Page 56 of Bound to the Dorm Elf
Somewhere deep down, a part of me isn’t entirely against it.
Because as much as I hate the risk, there’s something in the idea of Rovax taking control of this — ofthem— that feels almost like relief. Like maybe if he’s steering, I won’t wake up one day to find they’ve already gotten to him.
Still, I force my voice steady. “Fine. But if you’re going to do this, I’m coming with you.”
That gets me the barest flicker of amusement. “You are many things, Skylar. Subtle is not one of them.”
I fold my arms. “Neither are you.”
A smile comes up — sharp, quick, and gone again. “Very well. We will hunt together.”
The words send a strange thrill through me, equal parts dread and anticipation.
I tell myself it’s just adrenaline.
But I’m not sure I believe it.
The cursor blinks at me like it’s taunting me.
My laptop’s already been through three different public records databases, half a dozen news archives, and a sketchy-looking private investigator forum that Syndee swears by. I’ve got tabs multiplying like weeds, each one a breadcrumb that either leads nowhere or doubles back on itself.
Rovax is sitting across from me at the tiny dorm desk, silent but watchful, his posture a coiled kind of stillness that makes the room feel smaller. Every so often, I feel his gaze flick from the screen to my face, like he’s measuring the pace of my breathing.
“This,” I mutter, tapping the trackpad, “is either going to get me a Pulitzer or on a watchlist.”
“Perhaps both,” he says without looking away from the faint line of steam curling from his mug of tea.
I give him a look. “Not helping.”
“You wanted me to be subtle,” he says, deadpan. “I am practicing.”
The deadpan is just distracting enough that I almost miss it — the string of contracts buried in a municipal spending report from last spring. They’re all under a company name I don’t recognize:Harper & Lake Consulting. Sounds boring, harmless, like they specialize in spreadsheets and quarterly reviews.
But they’ve billed the city for “specialized containment protocols” and “anomaly retrieval support.”
My stomach goes cold. “Oh, hell.”
Rovax’s head comes up, his attention snapping to me. “What?”
“This—” I turn the screen toward him, my pulse spiking. “These guys have a standing contract with the city. Not just that, but with private security firms. And—” I scroll down, the knotin my gut tightening with each line — “they’re subcontracted by something called theA.C.D.”
He tilts the screen toward himself, scanning the page with the same intensity he uses when he’s sizing up someone in a crowd. “What is that?”
I swallow. “Anomalous Containment Division.”
The words taste like metal. I click through to an archived press release — not that they say much. It’s the usual PR fluff:Ensuring safety in an increasingly unpredictable world,trained specialists,community partnership. But buried at the bottom is a line aboutoff-the-books operations authorized at both state and federal levels.
“This isn’t random,” I say, my voice low. “It’s not just some nosy guys poking around. This is… organized. Targeted.”
Rovax leans back in the chair, the legs creaking under him. “An army in the shadows.”
I shake my head, scrolling further. “Not an army. A scalpel. They don’t come aftereveryone.Just… anomalies.”
“Like me.”
“Like you,” I admit.
For a moment, neither of us talks. The heater kicks on with a low hum, filling the silence with recycled warmth, but it doesn’t touch the chill in my bones.
