The hallway felt wrong in the same way that dreams are always slightly wrong.
Not broken. Not obviously off. Just a half step behind.
The sounds came delayed and dampened, like the air between him and everything else thickened overnight. Lockers, footsteps, the low voices of students still trying to get to cover, all of it lagged by just enough to feel borrowed from somewhere else.
Eli was already standing in the middle of it.
Volkov was at the far end of the corridor, the cane loose at his side, his posture exactly as unhurried as it had been the first time. Not rushing. Never rushing. The locker doors were already off the wall behind him, already beginning to divide, the large panels pulling apart into thinner and thinner strips the same way paper tears.
The girl was at the classroom door on his right.
Her hand was on the handle. Her fingers were wrapped around it. She had her shoulder dipped slightly forward, the kind of motion that meant she was almost through, another half second and she would have been inside and none of the rest of it would have mattered.
Eli knew what was coming. That was the only difference this time. He knew the exact piece, knew roughly where it sat inside the mass of metal Volkov was already pushing forward, knew the angle it would take when it broke from the rest and drifted wide and low past the edge of what he could hold.
He planted his feet and got his hands up early.
The first wave hit his reach and compressed hard against his palms. He pushed the largest pieces down into the floor, sent two more cracking sideways into the walls on either side. The pressure in his chest surged and he held it, pulling more of the storm toward him, trying to widen whatever radius he could manage.
He was stopping more than last time. He could feel it, the difference in what was getting through versus what wasn't.
The specific piece came through anyway.
He saw it the moment it separated from the rest. Low and angled, breaking off the outer edge of the mass and drifting wide in a flat arc that put it entirely outside what his hands could reach. He dropped his right hand toward it and felt the gap between them immediately, that specific feeling of distance he was already familiar with, the one that told him before his body even finished moving that he wasn't going to get there.
He tried anyway.
The blade crossed the hallway and caught her across the throat while her hand was still on the door handle.
Her grip didn't release right away. For just a moment her fingers stayed wrapped around the metal, her weight still leaning forward like her body hadn't understood yet what had just happened to it. Then her hand slipped off. Both of hers flew up to her neck at the same time, and her knees struck the tile first, hard, and the sound of it carried all the way down the corridor over everything else. The rest of her followed down slowly, not collapsing the way people did in movies, just folding, going quiet, her back meeting the floor beside the door she had almost made it through.
She gave one small wet cough.
Then she went completely still.
For one stupid second Eli just stood there.
He was still standing there when the dream cut out.
***
Eli woke up with his hand raised.
Not all the way. Just lifted slightly off the mattress, fingers loosely open, reaching for something that was already gone. He stayed still for a second with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The room was quiet. Morning light pressed through the blinds in pale even lines across the opposite wall.
He lowered his hand slowly and let it rest on top of the covers.
He exhaled once through his nose and sat up.
His shoulders ached again. His forearms too, deep in the muscle, the kind of soreness that had been building longer than one night. He pushed himself to the edge of the mattress and sat there for a moment with his elbows on his knees, eyes on the floor.
The bedroom door was open partway.
He stood up and walked out.
Brad was at the kitchen counter with his back partially turned, pouring coffee into his usual glass. He didn't look up right away when Eli came in, just reached for a second mug and filled it without being asked.
He set it on the counter closest to Eli and finally glanced over at him.
He took one look at Eli's face.
"Same dream?" he said.
Eli pulled out the stool and sat down.
"Yeah," he said.
Brad nodded once and didn't push it any further. He picked up his own mug and leaned back against the counter, and the kitchen stayed quiet for a moment except for the faint sounds of the city already moving somewhere below them.
Eli wrapped both hands around the mug and looked out toward the living room windows.
The city outside was already fully awake. Traffic moved in steady lines through the avenues below and the morning light caught the glass faces of the towers across the street.
He drank his coffee slowly.
Brad had moved to the kitchen table with his tablet, same as most mornings, scrolling through something long enough to take up the full screen. He didn't explain what it was and Eli didn't ask. That was the rhythm they had settled into over the past few days without either of them deciding to.
Eli finished the last of the mug and set it in the sink.
He drifted toward the couch without any particular intention and dropped onto it. The remote was on the cushion beside him. He picked it up and turned the TV on mostly just to have something in the room other than the hum of the building and the distant city noise.
The morning news was already mid-segment.
A reporter stood outside a building Eli recognized immediately. The stone steps. The trimmed trees lining the front walkway. The wide entrance with its older carved pillars visible just over the reporter's shoulder.
Meridian Prep.
The banner across the bottom of the screen read: STRUCTURAL INCIDENT AT AURELION PREPARATORY SCHOOL — NO FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED.
The reporter's tone was measured. Practiced. The kind of calm that gets rehearsed before the camera starts rolling.
"Authorities have confirmed that three students lost their lives following what officials are describing as a catastrophic structural failure at Meridian Preparatory Institute earlier this week. A section of the school's older interior framework is believed to have given way without warning during passing period, sending debris through a heavily trafficked hallway. Several additional students were treated for injuries ranging from lacerations to broken bones. One student remains hospitalized in stable condition."
"Authorities have confirmed that three students lost their lives following what officials are describing as a catastrophic structural failure at Meridian Preparatory Institute earlier this week. A section of the school's older interior framework is believed to have given way without warning during passing period, sending debris through a heavily trafficked hallway. Several additional students were treated for injuries ranging from lacerations to broken bones. One student remains hospitalized in stable condition."
The reporter paused for exactly the right amount of time.
"School administration and city officials held a joint press conference yesterday afternoon expressing condolences to the families of the deceased and reaffirming their commitment to a full safety review of the building. The Somatic Republic Department of Education has announced a temporary suspension of classes pending a structural assessment of the affected areas. Authorities state there is no indication of foul play at this time."
The anchor back in the studio nodded gravely.
"Truly a tragedy. Our thoughts are with the families and the Meridian Prep community during this difficult—"
Eli turned the TV off.
He sat there with the remote still in his hand.
Three students.
The report had said it the same way it might say a road was closed for maintenance. Measured. Packaged. Slotted between the weather and a trade agreement. Three kids were dead in a school hallway and the city had already decided what story it was going to tell about it, they had already printed the word structural on every document and fed it to every camera, and somewhere out there three sets of parents were being handed an explanation about failing framework and aging infrastructure instead of the truth.
He set the remote down carefully on the cushion beside him.
His hand was shaking slightly and he hadn't noticed until just now.
The girl near the classroom door hadn't been hit by a ceiling beam. She hadn't been caught under collapsing framework. A man had walked into that school with a cane and torn the walls apart on purpose and sent the pieces through a hallway full of kids who were just trying to get to their next class, and she had died on the floor next to a door she had her hand on, and the city had looked at all of that and written the word accident across the top of the page.
Brad was still at the kitchen table behind him.
"Structural failure," Eli said.
His voice came out quieter than he intended.
"Yeah," Brad said.
"Three people are dead."
"I know."
Eli turned around on the couch to look at him.
"They're just going to leave it at that," he said. "That's it. Structural failure, press conference, thoughts and prayers, move on."
Brad met his eyes but didn't say anything.
"Someone walked into a school and killed three kids," Eli said, and his voice had an edge in it now that he didn't bother pulling back. "In front of everyone. In the middle of the day. And the whole thing gets cleaned up and filed away and nobody says a word about what actually happened."
"No," Brad said. "They don't."
"That doesn't bother you."
It wasn't really a question.
Brad held his gaze for a moment.
"It bothers me," he said. "It's still how it works."
Eli looked at him for a second longer, then turned back toward the window.
He didn't trust himself to say anything else right away. The anger had a shape to it now, something distinct from the grief and the exhaustion of the past few days, something with edges. It sat in his chest and didn't move.
Outside, Aurelion kept going. Traffic through the intersection. People on the sidewalks with their coffee and their bags, moving through a city that had just buried three teenagers under the word accident and was already halfway through its morning routine.
He stared at it until the edge in his chest dulled down to something quieter.
Then Brad spoke again behind him.
"There's movement on your mom's case," he said.
Eli turned back around on the couch.
Brad was still standing near the far end of it, mug in hand, eyes on the window.
"The investigators working her disappearance started picking up on a pattern a few weeks back," he said. "There's been a spike in cases here in Aurelion, also in Port Virel, Lydon, and Oris all within the past couple months. Same style of break in and disappearance. No connection between the people involved on the surface, but the circumstances overlap enough that someone started grouping them."
Eli straightened slightly.
"How many?" he asked.
"Like 4-5 recently, enough to become a real pattern," Brad said. "Your mom's case fits right inside the profile."
Eli was quiet for a second.
"So it wasn't random," he said.
"Doesn't look like it."
They sat in the room for a moment.
"Do they know who?" Eli asked.
Brad shook his head once.
"Not yet."
He said it evenly, but something in the delivery made Eli look at him a second longer than usual. Brad's eyes stayed on the window. His expression stayed flat in the specific way it did when he had already processed something and filed it away before bringing it into the room.
Eli didn't push it.
"Okay," he said.
He sat with it for a moment.
Then he looked at Brad.
"I need to go see Lila," he said.
Brad didn't answer immediately.
"She's been in there three days," Eli said. "She doesn't know what happened. She was just there because she was with me."
"I know that," Brad said.
"Then you know I can't just leave without checking on her."
"Not yet," Brad said.
His tone didn't shift. Not harder, not softer. Just the same flat line it always landed on when the decision was already made.
Eli's jaw tightened.
"Why not."
"Because BSI is still running assessments around that school," Brad said. "Anyone connected to students who were injured has eyes on them right now. You showing up at that hospital draws a line between her and everything else. That line doesn't help her."
"She took a piece of metal through her leg," Eli said. "Because she was standing next to me."
"I know," Brad said.
"She has no idea why any of that happened."
"No," Brad said. "She doesn't. And right now that's the best position she can be in. A girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a structural accident. That's the story she has and it's the story that keeps her out of anything wider than this."
Eli looked at him.
He wanted to argue it further. He had the next sentence already sitting there. But he recognized the shape of the conversation and he knew where it was going, and the part of him that had been paying attention to Brad for the past two weeks understood that this particular wall wasn't going to move today.
He looked away first.
"She's stable," Brad said, quieter now. "They confirmed that at the scene. She's going to be fine."
"You don't know that," Eli said.
"No," Brad said. "But that's what we have right now."
The room stayed quiet for a moment.
Outside a truck moved through the intersection below and its engine faded as it turned onto the next street.
Eli leaned forward on the couch with his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor.
"After," he said. "When things settle down."
Brad picked his mug back up.
"After," he said.
It wasn't a promise exactly. But it was the closest thing to one Brad ever gave, and by now Eli had learned to recognize the difference.
Brad took a sip of his coffee.
"There's something else," he said. "You'll be starting at KMI today."
Eli looked at him.
"Today?" he repeated.
"Yeah."
Brad set his mug down and moved away from the window. He pulled out the chair across from Eli at the kitchen table and sat down, which was different. Brad didn't usually sit down for conversations. He stood, or he leaned, or he kept himself positioned near an exit like he might need to leave the room before it was over. When he actually sat down it meant the next part required attention.
Eli turned on the stool to face him.
"Kessler Military Institute," Brad said. "It sits just outside the city. Most people know it as an elite academy, carrier training, military strategy, leadership development. That part is accurate. It's also where the NCC pulls its best people from. Officers, field carriers, special operations. If you want a future in this system, KMI is where that starts."
"And you're sending me there," Eli said.
"You need structured training," Brad said. "What happened at Meridian Prep is exactly what happens when a carrier is operating without real oversight or controlled development. You were figuring it out in the middle of a hallway while people were getting killed. That can't happen again."
Eli didn't argue with that.
"There are two tracks at KMI," Brad continued. "Standard cadets and advanced cadets. You'll go in as a advanced cadet, which basically just means the carrier program. The program is intense. Physical conditioning every morning, academic blocks during the day, controlled training exercises. Everything is evaluated constantly. They're going to watch how you handle pressure, how your abilities develop, how you make decisions when things go wrong."
"Sounds like what you've been doing," Eli said.
"What I've been doing is the rough version," Brad said. "KMI is structured. Controlled environment. Trained faculty, proper equipment, other carriers your age going through the same process. It's the right place for where you are right now."
Eli looked at the table for a second.
"And my mom's case," he said. "Being inside KMI doesn't cut me off from that."
"No," Brad said. "It doesn't."
"You'll keep me updated."
"Anything changes, you hear it from me," Brad said. "Same as now."
Eli nodded slowly.
He thought about the rail yard. The tennis ball slowing mid air. The steel pipe stopping and then dropping to the pavement. He thought about the hallway at Meridian Prep and the way his arms had been shaking before the last wave even finished, the frayed hot feeling in his shoulders from pushing harder than he actually knew how to push.
Brad was right and Eli knew it. Everything he understood about his own power had come from nearly getting hurt or watching someone else get hurt first. That wasn't a system. That was just damage accumulating until something stuck.
"Alright," he said. "I'll go."
Brad nodded once like the conversation was now resolved and reached for his tablet.
"Two tracks means two different populations inside the building," he added without looking up. "Standard cadets don't know much about the carrier program. Keep it that way. You don't need to explain yourself to people who aren't in your program."
"What about the other carrier cadets," Eli said.
"You'll meet them when you get there," Brad said. "Some of them have been in the system their whole lives. Some come from bloodlines that go back further than KMI does. Don't try to measure yourself against any of that on day one."
Eli turned that over for a second.
"And my binary," he said. "If someone asks."
"Tell them what you know," Brad said. "Which right now is only what you've observed. That's normal for someone at your stage. Nobody expects a full picture from a first year."
He said it the same way he said everything else. Straightforward. Informational. Like he was reading off a checklist of things Eli needed before walking out the door.
Eli pushed himself off the stool.
"Go pack," Brad said. "We leave in twenty minutes."