Chapter 664 | The Orange Juice Strategy

Chapter 664: 664 | The Orange Juice Strategy

Camille Ortega hit me at 5:04 in the morning, four minutes later than she’d promised and about four years earlier than any civilized person should be vertical.

Field Epsilon sat under a lid of grey fog that felt like someone had draped a wet bedsheet over the entire campus. The grass squelched under my boots in a way that made me regret every life decision that had led to five in the morning being the correct answer to any question.

The eucalyptus line at the field’s edge had gone soft and indistinct, like a watercolor somebody gave up on halfway through because they remembered coffee existed and made better life choices than this.

Camille waited by the equipment shed in an orange compression top and black shorts, her two-tone braid pulled tight enough to count as a facelift, and she didn’t bother saying hello or good morning or acknowledging that the sun hadn’t technically risen yet before she closed the distance between us and drove a jab at my floating ribs with the casual enthusiasm of someone who had been awake for an hour already and wanted to share the experience.

I slipped it by maybe an inch. The suppression debuff from the System’s penalty had expired Wednesday afternoon, which meant my body was back to factory settings, which meant the punch went past my ribs instead of into my spleen and I got to keep breathing like a functional human being.

"You’re faster today," she said, sounding personally offended about it, like I’d committed some kind of ethical violation by dodging.

"I slept for once, which helps with the whole coordination thing."

"You slept Tuesday too. Through three alarms. Fitzgerald told Koda, who told Zara, who told me in the shower like it was a weather report." She threw a hook that came in tight and fast.

I caught it on my forearm and felt the heat in her knuckles bleed through the sleeve, Rivet sitting just under her skin waiting for permission to punch through something more permanent than air. "So sleeping’s not new. Something else is."

Camille didn’t fight like Hiro. Hiro fought like a textbook with abs, all form and aesthetic and looking good while doing technically correct things. Camille fought like she had a personal grudge against the concept of distance existing between her and whatever she wanted to hit, and every time I made space she ate it in one step and put something hard into whatever opening I’d left unguarded.

We went eleven minutes. She tagged my shoulder twice and my jaw once, and I put her on the wet grass with a sweep she didn’t see coming, and she lay there breathing hard and glaring up at me through the fog.

"That was cheap, Belmont."

"It was effective, Ortega."

"Those aren’t different words for you, are they." She sat up, grass stuck to her thigh, and wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist. "The whole West Tower heard Hardy on Tuesday night. Nyx bought earplugs. Maribelle made a group chat."

I offered a hand to pull her up. She looked at it for a second too long, then took it, and when she was standing she didn’t let go right away. Her palm went warm against mine, a dull orange glow pushing up between our fingers.

"I don’t care what you do," she said, which was the most obvious lie told on this campus since my Aspect registration. "I care that you showed up at five when I said five. Next week you show up again."

She let go and walked off toward the track without looking back, her shoulders tight, her braid swinging. The interface pinged in my peripheral vision with a Gauge update, and I closed it before the number finished loading, which was cowardice dressed up as time management.

Rule two of Sloane’s punishment was breakfast, real breakfast, every day this week.

The croissant station on the Spine opened at 6:30 and I was third in line, which I considered a personal record for loyalty. Egg, cheese, bacon, the croissant buttery enough to leave a grease shadow on the paper bag before the cashier had even handed it over. I added an orange juice because I’m a strategist, and a strategist knows you don’t just pay a fine. You overpay it, visibly, so the other party feels slightly guilty for collecting.

The bond caught me forty meters from the 1-A homeroom and pulled tight under my sternum. Sloane stood against the wall outside the door in her blazer, pink ponytail damp from Hale’s drills, black choker snug at her throat. Koda was beside her doing calf raises for no reason anybody could identify.

Sloane saw the bag first. Her eyes went to the juice, then to my face.

"You bought juice," she said flatly. "You’re trying to make me feel bad."

"Is it working on you yet?"

"Shut up, Belmont." She took the bag anyway and opened it right there, and the smell of bacon made Koda stop mid-raise and stare at me like I’d committed a war crime by not buying two. Sloane took one bite, chewed, and the bond loosened by a notch. The anger hadn’t gone anywhere, but it was sitting down now instead of pacing.

"Hardy found me yesterday," she said around the croissant. "Before lunch, behind the Athena Wing."

Rule three meant I couldn’t ask, so I didn’t. I just waited. Sloane knew exactly what I was doing, and she made me wait another full bite before she wiped her thumb on the paper and looked up at me.

"She’s going to ask you for something today. Say yes." Sloane’s ears went pink at the tips, which was the only tell she’d never managed to kill. "I already said yes, so you don’t get to be noble about it. Don’t make me regret it, and come find me after, and tell me everything. That’s the deal."

Koda let out a low whistle that died the moment Sloane turned her head.

I wanted to say something clever. The clever thing sat right there on my tongue, ready to go, and I looked at Sloane holding a croissant like a grenade and her blue eyes rimmed red from sleeping in pieces, and the joke curled up and died somewhere behind my teeth.

"I’ll come find you," I said.

"Obviously you will." She shoved the empty paper back at me and walked into homeroom.