Chapter 33 · Student

The door didn't open. It came off the top hinge and hit the floor like a dropped coffin lid.

"Commander." The kid in the doorway had a gun up before the dust settled, both hands, feet set right — somebody had drilled him hard. "You look smaller than they said."

Levi didn't move from the table. Didn't even put his coffee down. "Elias. You got taller. Somebody teach you to knock?"

"You taught me to breach." The gun didn't waver. "Room's clear in four seconds if the door's already gone. You taught me that too. Guess you forgot who was listening."

I had my knife out before he finished the sentence, low, close to my leg, not showing it yet. Levi caught my wrist under the table. Didn't look at me. Just pressed down, once, hard enough to bruise. *Wait.*

"You're not here to shoot me," Levi said. "If you were, I'd already be dead. You'd have done it from the hall."

"Maybe I wanted to see your face first." Elias's jaw was tight, young, still soft at the edges under three years of somebody else's training.