Page 17 of Legacy Elite

"No, I'm not doing that." My bag is cutting into my good shoulder and I set it down. "I came here with them. I spent a year in a building with them. You do not get to move me into some—what is it, a tower? Is there a tower?"

"There isn't a tower."

"You do not get to move me somewhere quiet and separate because I got big once."

"It isn't a punishment."

"It's isolation, and everyone keeps promising me it isn't, but they're wrong."

Beside me, Torres doesn't move, but I can feel him tense.

The woman closes the folder.

"Miss Miller. Your name has been in front of the Council four times since April." She says it without any drama. "Your old corridor has a door onto the lawn that doesn't lock. This one has staff at the entrance. That's the kind of difference we're talking about. It isn't about whether you need to be separated."

Okay. That is annoyingly reasonable.

"Can they visit?"

"Of course."

"Whenever I want?"

"Within normal residence rules."

"Define normal."

She looks at me for a moment with something that I think is actually amusement.

"Guests at the Great House are allowed until eleven on weeknights. Signed in at the desk."

"And if they're still there at eleven?"

"Then somebody at the desk would have to notice."

"Right," I say. "Great. Wonderful. Love it here."

"Oh," says a voice behind us, "they gave her the Great House."

I know that voice.

Natasha is standing about ten feet away with two girls I don't recognize and an expression she has clearly been saving all summer. Four months has done nothing for her personality.

Oh, I think. This bitch again.

"Hi, Natasha."

"It's for her safety," she tells the girls, not me. "That's what they call it. Safety."

She looks me up and down, then at Torres's hand on my back, then at the woman in grey waiting to take me to my new accommodation.

"It's amazing, really. Last year nobody knew who you were. Now you get a Great House suite because you managed one impressive shift."

"Everything is peachy, Natasha. Thank you so much for asking. How was your summer?"

Her smile gets bigger.

"Better than yours, apparently. Did they ever figure out what you are? Or where you came from?"