The next morning, the subway rattled violently as it shot through the dark tunnels under Manhattan.

Elia stood near the doors, holding the metal pole. She wore the same faded jeans, a black hoodie, and her scuffed canvas bag slung over one shoulder.

She stepped out of the station and walked the three blocks to Manhattan Elite Prep.

The campus looked like a medieval castle dropped into the middle of the city. Gothic stone archways, manicured lawns, and a fleet of black SUVs idling at the curb. Teenagers in tailored blazers and plaid skirts milled around, dripping in designer accessories.

Elia walked through the wrought-iron gates. She didn't look at the cars. She didn't look at the students staring at her cheap clothes.

She walked straight into the main administrative building and found the Admissions Office.

She pushed the heavy wooden door open without knocking.

Behind a large mahogany desk sat Ms. Adler, a thin woman with a pinched face and severe glasses. She was carefully applying a coat of blood-red nail polish.

Ms. Adler didn't look up. "Wait outside. Can't you see the door was closed?"

Elia walked to the desk. She pulled the gold-stamped envelope from her bag and dropped it flat onto the polished wood.

Smack.

Ms. Adler jumped. The red brush slipped, smearing polish across her knuckle.

She glared up, her face twisting in fury. She took one look at Elia's hoodie and sneered.

"You must be the charity case," Ms. Adler said, her voice dripping with venom. She grabbed a tissue, wiping her finger aggressively. "Geri warned me about you. The rust-belt dropout who somehow blackmailed her way in."

Elia's face remained a blank mask. She stared at the woman's smeared red finger.

"Process the file," Elia said.

Ms. Adler's eyes narrowed. She snatched the envelope, ripped it open, and typed aggressively on her keyboard.

"Don't think you're special," Ms. Adler spat, hitting the print button. "With zero academic background, the system automatically defaults you to the lowest tier. You are in Class 10."

Class 10. The dumping ground. The containment zone for the rich kids who were too stupid, too violent, or too addicted to function in normal classes, but whose parents paid too much money for them to be expelled.

Ms. Adler shoved a printed schedule across the desk. "Try to survive until lunch."

Elia took the paper. She turned and walked out, leaving the door wide open.

She navigated the labyrinth of hallways until she reached the basement level. The air here smelled of stale cologne and rebellion.

She stopped in front of the door marked Class 10.

Through the thick wood, the heavy, vibrating bass of a death metal track rattled the hinges.

Elia lifted her right foot and kicked the door directly in the center.

Crash.

The door slammed open, hitting the inner wall with the sound of a gunshot.

The heavy metal music was instantly cut off.

Thirty pairs of eyes snapped toward the doorway.

The classroom was a disaster. Desks were pushed together. A girl with heavy eyeliner was sitting on the teacher's desk, chewing gum. Two boys in the back were openly vaping.

Brenda Kowalski, the girl on the desk, popped her gum. She looked Elia up and down, taking in the canvas bag.

"Did the janitor get lost?" Brenda mocked loudly. "Or did the school finally go bankrupt and start letting the homeless sleep here?"

The classroom erupted in cruel, barking laughter.

A boy in the front row crumpled a piece of notebook paper into a tight ball and hurled it at Elia's head.

Elia didn't flinch. She tilted her head exactly two inches to the left.

The paper ball whizzed past her ear and bounced off the doorframe.

The laughter died instantly.

Elia stepped into the room. Her eyes swept over the crowd. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. The sheer, physical weight of her stare made the boy who threw the paper swallow hard and look down at his desk.

She walked down the center aisle. She didn't rush.

She reached the last row. There was one empty desk next to the window.

The boy sitting in the adjacent desk was fast asleep, his head buried in his arms. He had messy blonde hair and wore a leather jacket over his uniform.

Elia swung her canvas bag off her shoulder and slammed it onto her desk.

Thud.

The sleeping boy jerked awake.

Cody Powers rubbed his eyes, scowling. He looked at Elia, his face twisting in annoyance.

"What the hell is your problem?" Cody snapped, leaning toward her. "I was sleeping."

Elia slowly turned her head. She locked eyes with him.

Her gaze was so cold, so entirely devoid of fear or hesitation, that Cody's breath caught in his throat. A primal instinct warned him that the girl sitting next to him was dangerous.

He closed his mouth and leaned back in his chair.

The bell rang. Ms. Adler marched into the room, her heels clicking aggressively. She glared at Elia, then turned to the chalkboard.

Meanwhile, three floors up, in the Headmaster's lavish office.

Kane Wolf sat behind the Headmaster's desk. He was wearing a black suit, his long legs stretched out.

The Headmaster stood nervously in the corner, sweating through his shirt.

Kane held a tablet. On the screen was the live security feed from the hallway outside Class 10. He watched Elia kick the door open.

A dark, genuine smile spread across Kane's face.

He tapped his earpiece.

"Lex," Kane murmured, his voice a low rumble. "Keep eyes on her. I want to know every breath she takes in this building."

The chalk squeaked aggressively against the blackboard.

Ms. Adler was writing a complex, multi-variable calculus equation. It spanned the entire width of the board, a tangled mess of integrals and limits.

She slammed the chalk down, dusting her hands off. She turned to the class, her eyes immediately locking onto the back row.

"Since we have a new transfer student," Ms. Adler said, her voice loud and mocking, "let's see if the rust belt teaches anything beyond how to fix a tractor. Miss Chapman. Stand up and solve the equation on the board."

The class snickered. Brenda turned around in her seat, a nasty grin on her face.

Elia didn't stand up.

She was slouched in her chair, her phone hidden beneath the edge of the desk. Her thumbs were moving across the screen in a blur.

"Miss Chapman!" Ms. Adler barked, her face flushing red. "Are you deaf? Or are you just too stupid to even read the numbers?"

Elia's thumbs stopped.

She slowly lifted her head. She looked at the blackboard for exactly two seconds.

"Negative fourteen point five," Elia said. Her voice was flat, bored.

Ms. Adler froze. She blinked, looking down at her answer key on the podium.

The answer was -14.5.

The classroom went dead silent. Brenda's grin vanished.

"You... you guessed," Ms. Adler stammered, her face turning a mottled purple. "Show your work!"

"I don't need to show work for basic arithmetic," Elia replied. She dropped her gaze back to her lap.

Ms. Adler opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She furiously grabbed an eraser and started scrubbing the board.

Cody, sitting next to Elia, leaned over. He stared at her phone screen.

"How did you do that?" Cody whispered.

Elia felt his body heat leaning into her space. Her thumb swiped the screen.

Instantly, the complex string of green code vanished, replaced by a generic Spotify playlist.

"Do what?" Elia asked coldly.

Cody frowned, looking at the music app. He leaned back, confused but intrigued. He popped the tab on a cold can of soda and slid it across his desk toward her.

"I'm Cody," he said. "Where are you really from?"

Elia didn't look at the soda. "Move."

Cody choked on his own spit. He grabbed his soda back, his face burning. "Fine. Be a freak."

Under the desk, Elia switched the screen back. She wasn't playing games. Her breathing slowed to a deliberate rhythm. Bypassing the Wolf Group's private medical server was a completely different beast compared to their financial nodes. Her phone grew hot against her palm as she deployed a series of localized spoofing algorithms. A red countdown flashed on her screen-the elite security team's tripwire was closing in. Sweat beaded at her hairline. With a microsecond to spare, her thumb slammed the final bypass code, severing the reverse-trace right as the encrypted vault clicked open.

A massive, encrypted PDF downloaded to her phone.

Patient: Kane Wolf.

Elia opened the file. Her eyes scanned the dense medical terminology, the genetic sequencing charts, the blood toxicity levels.

Her chest tightened slightly.

It was a severe mutation of the hematopoietic stem cells. His body was literally attacking its own blood supply. The pain he experienced during an episode would be equivalent to having battery acid injected into his veins.

Modern medicine had no cure. The file noted that his life expectancy was less than six months.

Elia's thumb hovered over the screen.

She wasn't modern medicine. She was the secret disciple of a Nobel-level surgeon. She had spent the last three years developing a cellular regeneration technique that the medical world thought was science fiction.

She could fix him. A cold, calculated plan formed in her mind. If she pulled this off, the medical underground would realize that 'The Surgeon' had finally returned from the shadows. She would use his life as leverage. She would cure him, and in exchange, she would get her necklace back.

The bell screamed, signaling the end of the period.

Ms. Adler stormed out of the room without a word. The students scrambled to leave, actively avoiding Elia's desk.

Elia slipped her phone into her pocket. She grabbed her canvas bag and walked out into the crowded hallway.

The corridor was packed with students heading to the cafeteria.

Suddenly, the crowd parted.

Geri Chapman walked down the center of the hallway, flanked by four girls wearing identical designer skirts and sneers.

Geri spotted Elia coming out of the Class 10 doorway.

Geri stopped. She covered her mouth with her hand, letting out a loud, theatrical gasp.

"Oh my god," Geri said, projecting her voice so the entire hallway could hear. "Elia? You actually got put in the garbage class? I told Mom you wouldn't be able to handle a real curriculum."

The girls around Geri laughed loudly. Students in the hallway stopped to watch.

Geri stepped closer, her eyes glittering with malice. "Everyone, be nice to my adopted sister. She had a really hard time in the Midwest. She didn't have a lot of... rules."

Elia stopped walking. She looked at Geri.

Her fingers twitched, the muscle memory of holding a scalpel flaring up. She calculated exactly how much pressure it would take to dislocate Geri's jaw and stop the annoying sound coming from her mouth.

Instead, Elia just stared. The silence stretched, thick and heavy.

Geri's smile faltered under the weight of those dead, icy eyes. She took a nervous step back.

Elia walked forward. She didn't alter her path. Her shoulder slammed hard into Geri's collarbone, shoving the girl out of the way.

Geri stumbled, crashing into the lockers with a loud bang.

"Watch it, psycho!" one of the mean girls screamed.

Elia didn't look back. She kept walking toward the cafeteria.

Behind her, Geri rubbed her bruised shoulder. Her face twisted into a mask of pure hatred. She pulled out her phone.

It was time to ruin her.

The cafeteria at Manhattan Elite Prep was a massive, glass-domed atrium. It looked more like a five-star restaurant than a high school lunchroom.

Elia walked in, carrying a plastic tray with a dry sandwich and an apple.

She found an empty table in the far corner, near the trash cans. She sat down and took a bite of the apple.

Across the room, at the center VIP table, Geri was furiously typing on her phone.

Suddenly, a synchronized chorus of notification chimes echoed across the cafeteria.

Hundreds of phones buzzed at the exact same second.

Elia chewed her apple slowly. She watched as students pulled out their phones.

Within ten seconds, the ambient noise in the cafeteria completely died.

Then, the whispers started.

Heads snapped up. Eyes darted across the room, locking onto Elia sitting in the corner.

At the VIP table, Brenda Kowalski stood up. She held her phone high in the air.

"Listen to this!" Brenda shouted, her voice carrying over the noise. "Anonymous post on the school forum! 'The Truth About the Trash in Class 10.'"

Brenda cleared her throat and began reading loudly.

"'Elia Chapman isn't just a dropout. She was expelled from three different schools in the rust belt for violent assault. And how did a broke orphan afford the tuition here? Word is, she has an older sponsor. A sugar daddy who likes them young and dirty.'"

The cafeteria erupted.

Loud jeers, whistles, and disgusted groans filled the air.

"Whore!" someone yelled from the back.

"Go back to the streets!" another voice chimed in.

Elia sat perfectly still. She didn't stop chewing her apple. Her face betrayed absolutely nothing. But beneath the table, her stomach clenched, a cold, hard knot forming in her gut.

Geri sat at her table, delicately sipping a sparkling water, a serene, victorious smile on her face.

Three boys from the football team stood up. They wanted to impress Geri.

They grabbed their open cartons of chocolate milk and swaggered over to Elia's table.

The cafeteria quieted down, watching the confrontation.

The lead boy, a massive linebacker with a cruel smirk, stopped in front of Elia.

"Looks like your sugar daddy forgot to buy you a decent lunch," the boy sneered.

He tipped his carton forward.

The thick, brown milk poured out, splashing directly onto Elia's tray, soaking her sandwich, and splattering across the front of her black hoodie.

The boys burst into loud, obnoxious laughter.

"Oops," the boy mocked. "My hand slipped."

Elia looked down at the brown liquid dripping from her clothes onto her jeans. The cold wetness seeped through to her skin.

She slowly placed the apple on the ruined tray.

She reached out and picked up the dull metal butter knife resting next to her plate. It wasn't sharp, but in the hands of someone who understood human anatomy, it didn't need to be.

She stood up.

The boy puffed out his chest, stepping closer to intimidate her. "What are you gonna do, trash?"

Elia moved faster than the human eye could track.

Her left hand shot out, grabbing the front of the boy's heavy varsity jacket. With a violent, twisting motion, she used his own forward momentum against him.

She slammed him face-down onto the hard plastic table.

CRASH.

The table groaned under his weight. The boy let out a shocked gasp, the breath knocked out of his lungs.

Before his two friends could even react, Elia drove her knee into the small of his back, pinning him down.

Her right hand came down.

She pressed the blunt, rounded edge of the butter knife directly against the boy's throat, slotting it perfectly against the fragile cartilage of his windpipe.

The cafeteria went dead silent. The laughter was choked off instantly.

The boy under her froze. He could feel the heavy, unforgiving pressure of the metal digging into his airway. He started trembling violently.

"Let him go!" one of his friends yelled, taking a step forward.

Elia didn't look at the friend. She pressed the knife a millimeter deeper into the boy's skin.

"Take another step," Elia whispered, her voice carrying clearly in the silent room. "And I'll show you exactly how much pressure it takes for a blunt blade to crush a trachea."

The friend froze, his eyes wide with terror.

Elia leaned down, her lips inches from the pinned boy's ear.

"If you ever come near me again," she said, her voice devoid of any emotion, "I won't stop at just cutting off your air."

She released his jacket and stepped back.

The boy scrambled off the table, gasping for air, clutching his neck. He backed away from her as if she were a demon.

Elia dropped the knife onto the tray. It landed with a loud clatter.

She looked across the room, directly at Geri.

Geri's face was chalk-white. The victorious smile was gone, replaced by genuine, visceral fear.

Elia picked up her canvas bag. She walked out of the cafeteria, leaving a path of terrified silence in her wake.

She walked into the nearest empty bathroom and locked the door.

She pulled off her ruined hoodie, throwing it into the trash. She stood in her white T-shirt, staring at her cold, dead eyes in the mirror.

Physical violence was a temporary fix.

She pulled her phone from her pocket. Her thumbs hovered over the screen.

It was time to burn the forum to the ground.