Harem Apocalypse: Every Moan Levels Us Up!

"Bram." Sherry’s voice came out quieter than usual, almost fragile. "I think I need to think about this."

She was right. Going outside the walls to capture a live high level infected was the kind of mission that sounded manageable in a room with Lord Bala and then revealed its actual shape the moment you were standing in a corridor without him.

I reached out and took her hand. She was leaning against the wall outside her classroom, shoulders slightly rounded, the kind of posture that told me the reality had already sunk its teeth in.

"Whatever you decide," I said. "I’ll support it."

She leaned in and hugged me. The kind that doesn’t ask for anything, just needs somewhere to land for a minute. I held her and let her have the minute.

She stepped back. "We’ll link up at lunch."

"Do you know how the watches work?" I asked, because that was the real issue sitting underneath everything else.

Bala had handed us technology and walked out of the room and we were standing here wearing it like jewelry we hadn’t been trained on.

"Honestly, no." She smiled. "But you know where to find me."

"Make sure Ivy’s with you," I said.

She gave me a look and went into her classroom.

***

I walked down the stairs and landed directly in front of Miss Brown and Daphne.

First time seeing Daphne since Vince had walked her out of our classroom. She looked professional and contained, the expression of someone managing several things at once. Our eyes met for exactly a second and moved apart.

"Did you tell him?" Miss Brown asked immediately, her voice in my head.

I had completely forgotten about the favor she’d asked. The mission debrief had taken up every available corner of my brain and Miss Brown’s request had been pushed out entirely.

She was looking at me like it mattered. So I made a decision.

"Yes," I said. "Told him."

Daphne’s eyes moved between us, reading an exchange she didn’t have the context for.

"What did he say?" Miss Brown pressed.

"Just okay. Nothing else."

She smiled. Small and satisfied. "Good. We’ll be in touch." She saw the watch on my wrist and pressed her own wrist against mine. The watches hummed once, a brief scan, connection established. "We’ll be in touch," she said again, and walked down the path with Daphne.

Daphne glanced back once. Her eyes said: what was that about. I gave her nothing useful and she kept walking.

[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]

[Miss Brown: Direct telepathy, Level 7.]

[Potential target.]

I stared at the notification. Everyone, I thought. The system is flagging everyone. My teacher. The classmates. Bala’s daughter. Now the dean, a woman with level seven telepathy who just synced watches with me.

I’m going to need to have a very direct conversation with this system about boundaries

I started toward my classroom and that was when I saw Azure crossing the courtyard toward the building, book under her arm, moving with the specific purposeful stride of someone who had somewhere to be and wasn’t interested in being stopped on the way there.

Six days. The system wanted me charging. Azure was right there, shapeshifter body that could theoretically reshape itself in countless intimate ways.

Start somewhere, I told myself. I followed her.

The entrance led into a large, quiet room I hadn’t seen before. Students lounged in deep chairs, reading or pretending to. The space had decided it was a library even without obvious shelves. My eyes swept the room.

No Azure. Shapeshifter, I reminded myself. She could be any one of these people right now.

Then I noticed the door at the far end. The room had a second section. I crossed to it and pushed it open.

Real library. Tall wooden shelves heavy with old books, narrow aisles, the smell of aged paper and dust.

And there was Azure, stumbling backward between two shelves, her back hitting the wood hard enough to rattle the spines. A thin line of blood already trickled from the corner of her mouth.

"I told you to leave the fucking book alone, bitch."

The voice landed somewhere familiar that I couldn’t immediately place.

I moved closer, passing the shelf, and found the fat boy from Daphne’s class standing over Azure with the comfortable posture of someone who had done this kind of thing before and found it uncomplicated.

He looked up. Saw me. Startled for a second, then recognized me and laughed.

"Hogsby burn outs," he said. "Together."

[Toddy: Teleportation, Level 5.]

[Wealthy family. Above threshold. Not depleted]

I extended my hand to Azure without breaking eye contact with him. She stared at it for a beat, the hesitation of someone unused to genuine offers of help, then took it.

Her palm was surprisingly warm, the skin smooth and slightly yielding in a way that hinted at how easily her body could shift under different pressures.

I pulled her up gently but firmly. She wiped the blood from her lip with the back of her hand, pink eyes flashing with quiet fury.

"Apologize to her."

Toddy laughed. The laugh of someone who had never had to apologize for anything inside a school his family could probably buy and sell.

"Another burn out trying to play hero," he said.

I studied him. This boy was hiding here behind expensive walls while people on the plain bled out and died. Rich parents shielding their above-threshold brat from extraction.

While burn outs were losing everything and spending bronze cards in restaurants and being thanked for their service.

And this boy was standing in a library pushing girls between shelves and calling people burn outs.

"Azure," I said, without taking my eyes off him. "Go to the other room. I’ll meet you there."

She hesitated only a second, then I heard her soft footsteps retreating. The door clicked shut behind her.

Toddy looked at me with the expression of someone who had assessed the situation and found it manageable.

"You’re going to apologize to her," I said again. Same voice. Same calm.

"Over my dead body," he said.

I held his eyes.

"That’s a specific choice of words," I said.