The afternoon sun hit the quad at that specific angle where everything turned gold and the Pacific looked like somebody had dumped glitter into it. Three forty-five on a Thursday in California, the day before we walked into a C-rank gate that had abnormal readings and a professor who thought pairing us with Blair's squad would build character rather than body bags.
I should have been reviewing formation protocols or studying the forest biome data Naomi had compiled into a color-coded binder thick enough to stop a crossbow bolt. I should have been running through Reaper's Edge forms in my head, cataloging the differences between Copper-rank death energy and the Wave Motion spirals I'd grown comfortable with over the past three weeks.
Instead I was sitting on the grass behind Building C with my back against a maple tree, a half-eaten turkey sandwich balanced on my knee, watching Belle and Naomi argue about chip flavors like the fate of civilization hung in the balance.
