CHAPTER 4 - Karina

The sunlight burned through the curtains far too early.

I laid there for a long time, unmoving, letting the warmth hit my face while my body stayed cold under the covers. My mind was a wreckage site—scattered memories of yesterday's conversation, smoke-like Russian words curling in the back of my brain.

Цель. Target.

I was never good at Russian, but even I knew that one.

I pressed a hand against my forehead and exhaled.

"You're overthinking," I muttered aloud to myself. "Get up. Just get up."

My legs didn't want to listen. Neither did my heart, which hadn't stopped pounding since yesterday. I'd spent hours pretending to be normal, pretending not to care, and pretending that the new students didn't make my skin crawl for reasons I couldn't name yet.

I finally forced myself out of bed. My limbs felt heavier than usual—like guilt, like fear, like secrets clinging to me with invisible hands.

Breakfast was rushed, bland. I left my toast untouched.

By the time I opened the front door, Xander was already there.

Leaning against the wall, arms crossed, unreadable as always.

"Morning," I muttered, brushing past him.

He said nothing, just followed.

I hated how quiet he was. Like he was a shadow stitched to my heels. Like he belonged there.

Like he knew everything I didn't.

I didn't ask him if he heard what I heard yesterday. I wasn't ready for that. Maybe I never would be.

We walked side-by-side in silence, the school slowly coming into view ahead. I tried to focus on the normal—the trees swaying, the buzz of early morning birds, the warmth creeping up the back of my neck—but the normal felt fake. Paper-thin.

Something was wrong.

And the worst part?

I was starting to believe I was the only one who noticed.

Students filled the front steps like ants—loud, restless, untamed.

I gripped the straps of my bag tighter as we passed through the crowd. I felt Xander's presence behind me—silent, constant, somehow always two steps away but never out of reach.

Every smile I gave felt plastic.

Every "Hey!" and "Good morning!" I answered with automatic cheer that didn't match the tightness in my chest.

Aline spotted me first. "Karinaaaa!" she sang, waving both arms in the air like she was trying to summon a spaceship.

I smiled—tight, but warm enough to pass.

Freya stood next to her, leaning against the lockers like a magazine cover, arms crossed, her eyes flicking toward Xander with quiet amusement. Cassie was already mid-rant about something someone said in class yesterday. I barely heard it.

Because then I saw them again.

Viktor, Nadya, and Lev.

Walking down the far end of the hallway like they'd always belonged there.

They didn't talk much. They didn't laugh. They didn't joke around the way normal students did. They looked… alert. Sharp-eyed. Like predators wearing school uniforms.

My eyes followed Viktor—the one who said it.

He was speaking to Nadya now, quietly, in Russian.

"Она всё ещё не знает."—"She still doesn't know."

I didn't need to strain to understand. Russian wasn't foreign to me—it was hidden muscle memory, something my father insisted I learn before I even knew what secrets were.

I froze.

Lev walked behind them like some kind of backup, scanning everything but looking at nothing. Nadya's voice was soft, but her tone had weight.

"Она будет готова, когда станет слишком поздно."—"She'll be ready when it's too late."

My stomach twisted. I didn't blink. Didn't breathe. Viktor's eyes flicked to me for a second—just a second—and something behind them burned cold.

He didn't smile. Didn't react. Just turned and walked.

You're not paranoid if you're right.

"You good?" Freya asked beside me.

I flinched.

"Y-yeah," I lied.

Cassie was still talking, maybe about the new students, but her voice blurred into white noise. Xander moved closer, probably sensing the shift in me, but he didn't say anything.

Just watched.

I pressed my palm against the locker door, forcing it open like it took all the strength I had left.

Breathe, Karina. Just breathe.

Everything is normal.

Everything is—

"Ты не готова."—"You're not ready."

I didn't know where the memory came from, or if I even heard it right, but the words clung to me like frost in my lungs.

And I suddenly wasn't sure where I was.

My fingers were still curled around the cold metal of my locker handle. I blinked. Once. Twice.

"K?" Freya's voice being muffled and surprisingly quieter than normal.

"Karina."

What was that? Was that a flashback? Was that…

No. It wasn't. Stop overthinking shit.

"...KK. Earth to KK. Karina?" Freya's voice was gentle, but it pulled at me like a rope around my ribs.

I turned to her with what I hoped looked like a normal smile. "Yeah?"

She tilted her head slightly, eyes narrowing like she was trying to solve a puzzle. "You were kind of… zoning out there for a sec."

Cassie and Aline hadn't noticed. Aline was already going off about some guy in her math class who "clearly had main character syndrome," and Cassie was nodding in intense agreement.

But Freya… she saw too much sometimes.

I forced a laugh. "Was I? Probably just tired."

Freya didn't look convinced. "You've been acting kind of off today."

I opened my locker and pretended to search for something I didn't need. "It's nothing. Just… new people. New tension. You know how my brain works."

That was the truth—half of it, anyway.

My brain was already flipping through every phrase I'd overheard, every Russian word, every glance. Trying to stitch them together into something that made sense.

Viktor. Nadya. Lev.

Why now? Why this school?

I couldn't shake the feeling that the pieces were right in front of me, I just didn't know what picture they made yet.

"She'll be ready when it's too late."

Too late for what?