Jacky’s POV
The air outside the dorms was cool and crisp, tinged with the faintest hint of smoke from the nearby fires. I sat on the stone steps, letting the silence of early morning wrap around me like a cloak, a moment’s reprieve from the swarm of questions and half-answers plaguing my mind. I took a long breath, closing my eyes, only to hear the soft rustle of footsteps approaching. I didn’t turn around-I didn’t need to.
“Mind if I join you?” Valerie’s voice was gentle, almost hesitant, as if she weren’t entirely sure she’d be welcome.
“Sure.” I opened my eyes and shifted, making space for her. “As long as you’re not here to try to kill me, like Jessy did. If so, you won’t like what happens.” My tone was casual, but I couldn’t help the edge behind it.
A soft chuckle escaped Valerie, though her eyes held a flicker of something darker. “Trust me, I’m not here for that. Besides, I’m fairly certain you could snap my neck without even breaking a sweat.”
I let out a small laugh, surprised at her honesty. But I didn’t deny it.
We sat there in comfortable silence for a moment, gazing out across the shadowed training grounds. For once, there was no tension or pretense. Just two people, sitting side by side, in a fleeting moment of peace.
“Tell me about her,” I said, finally breaking the quiet. “About my sister. What was she like here?” Valerie’s presence, her bluntness, made me want to hear the unvarnished truth. If anyone would tell me the story without glossing over the darker parts, it would be her.
She leaned back, resting her elbows on the stone behind us, her eyes distant as if seeing another time entirely. “When Eloise first came here… she was kind. Too kind for this place. At first, she was like Jessy-playing at being sweet, open-hearted, almost gullible. It was as if she truly believed that kindness could survive in a place like this.” She shook her head. “In hindsight, maybe she was too good. She saw things in people none of us could see, or maybe none of us wanted to see.”
I was silent, picturing my sister in this brutal, ruthless place, trying to hold on to the goodness I’d loved so much in her. “And then?”
“And then, she saw her first death,” Valerie said quietly. “Maybe ten feet from where we’re sitting now, in the ring. The rules here aren’t written anywhere, but they’re clear as day. *Fight until the last breath.* That day, Eloise watched as two girls-friends-were thrown into the ring, forced to fight each other to please Alpha Roman. One begged for mercy. The other… had to kill her.”
The weight of her words settled heavily between us. I could almost see it-Eloise standing there, her bright eyes witnessing that horror, realizing that kindness and compassion meant nothing here. My heart twisted, imagining the pain she must have felt, the way it would have chipped away at her hope.
“After that, she changed,” Valerie continued, her voice softening. “Not overnight, but… you could see it happening. She began closing herself off. She started pushing everyone away, all except Malia.”
I nodded, clenching my fists as my thoughts turned to Jessy and her false display of sweetness. Valerie must’ve caught my expression because she looked at me with something between pity and understanding.
“Jessy’s act, that whole innocent, wide-eyed thing? That was a mockery of who your sister was,” Valerie said, her voice harsh with contempt. “It was as if she were mimicking Eloise, as if her very spirit was being twisted into something ugly and wrong.”
I looked away, feeling a strange pang at the thought. My sister’s memory had been tainted, her kindness distorted into a facade used by someone as conniving as Jessy. It hurt more than I wanted to admit.
“Did… did the Alpha put a target on her back?” I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper.
Valerie exhaled slowly, her gaze drifting to the distant mountains beyond the camp. “Yes. Eloise was… she was special. She didn’t bend easily, didn’t flinch when he first called her to his chambers. I think he expected her to swoon, to fall over herself just to please him. But she didn’t. She stood her ground. And that put a target on her back.”
The image of Eloise facing Roman, standing strong in the face of his power, filled me with a strange sense of pride-and dread. I could only imagine how that must have set Roman against her.
“But even before she was called to his chambers, she had a way about her,” Valerie continued. “The Alpha wasn’t one to play favorites, but Eloise… well, her strength was different. And the other girls saw it too.”
My jaw clenched as she spoke. “What do you mean?”
Valerie shifted, her gaze darkening. “The night after Roman called her to his chambers, five girls attacked her. They saw her as competition-someone who would take away what they wanted. That night, they came into the dorms while she was sleeping, held her down, and tried to slit her throat.”
I felt my stomach twist at the thought. “But she survived?”
“Only because of Malia.” Valerie’s voice was filled with a strange admiration. “Malia saved her. She fought off the others, protected Eloise until they finally backed down. From that night forward, Eloise and Malia were inseparable. They were more than just friends-they were allies. And Malia… she wasn’t like the others. She didn’t come here to learn how to fight. She already knew.”
“Like me,” I murmured, feeling a strange kinship with Malia, even though I hadn’t seen her as anything but a rival before now.
Valerie nodded, her eyes intense. “Exactly. And that was the beginning of their bond-and of Roman’s attempts to drive a wedge between them. He called Malia to his chambers next, trying to turn her against Eloise. And she… she fell for him. Thought she was special, that she had a place by his side. But he never stopped hating your sister. No one ever understood why. It was as if just the sight of her ignited something in him, something darker than jealousy or competition. When he looked at Eloise… it was like he was staring at a nightmare he couldn’t wake from.”
I shook my head slowly, trying to piece it together. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he feel that way about her?”
Valerie met my gaze, her eyes shadowed. “Nothing about Roman makes sense. He isn’t just cruel-there’s something else, something beyond simple power. When he set his sights on someone, it was like they didn’t just die physically. They were erased. He didn’t just break people. He… dismantled them, piece by piece, like he needed to erase any trace of them.”
I stared at her, my mind swirling with questions, but something she’d said suddenly caught my attention. “Wait… you just called him by name. Without a title.”
Valerie stiffened, a hint of alarm in her eyes as if she’d revealed something she hadn’t meant to. “I didn’t mean to… it just slipped out.”
I shrugged, offering her a small, crooked smile. “It’s fine. You’re just the first girl I’ve met here who doesn’t swoon over him.”
A bitter laugh escaped her, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flash of resentment in her gaze. But she quickly masked it, looking away. The silence returned, stretching out between us, as the weight of everything she’d told me settled in. I felt like I was seeing my sister in a new light-not the Eloise I’d known, the kind, loving girl I’d adored, but someone who had faced horrors I couldn’t even imagine.
I looked down at my hands, at the fingers that had once clung to her, believing she could do no wrong. Valerie’s words had painted a new, darker image of her, one that I wasn’t sure I was ready to accept. Maybe Eloise wasn’t the pure-hearted girl I’d remembered. Maybe, in this place, she’d been forced to change, to become something she hadn’t wanted to be.
But there was a part of me that didn’t want to know more. I couldn’t bear to think of my sister’s memory becoming twisted, of her goodness tainted by this brutal world. And yet, I couldn’t deny the truth that lingered in Valerie’s words.
*Who was Eloise in the end?*