Over My Dead Body, Hockey Alpha.

EVA. Eleven PM. That was the time I arrived at Brentford College, and the first thing I noticed was that the darkness here felt different. The car rolled to a stop at the main gate, and I sat forward, pressing close to the window, trying to make sense of what lay ahead. Buildings rose in dark, heavy silhouettes against the sky, and the whole place was swathed in quiet, except for one building, far off to the left, pulsing with something I could feel more than hear. Lights bled through its windows in flashes of violet and amber, and music drifted across the air, It was faint, but relentless. "Why are we stopping here?" I asked, my voice coming out quieter than I'd intended. The driver met my eyes in the rearview mirror. He had the kind of permanent frown that came from years of navigating other people's messes. "This car is brand new," he said flatly. "Three months old. I am not driving it into a pack of drunk university students who will scratch the door and call it a memory." I looked around at the empty stretch of road, then back at him. "What do you mean? Is everything okay?" "Everything is fine." He said it like the word was doing heavy lifting. "I'm just taking caution. There's clearly a party going on in there, you can see it for yourself. I'd love to take you closer, but I love my car more, so I'll stop you here." I almost laughed. Almost. Instead I let out a long, slow sigh, reached into my bag, counted out his money and passed it over the seat. He pocketed it without ceremony. I adjusted my glasses, smoothed down my jacket, ran a quick hand over my hair and turned to him. "Can you open the boot? I need to get my bags." He climbed out without complaint and helped me lift my two small duffel bags onto the pavement. They weren't large. They weren't the kind of bags that suggested permanence or confidence or someone who had any real business being here. Just enough for a girl holding herself together with both hands. He looked at me for a long moment after that, then he smiled. "I might not be your father," he said, "but I want to leave you with something. Be careful. This school is deeper than you can ever imagine." His eyes moved over me once, not unkindly. "You look way too naive for it, just be careful." I searched his face for sarcasm, and I found nothing but sincerity, which was somehow far, far worse. My throat tightened, as I nodded. "Thank you, sir. Thank you so much." He shook my hand once, got back into the car, and drove away. There I was, standing alone in the dark with two bags and a warning I had absolutely no idea what to do with. I scratched at my knuckles, an anxious habit I'd had since I was twelve and never managed to kill...and let out a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and genuine distress. "Okay," I muttered to nobody. "That was an unsolicited horror film speech from a man I will never see again in my life." Quickly, I picked up my bags and started walking, I hadn't made it ten steps before my phone buzzed. It was a message from my aunt. 'Have you got to school? Hope you arrived safely. Your sister is having another treatment session, I'll call you in the morning. I read it twice and laughed. That's it. That's the whole message. No "how are you feeling, Eva," No "we know this is hard for you, Eva." It's always my cousin Dara, who had been handed admission to this school months ago and had promptly set her own life on fire with a drug habit bad enough to land her in rehab. Someone had to come ahead, Someone had to keep the seat warm, sort the paperwork, make sure the slot wasn't lost, Someone had to be useful. That someone, as always, was me. I used to be somebody at my last school. I used to walk into a room and own it, captain of the cheerleading squad, first name on every list, the kind of girl people noticed. That was before my parents died and the ground shifted beneath everything I thought I knew, and I became, very suddenly, just the spare. The helpful one, the one who could be sent somewhere because she had nowhere more important to be. I swallowed the thought back down where it belonged and kept walking. Suddenly, the bushes rustled, I stopped dead. Every reasonable thought I had evaporated in an instant as I turned slowly, my pulse doing something awful. "Is anybody there?" Silence. Then...another rustle, closer and deliberate. My hand flew up to the back of my head on pure instinct, fingers closing around the long pin holding my bun in place. I yanked it free, gripped it like it would do absolutely anything against a threat, and took one slow step toward the dark. "I said...is anyone here?" Immediately, two figures exploded out of the bush. I shrieked. Genuinely shrieked, the kind I would be embarrassed about for weeks. One of them bolted instantly, gone before I'd even registered his face, sprinting into the dark like I was the threat. The other stumbled forward with his hands raised, half laughing, half wincing. I nearly stabbed him with a hair pin. "Oh my God....I am so sorry," he gasped, still laughing. "We were just...we were having a good time back here. Hi." I blinked at him several times. He was something to behold. Bone-coloured shorts that sat high on his thighs, a fitted cropped top, lip gloss catching what little light existed, and hair that had been dyed a warm, deliberate ginger and styled with the kind of care that took real time and real commitment. His whole presence was curated, effortless and completely intentional at once. Oh, I thought. Okay. "My parents misplaced my gender," he said cheerfully, as if he'd read my face and decided to address the room before I could. "It happens. Anyway, hi. I'm Jordan. But my friends call me Jody." I looked at him for a long moment and blinked back to reality. "Sorry. Hi. I'm Eva. Eva Wallsman and I'm new here." He pointed at me immediately. "Yeah, I know, I could tell." I frowned. "How?" "The glasses." He gestured vaguely. "And the boots. Those boots are screaming I came here for academic purposes." Something loosened in my chest as I laughed...a real one, so unexpected, bubbling up before I could stop it. I like him, I thought, surprised by how quickly it had happened. I genuinely already like this person. "Come on," Jody said, already turning. "I'll take you to the party. You can throw your bags in my car, it's just over there." I hesitated. "I don't think that's a good idea." "Mm-mm." He shook his head slowly, dragging the sound out. "I know it's not a good idea, but there is no good idea in this school, so how about you just chill out and have some fun for once?" I smiled. And somehow, I followed him. We fell into step together easily, and after a moment I asked, "Is this party a regular thing?" Jody tilted his head side to side. "Not every week, but this one specifically is the Welcome Back Game Night. It's one of maybe a hundred parties this school hosts." He paused. "It's also the one that sets the tone for your whole semester. For some people it's a good night. For others..." He made a face. "Unforgettable trauma." I blinked profusely. "Sorry...what?" But he was already talking again, and I was only half listening because my mind had drifted somewhere quieter. Unforgettable trauma. I'd already had my share of that, hadn't I? I'd left my last school carrying grief I hadn't fully named yet, arriving here as nobody...no squad, no title, no parents in the stands. Just Eva. Just a girl doing a favour for a cousin who didn't even know she was here. "You think a lot," Jody said suddenly. "You've been quiet for like two minutes. That's concerning." "I'm just nervous," I admitted. "You literally just told me this party could ruin my life." He laughed. "Okay, fair. But you have nothing to worry about.....actually, wait." He stopped walking and turned to face me fully, his expression shifting into something that looked almost like genuine concern. "There are people I need to warn you about, and I need you to hear me clearly." He held up a finger. "They are strictly off limits, all of them! Do not engage." I crossed my arms. "Go on." "Maddie Kiss. IT girls captain. She will smile at you and dismantle you in the same breath." He lifted another finger. "Then the five of the hockey team players, we call them the Five Alive, affectionately and with great fear. Graham Hartway. Tyson Black. Hunter Blaize." He paused meaningfully. "Logan Voss, and yes, his d**k matches the weight of his name, and I mean that in the worst possible way." He took a breath. "And Roman Steele. You could probably ride with that one. He's a lover boy and still a d**k, but a prettier kind." I stared at him. Then I smiled slowly. "Jody, I've handled worse. I'm not scared of any of that." He opened his mouth to respond, and then we arrived. The noise hit me first. Then the light. Then the heat of a hundred bodies pressed into a space that smelled like alcohol and bad decisions and something almost electric. Different coloured lights swept the room in slow, hypnotic arcs...deep red, strobing blue, warm gold. Music I could feel in my sternum rattled the walls. Girls danced on tables with a fearlessness that bordered on performance, like there was a silent competition happening for who got the nicest butt. Couples were folded into corners, doing something inadvisable on a kitchen counter. High school parties, I thought, scanning the room with wide eyes. They are completely identical everywhere in the world. Jody grabbed my hand and pulled me through the crowd before I could protest, steering me toward a cluster of girls near the far wall. They were unmistakable. Different hair colours...blonde, red, black, silver, each one worn with the kind of casual confidence that announced we didn't try, and that's why it works. They moved differently too, like they knew the room belonged to them. "Hello, everyone," Jody announced, spreading his arms. "We got a new fish." They turned. I folded my arms across my chest without thinking, hands gripping my own elbows. The one who stepped forward first was blonde, impossibly, unfairly blonde, her hair long and pin-straight and catching the light like it had been designed to. Blue eyes and cheekbones that could have been sculpted. She was the kind of beautiful that made you aware of your own face in a way you hadn't been thirty seconds ago. Maddie Kiss, I thought immediately. She stopped in front of me, looked me over once with those bright eyes, and smiled. "Hey. I'm Maddie. What's your name?" I looked at her extended hand and shook it. "Eva. Eva Wallsman and I'm a freshman." "Obviously," she said, not unkindly, exactly, but not kindly either. "Come sit." I followed her as they all looked at me. Jody was already mid-sentence behind us, yapping. "Girls, I literally found her in the bush, and she was about to stab me with a hair pin. Conclusively, I am her saviour ." "Jody." Maddie didn't even look up. "We appreciate the delivery, but we don't know what gender to assign the seat you'd be taking, so." Jody gasped. "That is homophobic and I will not..." "You can stay," one of the other girls said, biting back a smile, "but you have to undo three buttons so we can see your boobs." The whole group dissolved into laughter. I laughed too...genuinely, deeply, the kind that surprises you. Jody pointed at all of us. "Every single one of your boyfriends," he announced with great dignity. "Would get a taste of my asshole, Pin that!" Then he was gone. The laughter settled as Maddie tilted her head at me. "Pretty, but do you really need those glasses, or is it a look?" "I genuinely cannot see without them." I answered, plainly. She nodded, almost approvingly. "The purple hair is interesting. It's a colour choice for someone like you." I smiled at her anyway. Smooth, easy, noncommittal. "I'd say I've got free will." Maddie studied me. "Free will," she repeated. "Or you've simply never been in a school that required you to earn it." She leaned in slightly. "You're on the Nest Fund scholarship, aren't you? One of the lucky ones." My hands tightened in my lap as I unclenched them deliberately. "That's fine, Maddie," I said, keeping my voice level. "I think I'll head off, actually..." "Mm-mm." She shook her head. "Sit. Something is about to happen, and we're going to need you for it." "Maddie, don't...." one of the other girls started. "Cece." Maddie's voice didn't rise, but Cece went quiet immediately. "We need her. Sit down." I looked around the circle of faces...some were curious, some uncomfortable, some wearing the careful blankness of people who had learned not to have opinions in this company. I could feel my pulse doing something I didn't like. Then the MC's voice cut through the entire room like a blade. "ALRIGHT, BRENTFORD! Move to your groups, and pair up because this night is about to get very, very messy! Are you all ready to kick off the messiest semester of your lives?!" The room erupted as a wall of noise, bodies shifting, drinks raised. I turned to Maddie slowly. "What is he talking about, What's about to happen??" She looked at me with that smile...wide, warm, and completely unreadable. "Purple Eva," she said sweetly. "This is the beginning of hell, and once again, Welcome To Hell, Freshman."