ONE

JANE

The vodka from last night sat in my stomach like a brick. I'd spent three hours listening to some investment banker drone on about his divorce while I nodded and smiled behind my mask, pouring drinks and pretending to care. The tips were good, but my head was killing me.

I rounded the corner to the social sciences building and heard Professor Vaughn's voice carrying through the closed door. That particular tone meant he was already mid-lecture.

"Fuck," I mouthed, checking my phone. Twenty minutes late.

There was no salvaging this. I could either skip entirely or face whatever was coming. My scholarship, however, required attendance. So the choice made itself.

I pushed open the door as quietly as I could. Every head in the room turned. Professor Vaughn stopped mid-sentence, his reading glasses perched on his nose, one eyebrow raised.

"Ms. Puckett. How kind of you to join us."

"I'm really sorry, Professor. I had—"

"I don't need your life story." He set down his marker. The silence in the room was suffocating. "POLI 325 begins at nine. Not nine-fifteen. Not nine-twenty. Nine."

"I know, I just—"

"I'm disappointed in you, Jane. You're better than this." He waved toward the seats. "Sit down. We'll discuss your tardiness later."

I moved toward my usual spot in the back, but Vaughn cleared his throat.

"Actually, since you've decided to grace us with your presence late, let's make it productive. The semester project groups were finalized today. You'll be joining Tucker Hayes and Ace Monroe. They're a pair short."

My stomach dropped. "Professor, anyone but—"

"This isn't a negotiation." Vaughn picked up his marker again. "In politics, Ms. Puckett, you don't get to choose your allies or your enemies. You work with who's in the room. Consider this a lesson."

I bit my lip hard enough to taste copper. Across the room, Ace Monroe raised his hand in a lazy wave. His sleeve was pushed up, showing off that ridiculous blackwork tattoo that covered his entire arm. The smirk on his face made me want to throw my bag at him.

I slid into the nearest empty seat, two rows behind him. My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against my thighs.

Vaughn turned back to the whiteboard. "As I was saying before the interruption, American oligarchy isn't a conspiracy theory. It's a documented reality. The top one percent don't just have wealth. They have structural power."

He wrote three names on the board. "Koch brothers. Murdoch. Adelson. These aren't just rich men. They're architects of policy. They fund think tanks, lobby groups, political campaigns. They don't need to run for office. They own the people who do."

I pulled out my notebook, trying to focus. My head was pounding. I needed water and about twelve more hours of sleep.

"Let's talk about regulatory capture," Vaughn continued. "Who can tell me what that means?"

A girl in the front row raised her hand. "When industries control the agencies that are supposed to regulate them?"

"Exactly. The pharmaceutical industry writes drug policy. Oil companies shape environmental regulation. Wall Street designed the banking laws." He tapped the board. "The system isn't broken. It's working exactly as intended. For them."

Ace's hand shot up. "Isn't that a bit reductive, Professor? There are plenty of regulations that hurt corporate interests."

"Name one."

"The Dodd-Frank Act."

Vaughn smiled, but it wasn't friendly. "Written by whom, Mr. Monroe? Lobbyists and former Goldman Sachs executives. Dodd-Frank looks impressive on paper, but the implementation gutted its teeth. That's how the game works. They give you reform theater while maintaining the status quo."

Ace leaned back in his chair. "So what's the solution? Burn it all down?"

"I'm not here to give you solutions. I'm here to make you see the board you're playing on." Vaughn paced in front of his desk. "Your generation loves to talk about changing the system. But first you have to understand it. Really understand it. Not the civics textbook version. The actual machinery of power."

He pulled up a slide showing campaign finance data. "This is why your vote matters less than you think. By the time you get to the ballot box, the options have been pre-selected. Vetted by donors. Shaped by PACs and Super PACs. The primary system ensures only candidates acceptable to major funders make it to the general election."

I was taking notes, but my mind kept drifting. Tonight's shift. The text books I still needed for my econ class. My rent was due in five days and I was short two hundred dollars.

"Ms. Puckett, you look distracted."

I jerked my head up. Vaughn was staring directly at me.

"Sorry, Professor. I'm listening."

"Then perhaps you can answer this. What's the relationship between economic inequality and political power?"

I swallowed. "The more wealth concentrates at the top, the more political influence concentrates there too. Money buys access. Access shapes policy."

"Adequate." He turned back to the class. "Economic inequality isn't just about fairness or morality. It's about power distribution. When one percent of the population controls forty percent of the wealth, they control the conversation. They control what gets discussed, what gets voted on, what becomes possible."

The lecture went on for another thirty minutes. Vaughn talked about think tanks and astroturfing, about the revolving door between government and industry, about how media consolidation shaped public opinion. It was all stuff I'd heard before, but he had a way of making it feel urgent. Personal.

When class finally ended, I shoved my notebook into my bag and stood up fast. Too fast. The room spun slightly.

I was almost to the door when I heard his voice behind me.

"We're on a team again." Ace's breath was warm against my ear. He'd moved behind me without me noticing. "Try not to pull that shit you did before."

I turned, putting space between us. "Show up and we won't have problems."

His smile was all teeth. "Not today though. It's my birthday. So you and Tucker will have to gather alone."

Birthday. Of course it was. I could already picture it. Some ridiculous party at his father's estate, champagne and catered food and people in designer clothes pretending to care.

"We won't be meeting today." I kept my voice level. "I have a life as well."

He laughed. Actually laughed. Then he leaned in again, his voice dropping to a whisper. "What, reading books?"

I swatted at him like he was a mosquito buzzing near my face. His hand shot out and caught my wrist. His grip wasn't tight, but it was firm.

"Do not make this difficult for us," I said. "Not while we're a team."

"I don't mind failing." His eyes were dark, amused. "Do you?"

I pulled my hand back and he let me go. I took a deep breath through my nose, held it, let it out slowly. Freshman year flashed through my mind. Him showing up to our group project meeting drunk, three days before it was due. The casual way he'd tried to hand me five hundred dollars cash, like I was his assistant instead of his partner. Like my scholarship didn't matter. Like I didn't matter.

I'd given him his money back and kicked him off the project. Did the whole thing myself and got an A. He'd failed that assignment and apparently decided to make my life hell ever since.

The worst part was that it worked. He was Noah Monroe's son. Legacy student. His father had buildings named after him. Professors loved the Monroe family. Half the administration bent over backward for him.

"We'll figure out a meeting time later," I said. "Through email."

I walked away before he could respond.

Outside, the October air hit my face and I felt slightly more human. My phone buzzed in my pocket and I proceeded to pull it out.

Madam Fantasy: Rest up, Jailbird. Fantasy Island will need you tonight.

I sent back a twerking GIF. Crass, maybe, but that was Fantasy Island. Everything was crass there. Everything was performance and pretend and separating drunk rich people from their money.

Another text came through from Keiko, another dancer: "I hear it is some oil executive's birthday. Big spender alert. Cammie says it is a politician’s son’s birthday tho."

Perfect. Maybe I could finally cover rent and get those econ textbooks. The campus bookstore wanted three hundred dollars for books I'd use for one semester. Highway robbery.

I started walking toward my apartment, already mentally preparing for the night shift. Five hours of sleep if I was lucky. Then it was off to showering, heavy makeup, and costumes that came with rib breaking corsets.

It was quite easy to transform Jane Puckett, scholarship student and chronic coffee drinker, into Jailbird, the mysterious masked dancer in Fantasy Island.

The hangover would have to wait. Bills didn't pay themselves.