Todos los capítulos de The Girl the Alpha Academy Couldn't Break: Capítulo 31 - Capítulo 40

Neris's POV"That's not true."My own voice sounds far away, distant, like it belongs to someone standing outside my body watching this happen to me instead of living it directly."Isn't it?" Ysolde holds the document higher, angling it so the nearest instructors can see the official Council seal stamped across its header. "The signature belongs to the field commander who led the containment operation. The classification matches exactly. Explain to me how this is fabricated.""I was six years old." My hands have started shaking again, the same tremor that hasn't fully left since the first note appeared on my pillow weeks ago. "I hid under floorboards. My mother pushed me there herself. I didn't play any role in anything that happened that night.""That's what you remember," Ysolde says, something almost gentle creeping into her voice now, which somehow makes it worse. "But you were six, Neris. Traumatized, terrified, hiding in the dark while your parents died above you. Is it truly im

Neris's POV "Tell me everything. From the beginning. No more half-truths." Gideon sits across from me in his study, the same room where I confronted him weeks ago, except this time there's no desk between us, no video screen, nothing left to hide behind. He looks older than I remember, the weight of twelve years of silence finally showing in the lines around his eyes. "I received the order eleven days before it happened," he says quietly. "Vashti's predecessor, a man named Kessel, issued it directly. Containment of Adaeze Solari and her husband, with explicit instruction that any offspring present at the time be classified and eliminated alongside them." "Why? What had I done? I was six." "Nothing. You had done nothing." His hands fold together on his lap, tight, controlled. "Your mother's bloodline was the threat, and Kessel's division operated on the principle that a child carrying that bloodline was simply a threat that hadn't matured yet. Better to eliminate the possibility e

Neris's POV"No."The word leaves me before Kessel has taken more than three steps toward the door, and something in my voice makes even his unhurried pace falter.He turns slowly, an eyebrow raised, as though a piece of furniture has just spoken out of turn. "Excuse me?""I said no." I straighten, my wolf pressing forward not in panic this time, but in something steadier, sharper, an answer I'm choosing instead of one that's choosing me. "I don't belong to you. I never did. You don't get to spend sixteen years manipulating my survival and then walk in here and claim ownership like I'm an investment finally maturing.""That's a bold declaration for someone who doesn't yet understand what she's capable of.""I understand exactly what I'm capable of. I just haven't decided yet what I'm willing to become for anyone else's ambitions." I take a step toward him, and I feel Cassian shift beside me, tension coiling through the room. "You didn't save me out of decency. You saved me the way som

Neris's POV"You need to stop moving your leg. It's not going to heal properly if you keep testing it every five minutes."Ysolde ignores me, wincing as she shifts against the makeshift bandage Lucien wrapped around her calf twenty minutes ago, the academy still smoldering behind us in pieces too large to fully process yet."I'm fine.""You're not fine. You nearly lost that leg to a support column an hour ago." I sit down beside her on the cold grass, exhaustion finally catching up with every muscle in my body now that the immediate crisis of collapsing buildings has, temporarily, subsided. "Stop being stubborn for exactly one evening."Something almost like a laugh escapes her, thin and pained. "You sound like you actually care whether I heal correctly.""I do care. I've told you that twice tonight already.""I know." She stares out at the wreckage, firelight flickering across features I've spent twelve years learning to read for cruelty and calculation, finding instead something raw

Neris's POV"You could leave. Tonight."Lucien says it quietly, watching me across the wreckage-strewn courtyard where students are still being counted, still being treated for injuries, the academy behind us reduced to smoking ruins and cracked stone."What do you mean, leave?""I mean exactly that." He gestures toward the tree line beyond the collapsed perimeter wall, dark and open and, for the first time in weeks, essentially unguarded. "Kessel's people are regrouping. Vashti's forces are still hours out, delayed by whatever chaos the chamber's activation caused across the surrounding territories. For perhaps the next few hours, nobody is actively watching this exact stretch of forest.""You're suggesting I run.""I'm suggesting you have an option you haven't fully considered." His voice stays careful, measured. "Disappear. Change your name again. Live somewhere no one thinks to search for a bloodline everyone already believes destroyed twice over. You could have an ordinary life,