Page 69 of Mayhem

Echo, who argued with nearly every instruction I gave her. Echo, who tortured a protected man after finding a technical hole in five words. Echo, who treated my authority like an interesting theory she had no obligation to respect.

Even she understood where the actual lines were.

She pushed them, mocked them, occasionally stepped directly on them to see what I would do, but she had never pretended to speak for me. She had never issued an order under my name, rerouted my people, or used my family to override a decision I had already made. As much of an unknown as Echo remained, the trouble she created was usually hers. Camille had just reached into my territory and made a decision on my behalf.

That difference mattered more than I liked.

Echo’s class had another six minutes left when I arrived. I considered waiting in the hall, then decided I had already sacrificed one lecture and saw no reason to become patient now.

I opened the door.

The professor stopped mid-sentence. Thirty students turned toward me, including Echo, who sat three rows from the back with a pen in one hand and an expression that immediately suggested I had become more interesting than whatever was on the board.

I looked directly at her. “You’re with me.”

Her eyebrows went up. She opened her mouth, probably prepared to remind me that normal people waited until class ended before issuing summons, but she took one look at my face and reconsidered. Echo shoved her notebook into her bag, muttered something to the woman beside her, and stood.

That almost made me angrier.

Camille could have learned something from her.

I stepped back into the hall while Echo collected the rest of her things. She joined me less than a minute later and immediately started beside me as I headed toward the central commons.

“I’m assuming this isn’t because you suddenly developed a passion for attendance violations.” She adjusted the strap of her bag and had to lengthen her stride to keep up. “Where are we going?”

“Camille.”

Echo looked at me more carefully. “What did she do?”

“She moved Nichlas.”

That wiped the amusement from her face. She caught my arm hard enough to stop me for half a step before releasing it. “You said he was still mine.”

“He is.”

“Then why the fuck is Camille moving him anywhere?”

“Because she used old family access and my name to authorize a transfer I never approved.” I started walking again, and Echo followed without another argument. “Ronan already knows where Nichlas is. He’s handling that.”

Her silence lasted until we crossed into the next building. Students moved around us in clusters, several of them looking twice when they recognized me and then again when they recognized Echo beside me.

She glanced toward the upper lounge where Camille usually spent the hour between classes. “What exactly are you planning to do?”

“I’m about to make a fucking statement.”

That earned me a slow look, but Echo did not ask me to explain.

The Quorum lounge occupied the second-floor corner of the building and stayed crowded enough during the day that almost nothing said inside it remained private. Camille liked it for precisely that reason. She enjoyed having people watch her belong somewhere.

She was sitting near the center with four other students when I walked in.

Her expression changed the second she saw me. The smile came first, automatic and polished, before she noticed Echo at my side and the edges tightened.

“Hunter.” Camille set down her coffee and stood. “I was going to call you after class.”

“You moved Nichlas.”

The room did not go silent, but it changed. Conversations closest to us softened as people realized something worth listening to had arrived.