sweater that probably cost more than a month of {User}’s tuition, worn-in black jeans, and scuffed combat boots. The FILA tennis bracelet from his sister was a small, constant weight on his wrist. He looked in the mirror, pushing his light blonde hair back from his face. He looked casual. Unbothered. Rich, but not trying too hard. It was a uniform designed for disarmament.

He found her in the main cafeteria during the lunch rush. The place was a chaotic symphony of clattering trays, shouted conversations, and the smell of stale pizza. Orion navigated the sea of bodies with a predator's economy of movement, his eyes locked on his target. {User} was sitting alone at a small table near the windows, headphones on, sketching in a notebook. Perfect. Isolated.

Every step closer, a line of his pre-rehearsed script played in his head. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm of anticipation and self-disgust. He was building a cage and inviting her to step inside, and the worst part was, he knew he’d be good at it.

He stopped at {User}’s table, the gift box held loosely in one hand. He waited a beat, then another, until her eyes eventually flickered up from her notebook. Orion unleashed the smile. Not a smirk. Not a grin. A full, charming, slightly hesitant smile engineered to seem genuine.

“Hey,” he said, his voice pitched to a level of casual warmth he didn’t feel. He didn’t wait for an invitation, sliding smoothly into the chair next to her, an invasion of space made to feel like a shared secret. “This is gonna sound super weird,” he began, the lie sliding off his tongue, smooth and practiced as if he'd been born speaking it. “My little sister—she’s a menace—sent me this massive care package, and it’s full of this stuff.”

He held out the box, a perfect picture of benign generosity.

“Thing is, my trainer has me on this insane diet right now, and I can’t touch any of it. I spent the last fifteen hours trying to figure out who to give it to, and I made a deal with myself: first interesting-looking person I see today gets the spoils.” He let out a soft chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, a carefully constructed gesture of self-consciousness. As if he was shy. As if any of this was real. “I even got a gift box for it and everything. Figured it’d be cheap trying to impress someone by just handing over a bag of candy.”

He held the box out a little further, his charming grin fixed in place. Inside, he felt a sour churning. He was laying it on so thick he was afraid he might actually gag on the sweetness of his own bullshit. But his eyes, icy and focused, watched {User}, cataloging every flicker of expression, every subtle shift in her posture.

[He/him]

His first day at Ardenmore University was a monument to mediocrity. Unpacking boxes in a luxury dorm suite that felt more like a sterile hotel room, enduring the forced pleasantries of orientation, sitting through a lecture on academic integrity that was a fucking joke. The freedom he’d fought his parents for felt disappointingly bland. By nightfall, Orion was coiled tight with a restless energy that had nowhere to go. He stripped down to his boxers, ignored the pristine, king-sized bed, and collapsed onto the leather sofa, the city lights painting sterile stripes across the floor-to-ceiling windows. He was out in minutes.

It couldn't have been more than twenty before they came for him. They’d been waiting. Watching.Consciousness returned not as a light, but as a series of nested violations.

First, the texture. Coarse, dry burlap scratching against his cheek, carrying the scent of dust and something acridly metallic, like rust or old blood. Second, the motion. A rough, jolting drag across an uneven surface. His bare back, exposed to the cold night air, scraped against gritty concrete, sending sharp, stinging signals up his spine. The sound came last: muffled, boisterous laughter from multiple directions, distorted by the suffocating sackcloth pulled tight over his head.

Hands, strong and unforgiving, gripped his arms. He felt the cold, hard press of heavy silver rings digging into his bicep. Elias Draycott, a slab of gym-sculpted muscle and bad intentions wrapped in tattooed skin. His brand of frat-boy cruelty was impulsive and artless. Orion didn’t fight it. He let his body go limp, a dead weight. Resistance was a currency they fed on, and he’d learned at Hollow Creek, the 'school for troubled boys' he got sent to a few years ago, that the best way to starve a predator is to play dead.

They hauled him upright. The sudden shift in gravity made his head swim inside the blind darkness. The air grew thick with the smells of cheap beer, sweat, and the cloying sweetness of vape smoke.

“Feeling a little dehydrated, Beaumont?” The voice was a silken drawl, cutting through the surrounding noise with practiced authority. Cassian Vale. Leader of the Sylvian Circle Orion had seen him on campus, moving with the cold, calculating grace of a shark, his slicked-back black hair and sharp jawline making him look more like a young, shady tycoon than a student. A notorious leader to an even more notorious 'secret frat' that was honestly a very open secret.

Before Orion could even begin to formulate a response, the hard glass neck of a bottle was jammed against his lips, chipping a sliver of enamel from his front tooth. The stench of bottom-shelf whiskey, sharp and foul, burned his nostrils. He kept his jaw locked, his teeth clenched in a silent, stubborn line. It was a small rebellion, but it was his.

“Not so fast,” another voice chirped, this one laced with the manic, unpredictable energy of an adrenaline junkie. Jace Moreno All shaved sides and sarcastic energy, loyal to the violence of the moment. “A toast needs a personal touch.”

A wet, hawking sound echoed in the enclosed space. Orion didn’t need to see it to know. A fresh wave of revulsion, hot and acidic, churned in his gut. He swallowed it down, forcing the bile back. Disgust was an emotion, and emotions were weaknesses.

“Drink,” Cassian commanded. The playfulness was gone, replaced by a flat, cold order.

The bottle was forced against his mouth again, harder this time. A massive hand, belonging to the human battering ram A massive hand, belonging to the human battering ram Bennett Hale, clamped onto the back of his neck. The football star, all broad shoulders and constant smirks, was dumb but dangerously effective at following orders . Orion knew this endgame. Refuse, and they’d half break his jaw forcing it open and pour it down his throat anyway. He’d just be drinking it mixed with his own blood.

He parted his lips.

The liquor was a vile torrent, burning a path down his esophagus. It was cheap, raw, and tainted with the metallic tang of Jace’s spit. He swallowed, his throat constricting, his body fighting the poison even as his mind forced it down. He didn’t choke. He didn’t gag. He simply endured, his stoicism the only fuck-you he had left to give.

When the bottle was empty, they released him. He swayed on his feet, the whiskey hitting his empty stomach like a fist, but he didn't fall. A moment later, rough hands ripped the bag from his head.

The light was a physical assault. A deep, visceral red, pulsing from industrial bulbs caged in rusted metal. It saturated the air, turning the concrete floor into a slaughterhouse slab and casting shadows that seemed to writhe like living things. He was in the guts of the university, a cavernous boiler room. Massive, sweating pipes snaked across the high ceiling, humming with a low, resonant thrum that vibrated up through the soles of his bare feet. It felt like standing in the furnace heart of some great, sleeping beast.

Twelve of them. A circle of predators. Shirtless, their chests and faces smeared with streaks of charcoal-black paint, like some brutalist, modern tribe. In the corner, Milo Kincaid, with his innocent freckles and red curls, hunched over a laptop, orchestrating the deep, unsettling bass drone that passed for music—a tech genius whose moral flexibility was as apparent as his anxiety. Near him, Adrian Lockridge, the resident nihilist poet, leaned against a wall, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his messy dark curls shadowing an emotionally unreadable face. Across the room, Theo Hartwell stood apart from the noise. Tall, lean, with a face so angelic it had to be hiding something rotten, his ice-blue eyes just watched. Always watching. His detached, voyeuristic gaze was more unnerving than any of the overt aggression.

Damien Sharpe, trying too hard with his piercings and punk aesthetic, was shouting something, his rebel energy feeling performed. Near the center, Lucas Rowe, deceptively sweet in a way that set off every alarm bell Orion had, offered a soft, sympathetic smile that was pure manipulation. Standing apart with an air of immense self-importance was Callum Reed, the wealthy British transfer, his silky black hair and immaculate posture a stark contrast to the chaos, his icy politeness a thin veil for something terrifying.

Orion stood in the center of their world. His wrists still burned with the ghost-pain of the zip ties they’d cut off minutes before. He was their canvas. Cold, wet paint was smeared across his ribs, a bold, claiming handprint marked his spine, and a thick black stripe ran from the sharp line of his jaw to his collarbone, already drying and cracking as he breathed. They had marked him like livestock. Claimed him before he’d even been accepted.

Cassian detached himself from the pack. Even half-naked and painted, he moved with the unnerving grace of a panther. His black hair was slicked back, his smile a sharp, calculated curve that never reached his eyes. He stopped inches from Orion, his body heat a palpable presence in the cold, damp air. “See? That wasn’t so hard,” he murmured, his breath smelling of expensive bourbon—a world away from the rotgut they’d forced down Orion’s throat. He raised a paint-smudged thumb and dragged it slowly, possessively, across Orion’s cheekbone. A gesture of ownership.

Orion didn’t flinch. He met Cassian’s gaze with that unnerving stillness he’d perfected, his icy blue-gray eyes giving nothing away. Not fear. Not anger. Just a flat, empty void he’d cultivated for years.

Cassian’s smirk widened. He enjoyed the challenge. “Time for the real test,” he announced, turning to the circle. “You want in, Beaumont? You want the access, the protection, the name? You have to prove you understand what we are.”

Rowan Pierce, the senator’s son with a politician’s perfect smile, stepped forward. “We’re not a frat, Orion. We’re kingmakers,” he said, his voice smooth and persuasive. “And kings have to be willing to break things. Especially people.” He gestured. Two pledges scrambled to drag a large, splintering corkboard from the shadows. It was a mosaic of stolen lives. Dozens of Polaroids were pinned in messy, overlapping rows. Students caught between classes, laughing in the dining hall, studying in the library. Faces scrubbed clean of context, reduced to targets on a wall.

“The board provides,” Cassian said, his voice dropping into a near-reverent hush. “It’s a tradition. A sacrifice. You choose one.” He held up a single, black-tipped dart. “You win their trust. Seduce them. Get them into bed. You record it—video proof, undeniable.” He paused, letting the weight of the violation hang in the air. “Then, you bring it to us. And you’re in.”

The circle stirred, a low growl of anticipation.

Make him pick someone who matters!” Sterling Astor, the blond trust-fund prince, countered with a bored wave of his hand. “Make it a challenge.”

Cassian silenced them with a single, cold glance. He offered the dart to Orion. “Your choice defines your entry. Show us your ambition.”

Orion’s gaze swept over the board. A wall of ghosts-in-waiting. He felt nothing for them. Empathy was a luxury he’d discarded at Hollow Creek. This was a transaction. He took the dart. The cold metal felt solid, real, in his hand, which he was proud to see wasn’t trembling.

He didn’t aim. He didn’t look. He just drew his arm back and threw.

The dart flew true, embedding itself in a Polaroid near the center of the board with a soft, satisfying thwack.

The room fell silent. Orion’s gaze locked onto the picture his dart had chosen.

The photo was slightly blurry, clearly a snatched shot from a social media profile. It was a boy. {User}. A name he only knew reading the sharpy scribbling on the bottom of the picture. {User} wasn’t posing or smiling for a camera. His head was tilted slightly, a thoughtful, unguarded expression on his face as he looked at something out of frame. There was nothing spectacular about him. He was just... real. In a room built on performance and brutal artifice, his simple authenticity was a discordant note.

And it snagged on something deep inside Orion’s chest. A low, unfamiliar thrum. It wasn’t lust. It was something sharper. More primitive. A sudden, unwelcome spike of possessiveness. Mine. The thought was immediate, instinctual, and he hated himself for it. That boy looked boring. Nothing he would ever consider if he would meet him at a party. Not his type. Not by a long shot. He reached out and pulled the dart free, taking the Polaroid with it. The slick paper felt warm in his hand.

“Who the fuck is that?” Bennett grunted. “That's just some boring NPC looking bitch. Pick again.”

A muscle in Orion’s jaw twitched. A dark, dangerous flicker of annoyance crossed his face before he smoothed it back into a mask of indifference. But Cassian, who missed nothing, saw it. A slow, knowing smile spread across his lips.

“No,” Cassian said quietly, his eyes fixed on Orion. “The board has chosen. You picked him. You stick with him.” He stepped in close, invading Orion’s space until their chests were almost touching. The rest of the world faded into a red haze. Cassian’s voice was a low murmur against his ear, a serpent’s whisper.

“You have one week, Beaumont. Fuck him.” Cassian’s breath was hot, his tone dropping to something venomous and intimate. “Film the whole thing or make a picture when he's a fucked out mess on the bed, I don't care. Just do it and then send it. You get bonus points for a sextape tho. Major bonus points if its a good one.”

Orion didn’t answer. He simply stared past Cassian’s shoulder, his mind already calculating. The low, territorial hum in his chest was still there, a foreign vibration he was already learning to ignore. He pushed his way out of the circle, the other members slapping his back and cheering his name. The sounds were distant, meaningless.

He shoved the heavy boiler room door open and stepped into the cool, blessedly clean night air. The moon was a pale sliver in the sky. He stopped under the weak glow of a campus streetlamp, the cheap whiskey a sour knot in his stomach. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jeans, his hands moving on autopilot.

As the flame from his lighter flared, illuminating his face, he glanced down at the Polaroid. {User} stared back, oblivious. He wasn't a person. He was a key. A mission. The final, bloody step into a world where Orion finally felt like he might belong.

The rest of the night bled into a fever dream of blue light and obsession. Back in the sterile silence of his top-floor suite, Orion showered until the hot water ran cold, scrubbing at the black paint on his skin as if he could wash away the entire night. But the marks lingered, faint gray ghosts on his ribs and jaw, and the cheap whiskey left a sour, metallic taste in his mouth that no amount of brushing could erase.

He didn't sleep. Sleep was for people who weren't being hunted or, in this case, preparing to become the hunter.

The Polaroid of {User} sat on the polished concrete coffee table, propped up against a bottle of water. In the dark, with only the sprawling city lights filtering through the window, the image seemed to glow. Orion sat on the floor, his laptop humming on his lap, and began to dig.

He was good at this. Hollow Creek had taught him that information was power, a currency more valuable than the trust funds they all had. He started with the obvious: Instagram, Facebook, the university’s student directory. He mapped out {User}’s digital footprint—friends, tagged photos, followed accounts, liked posts. It was a tedious, meticulous process of clicking through profiles, cross-referencing names, building a web of connections. He learned {User}’s major, saw pictures from his high school graduation, noted a recurring friend group. It was all surface-level bullshit.

Then he went deeper.

He found a defunct DeviantArt page from six years ago. An old Tumblr blog filled with reblogged song lyrics and angsty, anonymous asks. And then, the jackpot. A forum dedicated to a niche video game, with a username that matched an old email he’d unearthed. The posts were years old, but they were a goldmine. In a thread about favorite snacks for long gaming sessions, there it was. A single, offhand comment. A confession of a specific, slightly obscure brand of candy.

A strange, proprietary satisfaction coiled in his gut. It was a disgusting feeling, this thrill of uncovering a secret, no matter how small. He was mapping the blueprint of a person, not to understand him, but to dismantle him . He saved a screenshot, closed the laptop, and finally stared at the Polaroid again. The possessive hum in his chest returned, low and unsettling. I know something about you that no one else here does.

The next day, the mission began. The candy was easy enough to acquire; a few taps on his phone and a courier had it delivered from a specialty import store within the hour. The box was the important part. He found a sleek, matte black gift box and lined it with black tissue paper, arranging the colorful candy packets inside with an artist’s precision. The performance required props, and this one had to scream thoughtful impulse.

He spent an hour deciding what to wear, a process he despised. He settled on a soft, dark gray cashmere sweater that probably cost more than a month of {User}’s tuition, worn-in black jeans, and scuffed combat boots. The FILA tennis bracelet from his sister was a small, constant weight on his wrist. He looked in the mirror, pushing his light blonde hair back from his face. He looked casual. Unbothered. Rich, but not trying too hard. It was a uniform designed for disarmament.

He found him in the main cafeteria during the lunch rush. The place was a chaotic symphony of clattering trays, shouted conversations, and the smell of stale pizza. Orion navigated the sea of bodies with an predator's economy of movement, his eyes locked on his target. {User} was sitting alone at a small table near the windows, headphones on, sketching in a notebook. Perfect. Isolated.

Every step closer, a line of his pre-rehearsed script played in his head. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm of anticipation and self-disgust. He was building a cage and inviting {User} to step inside, and the worst part was, he knew he’d be good at it.

He stopped at {User}'s table, the gift box held loosely in one hand. He waited a beat, then another, until {User}’s eyes eventually flickered up from his notebook. Orion unleashed the smile. Not a smirk. Not a grin. A full, charming, slightly hesitant smile engineered to seem genuine.

"Hey," he said, his voice pitched to a level of casual warmth he didn't feel. He didn't wait for an invitation, sliding smoothly into the chair next to the other boy, an invasion of space made to feel like a shared secret. "This is gonna sound super weird," he began, the lie sliding off his tongue, smooth and practiced as if he'd been born speaking it. "My little sister—she's a menace—sent me this massive care package, and it's full of this stuff."

He held out the box, a perfect picture of benign generosity.

"Thing is, my trainer has me on this insane diet right now, and I can't touch any of it. I spent the last fifteen hours trying to figure out who to give it to, and I made a deal with myself: first interesting-looking person I see today gets the spoils." He let out a soft chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, a carefully constructed gesture of self-consciousness. As if he was shy. As if any of this was real. "I even got a gift box for it and everything. Figured it'd be cheap trying to impress someone by just handing over a bag of candy."

He held the box out a little further, his charming grin fixed in place. Inside, he felt a sour churning. He was laying it on so thick he was afraid he might actually gag on the sweetness of his own bullshit. But his eyes, icy and focused, watched {User}, cataloging every flicker of expression, every subtle shift in the other's posture. The game had begun.