The van never stopped in front of the gate.
Justice made sure of it.
It slowed on a side street a block away, engine humming low. Through the tinted glass, the school gates loomed, students flowing in pairs and groups, chatter rising with the wind.
Justice finally turned from the front. Arms folded, crimson eyes sharp.
"You don't step out together," he said. His tone carried like a verdict. "Five strangers piling out of the same van at the gate? Suspicious before the first bell."
His gaze swept over them one by one.
"You're transfers. Transfers arrive alone. Walk from different directions. Blend in before anyone thinks to connect you."
From his coat, he pulled a black case and set it on the seat between them. Snapped it open. Inside were five identical phones. Slim. No logos. No brand. Just cold glass and metal.
"Your lines. Encrypted. Tribunal only. Use them for contact, nothing else. If you lose one, assume it's compromised. Burn the connection."
He passed them out. Elias accepted with a firm nod, sliding it into his pocket. Imani held hers carefully, as if it was already part of her. Cael flicked his screen once before tucking it away. Sera twirled hers between her fingers like a toy.
Max turned his over in his palm. The reflection in the dark glass showed a face that didn't belong to him. Not Max Hart.
Daniel Holloway.
Justice's voice cut in again. "Blend in. No fire. No spectacle. If you draw attention, you burn before you even light a match. And if one of you breaks cover—" His eyes stopped on Max, cold as stone. "—the rest pay for it."
The lock clicked. The door slid open.
"One at a time," Justice ordered. "Go."
Sera went first. She hopped out with a grin, blazer already unbuttoned, skirt so short it's riding the line of the dress code, ribbon hanging loose like it had lost a fight. Her bag dangled off one shoulder, her steps quick and cocky. A pair of boys on the corner turned their heads as she passed. She smirked wider, feeding off the stares.
Elias followed. His uniform was perfect. Tie straight. Shirt tucked. Shoes polished. Shoulders squared like he was marching instead of walking. He didn't need to look at anyone—the way he moved forced eyes onto him.
Imani stepped down after him, adjusting the strap of her violin case. Her skirt was longer, blazer neat, ribbon tied properly. Even her walk was careful, measured. She didn't seek eyes, but she earned them anyway.
Cael slid out next. His uniform was exact to regulation, glasses glinting in the morning light. Hands shoved into his pockets, gaze scanning angles, faces, exits—before dropping away like none of it mattered.
Max—Daniel Holloway—was last. His blazer pressed stiff against his shoulders, tie knotted tight. He tugged his bag higher and shut the van door.
The vehicle pulled away without fanfare, leaving five transfers where no van had stopped.
Justice's words echoed in Max's skull. Blend in. If you can't, you're already burned.
The gates were a tide of noise. Uniforms clustered in groups. Teachers ticked names from clipboards.
Max walked steady, forcing his breathing level.
A woman with a lanyard stepped into his path. "Name?"
He handed her the paper.
"Daniel Holloway. Transfer, Class 2-B." She scribbled a mark and nodded him through. "Welcome."
Max dipped his head. "Thank you."
He stepped inside. Just like that, he was Daniel.
The classroom was already buzzing when he arrived. Chairs scraping, laughter bouncing off the walls. The teacher clapped, sharp.
"Quiet. We have a transfer today," the teacher silenced, "Introduce yourself."
Max stepped to the front, the weight of thirty eyes hitting at once. He kept his spine straight, hands loose at his sides, voice even.
"Daniel Holloway. Transfer from West District. I'll be in your care."
The room reacted in layers.
A couple of girls in the center row exchanged quick grins; one bit her lip, the other whispered "he's cute" without meaning to be heard. In the back, a laugh popped too loud—forced, testing. A boy near the windows leaned forward like he wanted to pick a fight with the air. The class rep—neat hair, perfect posture—didn't smile, just circled his name on a roster with a pen that clicked like a metronome.
The teacher—Mr. Hale—tapped chalk on the board once. "Seat by the window. Next to Takeda. Open to chapter three. We're not starting over."
Max walked the aisle, letting the noise settle around him. He sat where he was told, second row from the back, window side. The desk was scarred with shallow knife lines and initials. The girl to his right—Takeda, ribbon in her hair—turned her notebook slightly so he could see the page number. She whispered, "Hi," like a reflex.
"Thanks," he murmured, and opened the book.
Mr. Hale wrote vectors across the board. His voice had the scratch of sleep sanded out of it. "Scalar versus vector. Words matter. If you don't know the difference, you don't know what you're moving."
Max read the header and didn't see it. He was mapping the room.
front-right: class rep—Nora, aisle seat, pen lines straight enough to cut. She watched people when they talked, then wrote something down as if cataloging it. No wasted motion. She had an arm sash with a bold writing of "Class Rep" with a name under it. Nora Aiko.
Back-left: class clown—chair tipped on two legs, hair he probably messed up on purpose. Laughs half a beat late. Showy. Needs audience like lungs need air.
Middle-left: clout girl—phone under the desk, thumbs quick, eyes quicker. She looked at him, then at three other desks, then tucked half a smile like a secret.
Back-window: hothead—sleeves rolled, jaw set, knuckles shiny. The earlier snort belonged to him. His stare was the kind you put lids on pots for.
Center pair: pretty faces—mirrored posture, mirrored whispers, mirrored glance. The story they were building already had him as a page.
Far-right by the door: quiet—hoodie half zipped despite uniform rules, pencil spinning with precision. When Hale turned, the pencil paused mid-spin like a held breath.
"Read the definition," Mr. Hale said without turning. "Holloway."
Max found it on the page. "Scalar: a quantity with magnitude only. No direction."
"Examples," Hale said.
"Mass. Temperature. Time."
"Good. Vectors?"
"Velocity. Force. Displacement."
Hale nodded once and moved on. No praise. No notice. Good.
A pencil jabbed Max's shoulder. The hothead had leaned across the aisle behind him, mouth tilted into something that wanted to be a smile and wasn't.
"West District, huh?" he murmured. "Transfer in the middle of term. What'd you do?"
Takeda shot the boy a glare over the top of her notebook. "Kento, stop."
Kento—so the hothead had a name—kept the pencil there another heartbeat. Waiting for a flinch. Max didn't give him one.
"Parents moved," Max said, eyes on the text. Flat. Boring. "I didn't get a vote."
Kento's pencil lifted, tapped twice on Max's shoulder as if measuring thickness. "Huh."
"Eyes up, Kento," Mr. Hale said without looking. "If your pencil is that interested in Holloway's shirt, we'll get you extra fabric from the supply closet."
Laughter rippled. Kento let the pencil drop, eyes sliding away like nothing had happened.
Takeda exhaled, tiny. "Sorry. He does that to everyone."
"It's fine," Max said.
It wasn't fine. It was data. Kento liked pressure. He'd press again later when teachers weren't looking.
Hale kept pushing. Definitions. Problems. He called on Max twice more—once for a unit conversion, once to explain why direction mattered in addition. Max got one right, one almost-right. Close enough to be trying. Far enough to be average.
He felt the stare again sometime near the bottom of the period. Not Kento's. Different. Longer. He didn't turn to find it. He traced it indirectly—who wasn't moving, who wasn't whispering, whose breath went just slightly shallow when he spoke. The class rep? No, Nora watched everyone the same. The clown? No patience. The clout? Busy. The quiet one by the door?
Maybe.
The bell cracked the hour clean. Chairs scraped, metal legs squealed, the room split into friend groups and routes to lunch. Hale capped the marker.
"Homework's on the board. If you can't define the words, you can't do the work," he said. "Holloway, office will assign a locker by end of day. Don't leave your bag here."
"Yes," Max said.
Two girls intercepted Takeda before she could stand. Giggles, a whisper pointed at him like a blade. Takeda made a face that said be nice without wasting words.
Kento stood slow, pushing the desk with his knee so it bumped Max's once. An accident that wasn't. Max let his desk rock and settle. Nothing showed on his face.
"Welcome to 2-B," Kento said in a tone that made welcome sound like a dare.
"Thanks," Max said, same flat tone he'd use to a teacher asking if he needed the bathroom.
Kento's mouth twitched. He didn't like boring. Good.
The clown skidded past and slapped Max's desk with an open palm. "Yo, Holloway! You any good at soccer? We need bodies for lunch games."
"No clubs," Max said automatically.
"It's not a club, it's war," the clown said, then got dragged out by a friend. "Think about it!"
Clout girl angled close enough to drag a friend with her. "Transfer from West? Which West? Corporate moves or scandal?"
"Corporate," Max said.
"Lame," she declared, and then grinned. "Good lame. Easy to trend with. Tell me if you get bullied so I can monetize it."
"Go away, Priya," Takeda said, flicking her pen at clout girl's sleeve. "He hasn't eaten yet."
"Everybody eats attention," Priya sang, moving on.
Nora, the class rep, approached last. She held out a hand like a formal thing. "I'm Nora. If anyone gives you trouble, you tell me. If you cause trouble, you tell me first."
Max shook her hand because that's what Daniel Holloway would do. "Got it."
She nodded once. "Locker after lunch. Office knows your name. Don't be late to second period; Voss doesn't like it."
"Understood."
Nora moved on, notebook already open, pen scratching notes that looked more like reports than doodles.
Max sat back, pretending to reread the page Hale had left on the board. But the noise of the class washed over him in waves—his name carried in fragments, girls giggling, boys muttering, Priya already talking like she'd known him for months.
Popular. That's what this was, wasn't it? Eyes on him. Questions waiting. People building stories. He hadn't asked for it, but the weight was there all the same.
And yet—
From the corner of his vision, he caught it again. The stare.
Back row. By the door. The quiet one with the hoodie. Pencil spinning once, twice, then stilling. Eyes locked. No grin. No smirk. No interest in games.
Just watching.
Max forced himself not to turn fully. Not to let it look like he cared.
But he felt it. Sharp as a blade at his back.
The bell rang. The tide of voices surged for the hallway.
Max stayed still one second longer, bag strap clenched in his hand.
That stare hadn't blinked once.