CHAPTER 95: _ THE DORM

"Junie?" Heidi’s voice softens, threading with alarm.

Junie lifts her head. Her eyes are puffy, and her face is streaked with tears, but when she sees Heidi, she gasps.

"Heidi!" She scrambles up to her knees, her expression flipping from despair to shock. "Oh Goddess—did Sierra and those bitches do that to you?"

Heidi gulps. She glances down at herself and sees the oversized clothes, the tangled hair, the faint scratches that still sting along her skin. Okay, maybe she does look like she got rolled down a hill and into a dumpster.

"No," Heidi forces a crooked smile. "It’s... It’s a long story."

"Lie," her wolf snickers. "You don’t want to admit you turned into me and nearly ate your problems. Coward."

"Shut. Up." Heidi mutters through clenched teeth.

Junie tilts her head. "What?"

"Nothing." Heidi waves it off. "What about you? What are you doing out here so early? The sun’s barely up."

Junie huffs, tugging at the sleeve of her tunic top. "We’re all out here because they made the announcement. We’re supposed to get ready. For the labyrinth." She gestures vaguely, like the word itself is too heavy to hold.

Her gaze sweeps over Heidi from head to toe. Then her jaw drops. "But you’re not ready."

Heidi frowns. "I’m standing here, aren’t I?"

"You’re standing here looking like... like..." Junie flails her hands. "Like you got into a wrestling match with a bear and lost! What are you still doing looking so tattered, in those?.." She points dramatically at Heidi’s pants and jacket. "...those oversized catastrophe clothes?!"

Heidi blinks rapidly at her. It’s not like they’ve called them for the labyrinth anyway.

Junie slaps her forehead. "You cannot go into the labyrinth like that."

"Why not? The oversized pants will absorb the blood better." Heidi’s wolf purrs.

"Not helping," Heidi snaps.

Junie stares at her again. "What?"

"Nothing!" Heidi blurts, louder than she meant to.

The other two newbies glance up, their eyes wide with the glazed, hollow look of people already rehearsing their own funerals.

The hallway drones with tension. Outside, voices still float in; whispers of survival odds, of mates found, of fear so thick it clings like fog.

And for the first time since arriving in the pack, Heidi feels something different inside her. She feels it in her chest, in her bones, and in her wolf’s growl thrumming like thunder beneath her skin.

The fear around her is suffocating, but in her, there’s something else.

Power.

Junie’s eyes are still puffy from crying, but now there’s a glimmer of excitement in them as she grabs Heidi’s sleeve.

"You won’t believe it," she whispers, as though revealing some scandalous secret. "We got the same dorm room!"

Heidi blinks at her. For a moment, she thinks Junie might actually be delirious from lack of sleep. "That’s... great?" she hazards, trying to inject enthusiasm into her voice.

Her wolf yawns. "Fortunate coincidence, blah blah. Who cares? We don’t need roommates. We need a cave. A dark one. Preferably filled with bones and enemies to chew on."

Heidi clears her throat, ignoring the commentary. "I mean, it’s a fortunate coincidence," she says more firmly, because Junie is clearly looking for validation.

But Junie wrinkles her nose and waves a dismissive hand. "It’s not really like that."

"What do you mean?"

Junie leans in, lowering her voice as if they’re plotting a heist instead of talking about housing. "The Moon Blessed who hit the striker harder? They’re clumping together. Reserving dorms so all the big shots can be roommates. Which left us; the ’weaker hits’—to fend for scraps. Honestly, it wasn’t even hard to save us a room. No one wanted to bunk with us."

Heidi stares at her for a beat. "So, you’re telling me we didn’t win the roommate lottery, we... got shoved into the loser’s corner."

Junie nods solemnly. "Exactly."

Her wolf snorts with laughter. "So they are chunking us in the losers’ corner? They’ve got to be shutting me. We’ll know who the losers are pretty soon once we step into that labyrinth!"

"Stop," Heidi hisses under her breath.

Junie blinks at her. "Stop what?"

"Uh—stop... looking so grim," Heidi recovers quickly. "You make it sound like we’re doomed."

Junie gives a sigh of surrender. "We are doomed. In like... a few hours."

Fair point.

Heidi wrinkles her nose as they approach their room.

"Smells like desperation," her wolf declares. "And old ramen cups. This is worse than the forest. At least the forest had squirrels."

Junie fumbles with the doorknob and pushes it open. The room inside is... surprisingly neat. Three beds lined up against the walls, thin mattresses with mismatched blankets, and a single window cracked open to let in the cool morning air. A faint lavender scent is in the air, mixed with the unmistakable smell of instant noodles.

"Oh, right," Junie says brightly, "we’ve got a roommate too."

Heidi blinks. "Wait, what?"

Sure enough, there’s another girl sitting cross-legged on the bed nearest the window, nose buried in a thick book. She looks up at them with calm, assessing eyes from behind round glasses.

"Hi," she says softly, giving Heidi the faintest of smiles before returning her gaze to the book.

Heidi raises a hand awkwardly. "Uh, hi."

"Prey," her wolf announces with a feral certainty. "Quiet ones always are. Look at her, reading while the rest of the sheep bleat outside. That’s the type that screams loudest when you finally sink your teeth in."

"Jesus Christ," Heidi mutters.

"Jesus Christ?" Junie repeats, confused.

"Nothing," Heidi waves it off quickly.

She then leans toward Junie and whispers, "Hey... wasn’t our werewolf blood supposed to cure, you know... defects? Like eyesight? So why’s she wearing glasses?"

Unfortunately, Heidi doesn’t whisper quietly enough.

"I heard that." The girl doesn’t look up from her book as she counters. "And yes, my eyes are perfect now. But I choose to keep wearing them."

Heidi scrunches up her face in confusion. "...Why?"

The girl finally closes her book and meets Heidi’s gaze through the reflective lenses. "Because the werewolves already stole my identity. I refuse to let them steal everything.

This," she taps her glasses, "is mine. My reminder of who I was before their Goddess changed me."

The room goes quiet for a moment. Even Junie doesn’t have a peep to add.

"Drama queen," Heidi’s wolf mutters. "Next, she’ll say she keeps her acne scars as battle medals. Boohoo, the wolves stole my life. Newsflash: you are a wolf now, darling. Deal with it."

Heidi rubs her temples. "Okay, well, that’s... deep."

The girl shrugs and reopens her book, effectively ending the conversation.

Heidi leans toward Junie and whispers, "She’s weird."

"Super weird," Junie agrees instantly, though her voice is loud enough to make Heidi wince.

The girl smirks faintly but doesn’t look up. "I can hear you."

.

.

By the time Heidi starts tugging at her oversized jacket, the room feels like it’s pressing in on her. Sweat clings to her skin, and exhaustion gnaws at her muscles.

"Junie," she mutters, "I need a shower."

"Good idea." Junie hops to her feet and gestures grandly like a hotel guide. "Follow me, I’ll give you the five-star bathroom tour."

"Oh boy," her wolf groans. "Can’t wait. Let me guess: mold, cracked tiles, and a toilet that’s seen things no one should speak of. Luxury accommodations for warriors destined to die."

Heidi sighs. "You’re exhausting."

"You’re talking to yourself again," Junie chirps, skipping ahead down the hall.

The bathroom is at the end of the corridor, and just as Heidi’s wolf predicted, it’s a masterpiece of college-dorm horror. The faint smell of mildew seeps from the cracked grout. The mirror over the sinks is smudged with fingerprints and graffiti scrawled in marker: "Moon Blessed, Moon Screwed" and "Die pretty in the labyrinth 3". One of the shower knobs dangles loosely, as if it’s considering retirement.

"Ta-da!" Junie announces proudly.

Heidi stares at the peeling paint and water-stained ceiling. "Wow. So glamorous. I feel like I’ve checked into a five-star resort for... rats."

"Rats are cleaner," her wolf sucks her teeth. "At least they lick themselves."

Junie laughs, unfazed. "Don’t worry. At least the water’s hot... most of the time. Unless someone else is using it. Or unless the boiler breaks again. Which it does a lot this morning."

The school just had to cap their wickedness by throwing them in such a poorly maintained dorm, don’t they? Everything here is fucking hierarchical! Heidi wishes to shove the headmaster’s head into one of the furcets.

However, before she can give Junie a reply, the overhead speaker cracks. "Qualified Moon-blesseds..."