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No one has ever asked me that. They just want to know if I’ll go pro, or which club’s after me, but never whether I want any of it in the first place. My dad certainly hasn’t asked.

“When I was a kid, my family took me to Europe for a tournament,” I say. “It was a big deal over there. The whole country pretty much stopped for it. People were out in the streets, everyone was glued to the games, and when their team won, everyone lost their mind. Strangers were hugging strangers, and car horns were going off into the night. You could hear a roar from blocks away.” I shake my head, because even now, the memory is special to me because it’s real. “There was a match where the whole square outside our hotel filled up, and I got up on my dad’s shoulders so I could see, and when the winning goal went in, thousands of people screamed at once. I’d never felt anything like it. The energy seemed to be moving through everyone all at once. And I remember thinking, Yeah, I want that. I want to be the reason people feel like that.”

Curiosity and surprise mix in Veronica’s eyes.

“So once we got home, I signed up at school. And it turned out I was good at it. Really good. Coaches started paying attention, and it went from there.” I shrug. “And yeah, it’s what I want. I’d love to play for one of the big clubs someday and be out there in a stadium like the one I saw, with a whole city screaming.”

She’s quiet, but I like the look in her eyes. Girls watch me all the time on the pitch, at parties, and in the hallways, but never like this. It’s like Veronica can see beyond the surface. Then again, I never told anyone this before because it’s not like they’d care.

“What about you?” I ask. “Why history? Out of everything you could’ve picked, why this?”

A small smile tugs at her mouth, and she looks down at the page. “My grandma, mostly. When I was little, I spent a lot of time over at her place, and she was obsessed with documentaries. History, old mysteries, people digging up ruins and figuring out what happened to them... We’d watch them for hours, and she’d stop them every couple of minutes to explain things to me, and I’d get annoyed because I wanted to know how it ended.” She lets out a soft laugh. “I don’t think I even understood most of it back then, but I loved it. Her whole apartment smelled like lavender, and I’d fall asleep. And I just always wanted to know more about everything. How things worked, why stuff happened, what was behind the version of the story everyone else just took for the truth...”

Well, damn. I like that about her.

“And after college?” I ask. “Do you want to teach, excavate, or do whatever people with history degrees do?”

She scrunches her nose. “I don’t really know yet. It feels too early to decide the rest of my life. Like, why do I have to decide right now, when I’m this young? So I’m keeping my options open for a while and seeing what happens.”

I like that. It sounds so simple, and I can’t remember the last time anything in my life was open like that. She could probably quit history and switch to something else, and no one would say a word to her about it, while I can’t skip one practice without a lie and a fake injury to cover for it. Must be nice, being able to just not know yet and be fine with it.

I find myself staring at her mouth, which is the exact opposite of what I’m supposed to be doing here. This was meant to be simple. Get close, get in her head, do what Supreme wants, and take what I need. No one said anything about wanting to know what Veronica watched with her grandma, or about liking that she hasn’t gotten her whole life perfectly planned out. I need to eat and clear my head, and I have to get her out of this place before she talks herself into another hour with these bulletins.

She bites her lower lip, and then she glances at her phone screen. “Oh, wow. It’s really late. Shit, there’s no way I’m finishing my homework for tomorrow at this rate, and I haven’t even eaten anything.”

“I’ll grab you something,” I say. “There’s a place near the dorms that’s still open. I’ll bring the food to your room.”

The founder and his tunnels are probably the last thing on her mind now, so at least something.

She frowns at me. “But you can’t. They don’t let guys into the girls’ dorms. There’s someone at the front desk who checks everyone, and they’ll tell you to leave.”

A grin pulls at the corners of my mouth, because she really has no idea what I can and can’t do. “They’ll let me in.”

Her frown deepens. There aren’t a lot of doors on this campus that are closed to me, and the girls’ dorm is definitely something I can access. All it takes is talking to the right person, and the front desk suddenly won’t remember me coming through, but she doesn’t need to know any of the details of how I do things.

I gather up the bulletins into a neat stack so she can’t change her mind. Besides, getting her food means I’ll get inside her room, which could lead to other things if I play it right. Except, lately, when I’m this close to her, I can’t always tell anymore who’s working who, and that’s the part I need to fix.

Chapter 22

VERONICA

A KNOCK ON MY DOOR pulls me away from my reading, and when I open it, Jayden’s on the other side with a paper bag in one hand and a grin on his face.

“You look surprised,” he says.

“I kind of am. I told you they don’t let guys up here.” I glance down the hallway behind him, half expecting the front desk girl to come after him and drag him back out. I don’t even know how he got past her, and I decide I don’t care right now.

“I have my ways.” He gives the bag a little shake. “Food’s getting cold, though, so are you going to let me in or not?”

I should tell him no. It’s late, and I’ve got a paper due, and letting him into my room this time of night is a bad idea for about a dozen reasons I could rattle off without even thinking about it. But my room’s been so quiet since Aniyah left, and she still won’t answer any of my texts or even look at me when we pass each other in the hallway. I step back and wave Jayden in, because a burger and some company beat another night alone.

He gets comfortable on the edge of my bed as if it’s the most normal thing in the world and sets the bag down. It’s kind of strange to have someone in my room again. I settle across from him.

He pulls out the burgers and hands me mine, and when he unwraps his own, he lifts the top bun and makes a face. “They put pickles on it.” He pokes at them. “Every time I ask for no pickles, and every time they load the thing up with them anyway.”

“Give them here.” I hold out my hand. “I love pickles.”

He raises an eyebrow at me but starts picking them off, and I take each one and pop it into my mouth before he can second-guess handing them over.