Page 115 of Prey It By Ear

“Not a peep. I’ve done the outline for my part and completed everything I can ahead. They’ll still throw me under the bus, though,” I say. My emotion isn’t anger at this point; it’s a flatness I don’t like. “If I call them out, I’m a snitch. If I do their part, I’m a sucker. If I just let it crash, Asani will make sure everyone thinks it’s my fault we flunked.”

“The prey staff has had this exact problem, you know,” Raina says, stepping off the path to let a trio of soccer bros lumber by. “Bowser used to vent about it at every crew meeting last year. There’s a couple of tenured staff who got so used to being ground down by predator management, they just do the bare minimum and stop helping with things. When Bowser tried to pick up the slack, he’d end up doing half the shift and still get the blame if the job wasn’t perfect.”

I nod. “He told me it wasn’t just me the other day.”

She laughs. “It’s pretty common in anything requiring group responsibilities, Dolly. The ones who get ahead here are the ones who do the least. It’s not right, but it’s how the world works, I think, especially in our society.”

I’m quiet for a bit, chewing the inside of my cheek.

“You know what Bowser did about it?”

“What?” I ask, honestly curious how the quokka handled it.

“He started pranking them.” She grins, her eyes glinting. “Not mean pranks, just enough to make their lives irritating. One week, he rerouted the laundry so all the socks came out mismatched. Another time, he filled the breakroom with helium balloons so they couldn’t even open the fridge without getting hit in the face. Last spring, he set every clock in the service corridor twenty minutes fast. It got everyone so off-balance that they had to pay attention again. It didn’t fix the world, but it made them pay more attention for a while.”

I laugh despite myself, picturing Bowser as some kind of avenging marsupial, tiny but determined to make chaos out of apathy. “He’s a genius. I think that’s Fitz’s current solution to a lot of problems, too.”

“I believe it. Fitz and Bowser have more in common than you think,” Raina agrees. “But I’m not sure if pranking those girls will really achieve anything. It’s probably why your mate hasn’t gone that route this week, I bet.”

The conversation lightens the walk, and when we cut around the pond to the Shird’s side entrance, I realize I’m actually feeling more relaxed. My jaw isn’t clenched, my shoulders have migrated back where they belong, and the world feels just a little less daunting.

Raina pauses at the base of the stairs and gives me a salute again. “Banjo will be outside your room for your escort to Diplomacy.”

“Thanks, Raina,” I say with a smile. “You helped more than you realize.”

She smiles and waves, watching me push into the building. As I take the elevator up, I think about what she said until I get off. In the dance hallway, the smell of sweat and rosin and ancient gym mats hits me hard. I stop, breathe out, and let the familiar sensations of dance class swallow everything else. I have an hour of hip-hop, then Diplomacy, and then maybe I’ll check the project doc again.

The day is what it is, but I’m more ready to live it than I was an hour ago.

Hail To The King

Felix

The pixels swim for a full two seconds before Fitz’s camera boots up and resolves into a decent view of the lecture hall. I see rows of students, third-floor daylight lancing through dusty windows, and, at the front, my cousin Asani in all his grumpy-looking, somewhat rumpled glory. He’s in showtime mode, which means he wants everyone in the room to feel the chill of being personally evaluated by a Khan royal, despite the fact that he appears not to be in complete control of himself.

Fitz’s little tricks must be working already; I’ll let my princess know he deserves a reward.

I’m watching this shit on my laptop at the annex so I have the actual story of this blasted project conclusion. Keeping my jaw locked and my hands gripped on the desk edge, I work to manage my anger because if I don’t, I’ll start breaking things. Ren and Chess will be mad, and we’ll be waiting on a new dinner table for at least a week. That doesn’t help anyone, but I swear to Bast, I will make sure my asshole cousin suffers if he hurts our mate.

The Heathers arrive, not even attempting stealth in their matching blouses, uniform skirts, and perfect knee-high socks and heels. Pink leads, her expression fake-bored, but every move radiating a need to be admired. Gold strides in behind her, new chin already cocked, and her shiny-glossed mouth in that not-quite-smile people wear when they’re positive they’re about to get everything they want and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. While I’m happy that their cabal has been pruned from five to two, I don’t enjoy seeing a new acolyte trailing behind them looking like she wants to shrink into the floor.

This kind of behavior causes teens to become adults who bully others and start fucking wars; I want it to end, not keep going.

Dolly is already there, sitting in the back corner seat with her hands folded. Her back is so straight I can actually see her ballet training at work, and the way her hair is pinned up means she’s expecting a fight. She’s not looking at the podium; her eyes are focused two degrees to the left, where no one can rattle her unless she decides it’s time. The rest of the room is a blur of various preds, all posturing or pretending not to care. I run a quick sweep on my other screen; no one’s flagged Fitz’s camera so far.

My cousin arrives on the dot, putting his hands palms-down on the lectern and waiting for the room’s white noise to fade into nothing. “Good morning, future leaders,” he says, not smiling, but also not angry. His expression is clinical, as if he’s viewing a cadaver, not a person, in the morgue. I’m not sure why he’s taking the tack—Dolly swears he was insanely churlish and nasty last week. Is it because he knows what’s coming or because Fitz has sent him that far off-balance in a day? I’m anxious to know, and I tap my fingers on the table as I wait.

Asani launches straight into the first order of business after he sets up his tablet. “Before we begin, I’d like to address the group assignments from last week, specifically the Barrington-Erickson-Drew cohort.” He looks up, lets his gaze skim the rows like a searchlight, and lands on Dolly. I can see the twitch in his eyebrow—a family tell of an incoming pounce and kill.

“Only one member of the group,” he intones, “submitted their finished product ahead of schedule as instructed. That submission, while thorough, displays a complete lack of collaborative input. In fact, it seems to have been written in isolation, with no reference to the other contributors or even the expected team structure. In this classroom, as in life, failure to coordinate is failure. Is that understood?”

He doesn’t say Dolly’s name, but every pred in the room knows where he’s aiming. I watch the Heathers as he speaks, noting their responses. Pink gives a little smirk, then straightens, and Gold tilts her head, satisfied. She’s got her nails painted in a pattern I recognize from the last Council banquet—tiny, gold-plated microchips glued to every fingertip, subtle advertising for her father’s upcoming IPO. If I hadn’t already sworn a blood feud against the entire Erickson line, today would be the day.

When the room stays silent, Gold waves that advertising-filled hand and pauses when she’s called on. “As you will see, Professor, our project is in your inbox, simply under another email address. We,” she gestures at Pink, “actually collaborated even though our supposed partner refused to assist.”

Dolly doesn’t react; she doesn’t give them so much as a blink. Her hand is steady on the desk, and she waits a full second after Gold’s statement before raising it at precisely the correct angle to guarantee he cannot ignore her.

“You have something to say in response, Drew?” the tiger says as he pretends he might be swayed from believing the Heathers with zero proof.