Emilia bounced in front of Elijah’s door. She needed to knock. She could do it. She so totally could.

  Emilia bounced again, again, her too big sweatpants threatening to fall off her hips, and suddenly, she was very aware that she was meeting her boyfriend to break up with him while wearing clothes from the guy she’d hooked up with the day before—a guy she’d been more than a little in love with for the majority of her life.

  Well, as much as she’d wanted to frame the break-up as something that had been coming for a while, she’d definitely set herself up to come off as breaking up with him because she’d gotten good dick. Good, rich dick.

  Fuck.

  Unfortunately, just as she was debating whether to rush home—maybe this would be the ideal moment to check out how well she could spark?—and change, the door opened, and there was Elijah.

  Her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend smiled, and even before he noticed her clothing, it was strained. Not early morning, just woke up strained, either. Something else—the same strain that had been edging into his expressions since his visit home. Maybe, after they reverted to being kinda-friends, kinda-enemies, he’d finally fess up as to what happened.

  “Hey,” he said, finally taking in her outfit, and while his smile didn’t completely drop, it did dim.

  “Hey,” she said back.

  It was almost like they’d never spoken before. Awkwardly, he stepped aside, letting her into the messy suite he shared with a half dozen of his friends.

  Raiding rigs littered the room—two of them still occupied—along with dishes and trash and more than a few empty containers that had likely contained fumes from the pink tide. Clearly, Elijah had tried to tidy up a bit, but this had just resulted in a few half filled trash bags being distributed through the room and the HVAC system humming, trying to remove the unfortunate scents of the room before her arrival. Quietly, he led her to his room, which, thankfully, was tidier than the communal area.

  “So…” he breathed out, sitting on his bed. He barely looked at her, and Emilia wondered what it was that she’d said—or not said—that was making him so uncomfortable.

  Sure, she hadn’t sent him the offer of raid rewards, but despite her intention to break up with him, she really had saved an item specifically for him. Perhaps it was just that when she’d messaged back, telling him she’d be over in a few minutes, she’d told him they needed to talk. Pria had joked before, about how that was the death toll of a relationship. Honestly, Emilia hadn’t really believed her. Maybe there was some truth to it after all.

  “I think we should break up.”

  Better to just get it over with. Neither of them loved the other. It had always just been fun between them. Short lasting. Never meant to last, only to be enjoyed. It wasn’t fun or enjoyable anymore.

  Elijah huffed out a laugh. “Seriously, Em? You come back from a random raid and are done with me, just like that?” Once more, his eyes slid over her. “Is there someone else? You hook up with someone last night and decide you like his dick more?”

  Emilia weighed what to say. Part of what Elijah said was the truth, was the problem: she did want to see if something could happen with V, even if that was still a few months off. Technically, she had hooked up with him “last night.” Technically, she’d also hooked up with Olivier yesterday, and these were his clothes, and yes, he was probably the best dick she’d ever get. Technically, she wasn’t wearing his clothes because of said hookup.

  “I’m not breaking up with you to immediately go date someone else,” she finally settled on, because that part was true. A thousand things could happen between now and the Eve of the Astral Storm—assuming she didn’t have to hunt down V and make sure he hadn’t died in the interim, because seriously, where the fuck did he disappear to!?—and there was no way to guarantee that the two of them would end up together. While he was definitely a factor in this break up, he was only a small part of it.

  “That’s not a no.”

  “No,” Emilia admitted, “it’s not.” Her lips twitched, and she couldn’t help but point out that the one person Elijah already knew about, from early in their hate fucking, when she’d told him he’d never measure up to her old friend-with-benefits.

  Part of her had hoped he would find it funny. They had joked about this for so long, Elijah constantly trying to figure out how to usurp the unnamed Olivier’s place as her best tumble in the sheets—although she’d told him most of her fondest memories of the man definitely hadn’t involved beds. Granted, they’d joked about it less since moving from hate fucking to dating, but it had always been a point of amusement and teasing between them—proof that they wouldn’t be offended for not being the best together, because they knew they wouldn’t last, and that was okay.

  Another part of her had known, however, that if he took her comment badly, it would be really bad.

  It was really bad.

  Eventually, through his yelling and the annoyed wall pounds of his roommates, demanding he keep it down, Emilia turned and left, making her way through the disgusting living room, now filled with Elijah’s terrible, pissed off friends, to the door.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Em! We aren’t done!”

  “Yes, we are, Elijah,” she replied, nearly walking into the door when it didn’t open for her.

  [Error: Lock Engaged]

  [Error: Access Revoked]

  They’d locked her in? This wasn’t just a perfect normal revoking of her access to open the door whenever she wanted because she was no longer welcome. Locking her in… Someone had hacked the dorm system, intent to make it possible to lock anyone in, and then used the illegal modification on her.

  Emilia saw red as she spun. “Who locked me in?” she demanded, glaring between each of the men. At the very least, Elijah looked confused, glancing between her and the others.

  “Just doing my man a favour,” Victor said, smiling sharply at her from the kitchen. “He’s always going on about how you’re the best ass he’s ever had. Wettest pussy ever~ Why don’t you get your little irregular ass back in there and talk this out. At least give my man some nice breakup sex. It’s the least you can do. Least you can do for all of us, too. You have no idea how many of us have stripped our cocks to the sound of you coming.”

  No one said anything. Not even Elijah, although Emilia could tell he was perhaps trying to figure what to say.

  An image of Olivier, beating up her ex for something he had said—something neither of them had ever shared, but she was pretty sure wasn’t anywhere as bad as what Victor had said and done, probably not even as bad as Elijah’s silence—flashed through her head.

  She seriously had bad taste in men.

  Originally, she had intended to ask someone to unlock the door for her. Fuck that. Fuck asking any of these assholes, who couldn’t even be bothered to whisper at their friend that he’d said too much or should take it easy. Fuck asking these shits, who didn’t even seem shocked Victor had locked her in.

  Here she was, little silverstrain who most people assumed wasn’t good with skills—at least not consistently—and a sub-100, locked in a room with five men, all much larger than her. Yes, she could always trigger an alert and call campus security to their room. In the end, nothing bad was likely to happen to her—assuming someone hadn’t also hacked into the security system, anyways. That didn’t mean this wasn’t a threat—wasn’t meant to make her feel unsafe, at least on Victor’s part.

  Not a single one of them was even trying to make her feel like she wasn’t being threatened.

  Emilia turned. For a blink, she debated brute forcing the door open through hacking—she could fuck with the entire room’s system if she did that—but these men didn’t need to know she could do that. Far easier—far more threatening and more cathartic—to take a step, and blow a hole where the door had once been.

  Metal shredded open, shrieking. The wall crumbled, leaving only the building supports behind—she didn’t want to condemn the entire building, or anything. Almost immediately, the building’s emergency system began to blare, signalling that everyone needed to evacuate. Behind her, the men cursed while Elijah’s sixth roommate, who had still be inside a raid, was forcibly ejected so he could get out of the building.

  “The next time you decide to threaten me,” Emilia said, just as other residents began to make their way into the hall, looking a mixture of annoyed and concerned, “I won’t just force my way out of the room you illegally locked me inside.”

  The other residents of the hall began to whisper, and Emilia forwarded a recording of what had led to her explosion out of the room to them and campus security. As much as they probably would have preferred she asked to be let out first, no one was going to try and claim she had no right to exit the room by whatever means necessary under the circumstances, especially when her escape had obviously been so controlled. Probably, anyways. Good thing she’d recently gotten back onto her lawyer’s good side, kinda.

  Turning, she left, the other residents stepping out of her way before following after her—they still did need to evacuate the building. No one talked to her, and when they got outside, campus security let her leave after a few questions, mostly wanting to know if there was anything else they needed to know or if she needed an escort back to her room or the clinic. No, to all of the above, and off she went.

  “Em!” Elijah called, racing to catch up with. “Em, wait. Please.”

  “Go away, Elijah.”

  “No. Em, please. Let me— Let’s just talk about this!” he said, sliding in front of her. “Come on. Let’s just… go get breakfast, and we can talk. Things don’t have to end.”

  What. The. Fuck.

  “Elijah, not only did you just spend a few minutes yelling at me for being a slut—which, might I remind you, we had a mutually agreed upon open relationship?—but your shit stain of a friend locked me in your room, and spoke to me like I was trash, and you said nothing. You didn’t even open the door to let me out.”

  “Em,” Elijah tried again, running a hand through his golden curls. “I’m sorry. Look, I was just surprised, is all. We haven’t hooked up with anyone else in so long. I’m not mad about that, and Victor was just playing around and— Hey! Where are you going?”

  “Away from you.” Seriously. It wasn’t exactly a surprise that Elijah was a dumbass with terrible taste in friends, but this felt like a new low for her.

  “Em! Stop! Let’s talk about this.”

  A hand wrapped around her arm and Emilia was a second from slicing the offending limb off when blackness surged down on them. It pressed over her, toxic and consuming, for the barest moment before turning into a gentle caress. Soothing. Safe. Familiar.

  Not so much for Elijah, who had let go of her and been brought to his knees by the sudden pressure. He gasped, clearly struggling to breathe.

  “You should let him go, before campus security shows up and detains you.” Emilia turned, easily finding the man she was looking for in the small crowd of students who had gathered, originally more interested in why a dorm was being evacuated so early in the morning, and now part interested, part horrified by what was happening between her and Elijah.

  Immediately, the pressure let up, but the man’s energy remained, dragging over her as though checking to make sure she was okay. He stepped forward, black skin nearly the colour of the night sky, but not quite. His hair was still a strange shade that seemed too light for his skin, but everything else about him was different. Where there had been a too wide mouth, now there was a normal one, with lovely, plump lips that seemed caught in a perpetual pout, making the man look far younger than the early-100s she thought he was. Where limbs had once been too long, they were now regular and well proportioned. The purple eyes were still there, but Emilia wasn’t convinced they weren’t contacts. Maybe not, but possibly.

  “You’re shorter,” she noted as they came face to face. She still had to tip her head up to meet his eyes, her own catching on the temporary Censor attached to his neck, but it nowhere near the height he’d had in the raid.

  “Hello, Emilia,” he said, glancing behind her to where Elijah was attempting to remove himself from the ground—he might be able to breathe now, but having been held down by the man’s energy before, she was well aware that it would take a moment for her now-ex to collect himself.

  “So, are you gonna tell me your real name now?” she asked, smiling as she hooked her arm through his and began dragging him towards her dorm—or should she go see Sil, first?—“or am I gonna be stuck calling you Conrad forever?”