The loophole that had handed him victory was so laughably simple it almost felt like cheating.
Old Phei.
The pathetic ghost of the boy he'd been—the spineless doormat who swallowed every insult, absorbed every humiliation, and thanked the world for the privilege of bleeding quietly.
That reputation had been a ten-year sentence in hell.
Today, for the first time, it had been the perfect disguise.
Everyone who truly knew him—the Legacies, the bullies, the teachers who pitied him in silence—had expected the same broken script: head down, shoulders hunched, voice trembling, backing away while Sierra performed her little theater of destruction.
Sierra most of all.
Phei replayed it frame by frame as he strode toward the cafeteria, the hallway still buzzing in his wake like a hive that had just watched its queen get stung.
