The halls of Eastwood High didn't feel the same anymore.
They were still loud. Still stinking of sweat and ego and borrowed cologne. Still lined with faces wearing smiles they didn't mean.
But now?
Now I walked through them with a stillness that made people uneasy.
Like I didn't belong.
Like I was listening for something they couldn't hear.
Because I was.
I'd chosen Kellan Wicks first.
He wasn't the top dog—just one of Reese's favorite enforcers.
Loud. Proud. Paper-thin backbone.
The kind of guy who beat on the weak so he could forget how small he was inside.
He was sloppy.
More importantly—he had secrets.
I'd been watching him for two weeks.
I knew his schedule. I knew which girl he was stringing along behind his girlfriend's back. I knew which teacher he was bribing with vape cartridges to get assignment extensions.
I didn't need fists for this.
Just precision.
Step One: Isolation.
Kellan fed on attention. Popularity was his oxygen.
So I started cutting his supply.
Small, surgical strikes.
I whispered to one student that Kellan had ratted on a kid during detention.
Then I made sure that rumor reached the basketball team captain.
Then I asked a friend of Mira's to "accidentally" overhear Kellan trash-talking his girlfriend.
By Friday, his social feed was filled with passive-aggressive posts, and two of his teammates had stopped sitting with him at lunch.
He noticed.
He started looking around more.
Started watching who was whispering.
But he never looked at me.
Not yet.
Step Two: Disruption.
Kellan's weakness wasn't just his vanity.
It was his routine.
Every Thursday, he skipped last period and snuck behind the fieldhouse to meet with a girl named Jenna from Westvale High.
It was his dirty little secret.
So I planted a truth.
One that wouldn't stay secret long.
A flash drive.
Photos. Screenshots. Messages I'd quietly pulled from Jenna's social media—public, stupidly traceable stuff.
I dropped it into a locker.
Her locker.
His girlfriend's.
No note.
No explanation.
Just evidence.
By Monday, the explosion had happened.
Screaming in the courtyard. Tears. A slap. Jenna blocking him online. His girlfriend throwing his phone into a storm drain.
Kellan's name was on every whispered lip in the school.
And still…
He hadn't seen me.
Step Three: Reflection.
I didn't hit him with fists.
I hit him with fear.
Late that night, I left a note in his locker.
Just one sentence.
"The mask is cracking. I wonder what's underneath."
No signature.
No threat.
Just truth.
The next day, I passed him in the hallway.
Our eyes met.
His flinched.
He looked around—paranoid, confused.
I smiled.
A small one.
But I let it linger.
Later, in the library, Mira slid into the seat across from me.
"You're up to something," she said.
I didn't deny it.
Evie glanced at us, her purple-highlighted hair falling over one eye. "Someone's unraveling."
I nodded toward the hallway.
Kellan was pacing near the vending machine, muttering to himself. His hands wouldn't stop twitching.
Nolan looked up from his tablet.
"You planted the seed," he said. "Now you're watching it rot."
I didn't respond.
Didn't need to.
Because he was right.
That night, I returned to the gym.
Ryker watched me shadowbox in silence.
Then, as I finished a final set, he grunted.
"You've changed," he said.
"How?"
"You're quieter. Not just outside. Inside."
I nodded.
"It's the ki," I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
"No," he replied.
"It's the kill."
I slept well that night.
For the first time in weeks.
Because the first domino had started to fall.
And I was already choosing the next.