May sat with Harmione, deep in conversation, while I stood in the corner on a call with Sherry. The house was hot even with the air conditioners humming, the living room air thick with the scent of spilled drinks and warm bodies.

Most of the crowd had drifted outside, leaving the space quieter but still alive with distant bass thumping through the walls and occasional bursts of laughter drifting in from the yard.

"You don’t need to worry," I told Sherry. "I’m fine. We’ll link up later."

"Okay." She lingered on the line, reluctant, her voice soft in my ear.

I disconnected. May and Harmione were still going, all gestures and laughter. I crossed over and joined them, dropping into a plastic chair that creaked under my weight. We’d made a small circle of our own in the corner of the living room.

"So that’s how you all are," May said, grinning as she leaned back in her chair, one leg crossed over the other.

"Yeah." Harmione smiled, brushing a strand of wet hair from her face. "It’s a family thing."

Neither of them was letting the conversation slow down, their voices rising and falling with the music pulsing from outside.

"I’ve never seen you with a guy though," May said, tilting her head. "You got a boyfriend, or does your family not deal in that either?"

"I had one," Harmione said. "We broke up the first day Bram talked to me."

"Wow." May looked between us, eyes sparkling with curiosity. "So you two have history. Tell me."

I stayed quiet. Wherever this went, I might pick up something for the Veyron question still hanging over me.

"My first conversation with Bram was insane," Harmione said, laughing, not minding that I was right there. "I don’t know what came over me, but I felt safe around him. He told me he watched zombies fuck outside the walls."

"That’s his line," May laughed, turning to me with a raised eyebrow. "Isn’t it?"

I just followed along, leaning back in my chair with a small grin.

"We talked, and I ended up telling him I was a virgin," Harmione went on.

"Interesting," May murmured, clearly enjoying herself, her fingers tapping the arm of her chair in time with the distant bass.

I sat back and let the interrogation continue.

"So Bram opened my eyes. Made me ask why I was still a virgin when I had a boyfriend—"

"Jesus, Bram." May cut in, eyes wide with mock shock. "Did you?"

I didn’t answer. Just grinned and let the storm build.

"Yes, he did," Harmione confirmed through fresh laughter. "But honestly, it opened my eyes."

"Yeah," May nodded, leaning forward. "You should thank him more."

From the wide doorway, Mercury appeared—hair still wet and glistening, pink bikini clinging to her curves, water droplets tracing slow paths down her toned stomach and thighs. The conversation paused for a beat as all eyes followed her confident stride across the room.

"Hey, guys." She dropped into the empty plastic chair beside me, crossing her legs with casual ease.

"Hey," we answered almost in unison.

"How long were you with this guy, whoever he is?" May asked Harmione, nowhere near done.

"About a year and a few months."

"And he didn’t touch you?" May pressed, leaning forward.

"Not once."

"Did you want him to?"

"Want him to what?"

"To touch you," Mercury jumped in smoothly, a mischievous glint in her eye. That was the moment I knew the conversation had officially escaped control.

"...Yeah," Harmione breathed, realizing she was mid-interrogation. "Who wouldn’t want to be touched by her own boyfriend?"

"Maybe he’s impotent," Mercury said bluntly, completely unaware of the conversation’s origins.

"That...makes sense." May agreed, nodding. "What do you think, Bram?"

"Nothing," I replied, settling deeper into my chair with a lazy smile. No point stepping into the arena. They had this covered.

"This guy’s interesting, though," Mercury said. "Tell us about him. Why stay with someone like that all that time? You should’ve called for help."

"Girls," Harmione tried weakly.

"Yeah. Tell us about him," May said, backing Mercury. A dangerous duo.

Harmione sighed. "He was popular at school. All the students were afraid of him, for reasons even I didn’t know—"

"So you just said, ’I have to date a popular guy even if he’s got no dick,’" Mercury cut in, leaning forward in her chair with a grin.

"Let her finish," May said, waving a hand. "She’s still giving us her reasons. Go on, Hermie."

"He was a good guy. We were both from great families." Harmione kept going, her fingers twisting the thin strap of her bikini top. The late afternoon light filtering through the windows caught on her damp skin, highlighting the flush creeping up her neck.

Vince? A good guy?

She’d said families, and that had my full attention.

"We know you’re a Redhead," Mercury pressed, eyes narrowing playfully. "Which family was he from?"

"Redheads?" I finally spoke, breaking my silence. "Who are the Redheads?"

"Who doesn’t know the Redheads inside the walls? The Rivers, the Bulks, and the Redheads. Powerful families."

The Redheads. Mrs Rivers at the naked mansion came back to me. She’d mentioned them. And if Harmione was a Redhead, that cleared her from my list too.

"Come on, was he a Rivers?" Mercury pressed, tilting her head.

"A Vale," Harmione said.

"And who the hell are the Vales?" Mercury asked it in a way that had the rest of us laughing, since we’d all been students at School Central, which the Vales ran.

But it caught me. Mercury didn’t know the Vales. May earlier hadn’t known Monica Veyron. Maybe the primordial families really did run everything from the background, names most people inside the walls never learned.

"Maybe the guy was a monster and scared sex would expose him," Mercury speculated, voice dripping with drama. "What kind of boy avoids sex inside the walls?"

I watched her closely, how dangerously close she was skating to the truth without realizing it.

"He was just..." Harmione trailed off, biting her lower lip as she searched for the right words.

[New angle: the Veyron girl knows you. She may have brought herself close to you on purpose.]

The notification hit like a silent hammer, muting the women’s voices for a split second. I watched them through the haze of new suspicion—heads tilting back in laughter, hands gesturing wildly, sunlight dancing across bare shoulders and wet hair. The distant thump of music from outside pulsed through the walls like a heartbeat.

May was out. Harmione was out. Mercury wasn’t biological, so she was out too. That left only one name... and I’d already convinced myself it couldn’t be her.

Who could have brought herself close to me on purpose. I turned the clue over and over. Sherry didn’t fit—the system had forced us together. With May, we’d both reached for each other. Mercury had felt organic, growing naturally over time. Harmione and I weren’t even that close yet.

None of them had maneuvered their way to me. Not deliberately. Not the way the system was describing.

Something was still missing.

Harmione’s comms watch suddenly buzzed sharply against her wrist. She answered, her face shifting from playful to serious in an instant. I watched the smile vanish from her face.

"What? You’re saying I should leave now?" she said into the watch.

Mercury’s watch rang the second Harmione hung up. Mine buzzed. The music cut out. And outside, watch after watch was going off.

I looked at the women, then at my wrist.

What’s going on?