The harmattan breeze carried the scent of burnt wood and desperation across the college courtyard. Nze picked at his cafeteria sandwich, which somehow managed to be both stale and soggy simultaneously—a culinary paradox that seemed fitting for his first day of college.

"I swear Professor Okoro assigned enough reading to last until graduation," Iza groaned, her red braids falling forward as she slumped onto the picnic table.

That's when Nze saw her again—the girl with platinum curls that seemed to capture and reflect sunlight like some sort of ethereal prism. She moved through the crowded courtyard with an effortless grace, surrounded by a group of students who all shared a certain... something. Not a dress code exactly, but an essence. They all wore different variations of vintage clothes, mixed with modern pieces that shouldn't work together but somehow did. Some had visible crystals hanging from their necks, others had intricate tattoos peeking out from under their sleeves.

"Who is she?" Nze asked, not taking his eyes off the platinum-haired girl. He watched as she laughed at something one of her friends said, her head tilting back in a way that made his heart do a weird stuttering thing.

Pico followed his gaze and let out a low whistle. "That's Bee."

"Bee?" Nze frowned, glancing between Pico and Iza.

"Yeah, Bumblebee Tijani. And before you get any ideas, she's Skyfall."

"She's what now?"

"Skyfall. One of the seven factions of St. Leo," Pico explained, lowering his voice. "Look, this town isn't like other places. Everyone here belongs to a faction—it's how we've kept the peace for generations."

Iza nodded sagely. "There's the IronSnakes and the Moonbloods," she said, "but you'd probably figure them out just by looking around campus. It's the Harbingers and the Skyfall crew that keep things... interesting."

Nze glanced back at Bee and her group, curiosity growing. "Interesting how?"

"Trust me," Pico cut in. "It's a lot to explain. But basically—if you're smart, you'll know who to avoid."

"And Skyfall?" Nze pressed, still watching Bumblebee as she settled under a nearby tree with her group.

"Skyfall," Pico said, voice dropping to a near whisper, "is... complicated. It's not just the crystals and the weird outfits. There's stuff people say they've seen, especially around Oakwood where they live. Shadows that don't belong to anyone. Strange fires in the middle of the night."

Iza shivered. "Yeah. But if you ask anyone from Skyfall, they just smile and tell you that we're the ones missing the big picture."

Pico continued, "Bumblebee over there? That's the kid sister of their seriously terrifying leader. They've been on their own ever since their dad vanished."

"Vanished?"

"Yeah. Just... gone. One night he was there, and the next he was nowhere. No body, no clues, nothing. He just stopped existing."

"Wow," Nze murmured, his gaze fixed on her like he couldn't look away.

"Just trust me," Pico's voice dropped to a whisper, his eyes darting to where Bumblebee and her Skyfall crew were gathering their things. "They're not just some aesthetic clique. Last semester, three Skyfall members got arrested after a thing at an abandoned railroad station. Nobody knows what really happened, but—" He stopped abruptly, noticing Nze's attention drifting to his phone screen.

"Shit," Nze muttered, jumping up. "I'm late for Ajayi's lecture."

"Just remember what I said!" Pico called after him as Nze rushed across the courtyard, his backpack thumping against his spine with each step.

Three hours and two mind-numbing lectures later, Nze found himself in Basement Hall B, one of those underground lecture rooms that descended like a concrete colosseum, each row of seats stepping down toward academic doom. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead with the same frequency as his mounting exhaustion. Professor Peters's voice droned on about microeconomic theory, and Nze's head grew heavier in his palm with each passing minute.

Then he caught that scent.

It wasn't perfume or body spray or any of those artificial fragrances that tried too hard. This was something else entirely—a natural warmth that reminded him of sun-warmed skin and harmattan nights. Almost like honey and salt and something else he couldn't name, something that made his pulse quicken without permission.

The sudden presence beside him made his skin prickle with awareness. He turned, and there she was—Bumblebee "Bee" Tijani, close enough that he could see the individual beads of sweat along her collarbone, glistening above the edge of her white crop top tank. Her short platinum hair curled messily on top of her head. She carried herself with the kind of confidence that made the rest of the world feel like it was just borrowing space from her.

Her lips curved into a smile that belonged in a gallery of dangerous beautiful things, like poisonous flowers or the edge of a cliff at sunset. "Hi," she whispered.

Nze's throat betrayed him. What started as an attempted "hello" became a strangled sound somewhere between a cough and a gasp. He tried to cover it up by clearing his throat, but ended up making it worse, his eyes watering as he fought against his own respiratory system's rebellion.

Bee's smile widened, amusement dancing in her eyes. She reached into her worn leather backpack and pulled out a water bottle, offering it to him with a raised eyebrow. The bottle was covered in stickers—phases of the moon, anarchist symbols, and what looked like occult sigils.

Pico's warnings echoed in his head: They're trouble. She's trouble. Pure trouble.

He took the water bottle with slightly shaking fingers, highly aware of Pico's warnings echoing in his head. The thing about warnings, though, is that they tend to sound a lot less convincing when the danger is smiling at you like that.

Professor Peters's voice faded to a distant hum as Bee leaned slightly closer, that intoxicating scent making it impossible to remember why he was supposed to be staying away from her in the first place.

Pure trouble, his mind whispered again.

Pure something, he thought back.

"Thanks," Nze managed after taking a sip, hyperaware of how the bottle had touched her lips before his. He handed it back, trying not to stare at the small smudge of her dark lipstick on the rim.

"I saw you watching me earlier," Bee said, leaning closer under the pretense of keeping her voice down. The motion made her shoulder brush against his, and Nze felt the contact like an electric current. "With Pico. Let me guess—he told you all about how dangerous we are?"

She said 'dangerous' like it was a private joke, but there was something sharp beneath her playful tone. A tattoo on her wrist caught his attention—what looked like a constellation, but not one he recognized.

"Something like that," Nze admitted. "Though I've learned not to trust everything Pico says since he tried to convince me the cafeteria's mystery meat was actually crocodile."

Bee's laugh was soft but genuine, earning them a few irritated glances from nearby students. "Smart boy. But maybe not smart enough." She tilted her head, studying him with an intensity that made his skin buzz. "You're new here. To St. Leo, I mean. I can tell because you still look... unmarked."

"Unmarked?"

"By the town." She reached out and traced a finger along his forearm, leaving goosebumps in its wake. "This place changes people. Marks them. You'll see."

From below, Professor Peters's voice cut through their bubble: "Mr. Nduka, since you and Ms. Tijani seem to be having such an engaging discussion, perhaps you'd like to share your thoughts on price elasticity?"

Nze froze, realizing he hadn't heard a single word of the lecture in the past ten minutes. But before he could stammer out an excuse, Bee straightened up and answered seamlessly, "Price elasticity measures how responsive demand is to a change in price. In perfectly elastic markets, even a slight price increase would cause demand to drop to zero, while perfectly inelastic demand means consumers will buy the same amount regardless of price changes."

The professor blinked, clearly not expecting such a precise response. "That's... correct, Ms. Tijani. Though I'd appreciate if you'd let Mr. Nduka answer his own questions in the future."

"No promises," Bee whispered, just loud enough for Nze to hear, and he had to bite back a smile.

As Peters returned to the lecture, Bee pulled a scrap of paper from her bag and began sketching something with quick, confident strokes. Nze tried to focus on the professor's words, but his eyes kept drifting to her hands, to the way her fingers moved across the paper with an almost hypnotic grace.

When the lecture finally ended, she stood up in one fluid motion, dropping the paper onto his desk. "Since Pico's probably warned you to stay away from me, I should warn you about him too." Her eyes glittered with mischief. "He's boring. And life's too short for boring people."

Before Nze could respond, she was already moving up the steps, her platinum buzz curls catching the fluorescent light like a corona. He looked down at the paper she'd left. It wasn't a note like he'd expected, but a detailed drawing of what seemed to be a map, showing a part of town he didn't recognize. At the bottom, in elegant, slanting handwriting:

Midnight. Follow the map if you want to see what Skyfall's really about. Come alone.
-B

Nze stared at the map, his heart pounding with equal parts excitement and apprehension. He knew he should throw it away. He knew following mysterious maps given by beautiful, allegedly dangerous girls in underground lecture halls was exactly the kind of thing that led to trouble.

But as he traced the lines of Bee's drawing with his finger, he realized he'd already made his decision. After all, some kinds of trouble were worth finding.

"What's Skyfall really about?" he asked himself quietly, carefully folding the map and slipping it into his pocket. He had a feeling he was about to find out, whether he was ready or not.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚

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