Chapter 154 *
Scarlett’s POV
His eyes went wide. "Wait, we didn't—"
I kicked him in the side. He rolled over. I kicked him toward the pond that was about ten feet away.
He scrambled to get up. I kicked him again. Harder this time.
He tumbled into the water with a huge splash.
The other two were watching with horror.
"Your turn." I grabbed the leather jacket guy by his collar. Dragged him toward the pond. He was too busy holding his bleeding nose and aching balls to fight back.
I shoved him in.
The third guy tried to crawl away. I caught his ankle and dragged him back. Then I rolled him into the water like I was moving a log.
All three of them were flailing in the pond now. Coughing and splashing.
I wiped down the knife one more time. Made sure my fingerprints were completely gone. Then I tossed it into the deepest part of the pond.
"Have a nice swim, boys."
I turned and walked away. Their pathetic splashing sounds faded behind me.
Twenty minutes later I was back in my dorm room. I locked the door. Kicked off my boots. Washed my hands thoroughly in the bathroom sink.
Then I sat down at my desk and opened my laptop.
My fingers flew across the keyboard. I pulled up about six different programs. Proxy chains. VPN routers. Some tools I'd picked up from various corners of the internet that most people didn't know existed.
I typed in the middleman's phone number.
The screen filled with data. Location pings. Service provider information. Cross-referenced databases.
It took about fifteen minutes of digging. But I found it.
The IP address traced back to a server in Europe. Monaco, specifically. Or maybe Liechtenstein. The signal was bouncing through so many relays it was hard to pin down exactly.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the screen.
This was weird.
I had enemies all over the world. That wasn't exactly news. Between my real identity and my underground connections, plenty of people wanted me dead.
But this didn't make sense.
The people who actually wanted to kill me were professionals. They had resources. They had connections. They had skills.
They wouldn't hire three street thugs to assault me in a park.
That was bush league. That was insultingly amateur.
If someone with real power wanted me gone, they'd send trained killers. Not idiots with track suits and a folding knife.
This felt petty.
This felt like someone who was angry but didn't actually have access to serious resources.
Someone like Zelda. Or Viviana.
Or any number of people from my past who held grudges but couldn't actually touch the underground world I moved in.
I closed my laptop and rubbed my eyes.
I'd figure it out eventually. Right now I was too tired to care.
The next few days passed in a blur of classes and coursework.
Columbia's Core Curriculum didn't mess around. The workload was brutal. Every professor seemed to think their class was the only one that mattered.
I barely had time to eat. Let alone investigate mysterious European phone numbers.
Lily and I grabbed lunch between classes when we could. She complained about her statistics professor. I complained about the reading list for Lit Hum.
It was almost normal.
The only thing that wasn't normal was Damon.
We'd been texting, but his responses were getting shorter and coming later. Instead of paragraphs, I was getting one-word answers. "Busy." "Meeting." "Later."
On Thursday night, my phone finally rang. It was almost eleven.
"Hey." His voice sounded exhausted.
"You sound like hell."
"Feel like it too." I heard him moving around. Papers rustling. "Supply chain issue in Lancelot's territory. Business partner violated the contract. Military-grade shipment got intercepted at the border."
"That's bad."
"That's catastrophic." He let out a long breath. "Someone tipped off customs. I know they did. Now I'm rebuilding the entire supply network from scratch."
I sat up in bed. "Can I help?"
"Not unless you can smuggle weapons across three international borders."
"I mean I probably could but that seems like a bad idea."
He actually laughed. It sounded surprised. Like he'd forgotten he could.
"I miss you," I said quietly.
"I miss you too." His voice got softer. "I'm sorry I've been so absent. This situation is just—"
"I know. You don't have to explain."
"I'll make it up to you when this is handled. I promise."
"Just don't work yourself to death."
"No promises." But I could hear the smile in his voice. "Get some sleep, Scarlett. I'll call you tomorrow."
The line went dead.
I stared at my phone for a long moment. Then I plugged it in and tried to sleep.
A week passed just like that, and then came the Monday of the second week.
The alarm went off at six AM.
I was awake before the sound even started. My hand shot out and silenced it in one motion.
I sat up and swung my legs out of bed. The floor was cold under my feet. I pulled on my hiking boots and started lacing them up.
A muffled groan came from across the room.
"Scarlett?" Lily's voice was thick with sleep. "What's happening? Is there a fire?"
"COOP starts today." I grabbed my backpack from the closet. "We need to be at the meeting point in thirty minutes."
There was a long pause.
Then Lily's head emerged from under her comforter. Her hair was sticking up in every direction. Her eyes were barely open.
"COOP?" She blinked at me. "What the hell is COOP?"
"Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program." I pulled out the gear list they'd sent us. "Seven days of wilderness survival training in the Catskills."
Lily stared at me. "I signed up for this?"
"You did. Last month. You said it would be fun."
"Past Lily is an idiot." She flopped back onto her pillow. "Present Lily wants to die."
"Present Lily needs to get dressed." I threw a pair of hiking pants at her head. "We leave in twenty-five minutes."
She caught the pants with one hand. Didn't move.
"Lily."
"I'm getting up. I'm getting up." She rolled out of bed and landed on the floor with a thud. "This is abuse. This is what abuse looks like."
I grabbed my water bottle and double-checked my pack. Everything was there. First aid kit, emergency supplies, extra layers. I'd packed it last night.
Lily was moving like she was underwater. She pulled on her clothes with her eyes still half-closed.
"Why does it start so early?" She was trying to tie her bootlaces but kept missing the holes. "The sun isn't even up yet."
"Because wilderness doesn't wait for you to be ready."
"Wilderness can go fuck itself."
I almost laughed.
Twenty minutes later we were standing at the designated meeting point near Low Library. About forty other students were gathered around looking varying degrees of awake.
Most of them looked like Lily. Half-dead. Clutching coffee cups like lifelines.
A few looked excited. Those were the outdoor enthusiast types. The ones who actually knew what they'd signed up for.
I fell somewhere in the middle. Alert but not enthusiastic.
Three charter buses were parked along the curb. Their engines were already running.
"Alright everyone, listen up!" A guy in his twenties stepped forward. He was wearing hiking boots and a Columbia COOP staff jacket. "My name is Cole Mitchell. I'm the lead instructor for this program."