YOU SAY YOU HATE ME

The First Day

Chapter Four:

Dillon's POV

I didn't sleep.

Not because I was afraid of the dreams—though I was—but because every time I closed my eyes, I saw the letter.

"Handle it, or I will."

My stepmother's handwriting. Sharp. Precise. The same loops and curves she used for grocery lists and council documents and birthday cards she never signed with love.

She'd written those words before the Luna died.

Before my life ended.

Before I became a killer in the eyes of everyone I'd ever known.

I sat on the edge of my bed as the sun rose, watching gray light seep through the curtains, and tried to remember the last time I'd felt safe.

I couldn't.

Blackwell Academy stood at the center of pack territory like a monument to everything I'd lost.

Stone walls. Iron gates. Towers that scraped the sky like fingers reaching for something just out of grasp.

I'd walked through those gates every morning for three years before the world burned down around me.

Now I stood at the bottom of the steps, watching students stream past in their black and gold uniforms, and felt like a ghost haunting her own funeral.

No one looked at me.

Not directly.

But I felt their eyes. Their whispers. The way conversations stuttered and stopped as I walked by, then picked up again in furious, hushed tones.

"Is that her?"

"The Beta's daughter?"

"The one who poisoned the Luna?"

I thought she was exiled.

My mother says she should have been executed.

I kept my eyes forward. My shoulders back. My face went blank.

I'd practiced this expression for three years in the bathroom mirror of my boarding school dormitory. Neutral. Unbothered. Like their words were water and I was stone.

Inside, my wolf was pacing.

"Ignore them", I told her.

"They're not worth it."

"They're never worth it."

The front office smelled like old paper and lavender air freshener.

The receptionist was a woman I didn't recognize—young, maybe twenty-five, with sharp cheekbones and sharper eyes. She looked up when I walked in, and her whole body went still.

Like she'd seen a snake in her kitchen.

"Name?" she asked, even though she knew.

"Dillion Everhart."

She typed something into her computer. Clicked her tongue. Typed again.

"Your schedule," she said finally, sliding a piece of paper across the counter. "The principal requested you attend all classes. No exceptions."

I picked up the schedule and scanned it.

Combat Theory. First period.

Room 204.

Beside my name, in neat block letters, someone had written: *Seating: Back row, left corner.*

They'd assigned me a seat.

Away from everyone else.

Like I was contagious.

"Anything else?" I asked.

The receptionist didn't answer. She was already typing again, her eyes fixed on her screen, her shoulders tight with the effort of pretending I wasn't there.

I folded the schedule and walked out.

The hallway to Combat Theory was a parade of judgment.

Students pressed against lockers as I passed, like I might reach out and poison them if they got too close. A group of younger wolves—fourteen, maybe fifteen—stared openly, their mouths hanging open like I was a circus act.

One of them whispered loud enough for the whole hall to hear: "That's her. The Luna killer."

I stopped.

Turned slowly.

Looked the boy in the eye.

He flinched like I'd raised a hand to hit him.

"The investigation was inconclusive," I said quietly. "That means there wasn't enough evidence to convict me. Not that I'm guilty. Learn the difference."

Then I turned and kept walking.

Behind me, the whispers exploded.

But I didn't look back.

Room 204 was a gymnasium.

Wood floors. High ceilings. Weapons racks along the walls. Mats stacked in the corner and a chalkboard covered in diagrams of combat formations.

I was early.

Only a handful of students had arrived—most of them huddled together near the front, pretending to study, actually watching me from the corners of their eyes.

I walked to the back row. Left corner. Sat down.

Pulled out a notebook I didn't need.

Waited.

The room filled slowly.

More whispers. More stares. More bodies were shifting away from me like I was radioactive.

By the time the bell rang, there were thirty students in the room.

Not one of them sat within three seats of me.

I told myself I didn't care.

I almost believed it.

The door slammed open.

"In your seats. Now."

Mr. Theron.

He hadn't changed.

Same shaved head. Same scar through his eyebrow. Same permanent scowl, like the entire world had personally offended him and he was still deciding whether to punch it or grade it.

He stalked to the front of the room and dropped a stack of papers on the podium.

"Combat Theory. If you're here to screw around, leave now. If you're here to learn how to survive a fight against something bigger and meaner than you, shut up and listen."

Silence.

Good silence. The kind that meant respect, not fear.

Then Theron's eyes found me.

Held.

I watched his expression shift—recognition, then something harder. Something that looked like disappointment.

"Everhart," he said.

"Sir."

"You're back."

"Yes, sir."

He grunted. "We'll see for how long."

Then he turned to the chalkboard and started drawing diagrams, and the moment was over.

But I felt it lingering.

The way he'd looked at me.

Not like a murderer.

Like a disappointment.

Somehow, that was worse.

Class ended forty-five minutes later.

I gathered my things, keeping my head down, planning my escape route to the door—

"Everhart."

Theron's voice.

I looked up.

He was standing at his podium, arms crossed, watching me with those dark, unreadable eyes.

"Stay after."

The room emptied fast.

No one lingered. No one offered to wait for me. No one even glanced back as they fled into the hallway, laughing and talking like they'd already forgotten I existed.

When the last student was gone, Theron walked toward me.

He didn't stop until he was close enough to scent—coffee and chalk dust and old rage, carefully contained.

"You know why you're here?" he asked.

"Because you want to tell me to keep my head down?"

"Because I want to tell you to be careful."

I blinked.

That wasn't what I expected.

Theron reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He held it out to me.

I took it.

Unfolded it.

It was a list of names.

Five of them.

Some I recognized. Some I didn't.

"Those are the students who hate you enough to do something about it," Theron said quietly. "Lori's circle. Her mother's influence runs deep in this school. They've been waiting for you to come back."

I stared at the names.

Lana. Skyra. Brielle.

Three names I already knew.

And two I didn't.

Derek Vance. Marcus Hale.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

Theron's jaw tightened. "Because I trained your mother. Before she left. Before everything. She was good people. And she'd want someone to watch your back."

My throat closed.

"You knew my mother?"

"Everyone knew your mother. She was the best fighter this pack ever produced." He paused. "And then she wasn't here anymore. And no one ever said why."

I folded the list and tucked it into my pocket.

"Thank you," I said.

Theron nodded. "Don't thank me. Just survive."

The hallway was emptier now.

Most students had already made it to the second period. I walked fast, my boots echoing off the stone floors, my mind spinning with what Theron had given me.

"Derek Vance."

"Marcus Hale."

I didn't know them. But I'd remember their faces.

I turned the corner—

And stopped.

Lucien Blackwell stood at the end of the hall.

He wasn't alone.

Lori was with him.

My half-sister. His fiancée.

She was laughing at something he'd said, her hand resting on his arm like she belonged there. Like she'd always belonged there.

Her golden curls spilled over her shoulders. Her uniform was immaculate. Her smile was perfect.

And him?

Lucien looked exactly like he had in my dream.

Taller than I remembered. Broader. His dark hair longer now, curling at the edges, falling across his forehead in a way that made my chest ache.

But his eyes weren't warm.

They were cold.

And when they found mine, across the length of the hallway, they didn't soften.

They "hardened".

Lori followed his gaze.

Her smile didn't falter—but something flickered behind it. Something sharp. Something hungry.

"Sister," she called out, her voice sweet as poison. "I didn't expect to see you here so soon. How was your trip?"

I didn't answer.

I couldn't.

Because Lucien was still staring at me.

And beneath the coldness, beneath the hatred, beneath the three and a half years of silence and betrayal—

I saw something else.

Pain.

Deep, raw, buried so far down I almost missed it.

He looked at me like I'd ripped out his heart and made him watch.

Then he looked away.

Took Lori's hand.

And walked past me without a word.

Lori glanced back over her shoulder, still smiling, and mouthed something I couldn't quite catch.

But I didn't need to hear it.

I already knew what she was saying.

"Mine."

I stood in the empty hallway, my hands trembling at my sides, and tried to remember how to breathe.

The dream from the bus came rushing back.

His hands on my face. His lips on mine. The way he whispered, "I missed you" like it was the truest thing he'd ever said.

He didn't miss me.

He hated me.

And I hated him too.

I *had* to hate him too.

Because the alternative—

The alternative was admitting that seeing him with Lori felt like dying all over again.

And I couldn't afford to die.

Not yet.

Not until I found the truth.

I straightened my shoulders, lifted my chin, and walked to second period.

The whispers followed me the whole way.

But I didn't look back.

I never looked back.