“Teach me how to avoid him,” she said at last. “Not how to hurt him. How to stay out of reach.”
Ethan smiled, a small, real smile for the first time since she’d met him. “That’s the best kind of lesson there is.”
The bell for homeroom rang in the distance. They both heard it. Neither moved.
“I’ll think about it,” Mia said.
“Take your time.” Ethan paused at the door. “But Mia? Whatever you decide, Lena and Danny are going to need someone on their side. Tyler’s already been watching them since yesterday.”
She froze. “Why?”
“Because they sat with you. And in Tyler’s world, that makes them guilty.”
He left. The door swung shut behind him, and the dust drifted slowly in the pale morning light.
Mia stood alone on the mat, her heart pounding, her reflection fractured in the old cracked mirror.
Ten minutes later, as she hurried toward homeroom, her phone vibrated with a text from an unknown number.
Nice dojo. Shame about what’s going to happen to your friends.
Part 5: Danny
Danny Torres was fourteen years old, five feet two inches tall, and had survived two years of high school by following one rule: be forgettable.
It had worked fine until Tuesday.
On Tuesday, he made the mistake of laughing out loud when Tyler Brandt walked face-first into a locker. It was only a small laugh, a quick burst of surprise he couldn’t swallow. But in a hallway that quiet, a small laugh traveled far.
Tyler had heard it.
Now, on Friday afternoon, Danny was walking toward the back exit with his backpack on both shoulders, trying not to think about the footsteps behind him. They’d been there since the science wing. Steady. Unhurried.
Don’t turn around. Don’t run. Running makes it worse.
He turned a corner. The footsteps turned too.
“Hey, Torres.”
Danny’s stomach dropped to his shoes.
Cole stepped out from behind a pillar, grinning. Marcus appeared on the other side. And behind them, leaning against the brick wall like a king surveying a boring kingdom, stood Tyler.
“Heard you think I’m funny,” Tyler said.
“I didn’t mean…” Danny’s voice cracked. “It was an accident.”
“An accident.” Tyler pushed off the wall. “You know what I think? I think you and your sister and that new girl think you’re better than everyone here.”
“We don’t…”
“Where’s your champion now?” Cole sneered. “She going to flip us all?”
They closed in. Danny’s back hit the wall. His heart hammered so loud he could barely hear himself think. He clutched the straps of his bag, hoping, uselessly, for someone to walk by. A teacher. A janitor. Anyone.
“Give me your phone,” Tyler said.
“Why?”
“Because I asked nicely.”
Danny gripped his phone tighter. It held photos of his dad, who’d died two winters ago. Videos of his mom’s laugh. It wasn’t much, but it was everything.
“No.”
The word came out smaller than he wanted, but it came out.
Tyler’s eyebrows rose. For a second, he looked genuinely surprised. Then his face hardened.
“Wrong answer.”
Cole grabbed Danny’s backpack and yanked it off his shoulders. Marcus snatched the phone from his hand. Danny lunged for it and was shoved back against the wall so hard his head cracked against the brick. Stars exploded across his vision.
“Stop!”
The voice cut through the corridor like a whip.
Everyone turned.
Mia stood at the end of the hallway, backpack on, hands at her sides. She wasn’t running. She wasn’t shouting anymore. She simply walked toward them with a calm, measured pace that felt strangely louder than any scream.
“Look who’s here,” Tyler drawled. “Hero girl.”
“Give him back his phone,” Mia said.
“Or what?”
She didn’t answer right away. She kept walking until she was three feet away, close enough for Tyler to see her eyes, gray and steady, no anger in them at all.
“Or nothing,” she said. “I’m asking you to be better than this.”
For a heartbeat, the corridor held its breath.
Then Cole burst out laughing. “Did she just say be better?”
Tyler didn’t laugh. He studied Mia the way you study a locked door. “You think you’re scary?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because he’s my friend.”
The words hung in the air. Simple. Honest. Mia hadn’t said friend about anyone in years.
Tyler stepped closer. Marcus and Cole shifted behind him, forming a loose half circle around her. Mia felt the old awareness open in her mind like a map, distances, angles, weak points. Cole’s weight was on his left foot. Marcus held his shoulders too high. Tyler’s hands were twitching.
She could end this in seconds. Three people, three moves. Nobody would be hurt badly. She’d done it a thousand times in training.
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