BENJAMIN WAS IN MY DREAMS.

Not in any romantic, or even remotely pleasant way. We were standing on opposite sides of a massive chessboard; him playing black and I, white. The physics and location of the dream were entirely sketchy — considering there were angry, roiling black clouds in the background and grotesque pieces that moved through telepathy. His face looked as noble as ever, but his eyes glowed a demonic red just before his queen struck my king and I woke up.

I have a moment of overwhelming panic as I bolt upright. The feeling is reminiscent of walking on supposedly flat ground, not seeing a sudden drop, and the clench of your heart as your body is taken unawares. My stomach feels upset, chest heaving, breaths coming like the room is on fire and oxygen is burning out.

Eventually, slowly, it fades to a mild alarm. Mostly regret about what happened between Benjamin and me yesterday. I wonder if he's thinking of the fight, too. Probably not, seeing as that would be a waste of time, energy and brainpower that would be more worthy dedicated to stupid math competitions. True to form.

Half of me wants to cut the pride out of my body with a sharp knife — I'm sure there's a gland in the brain that's responsible for hasty, impulsive stupidity — and reach out to Benjamin, but the other half desperately wants him to come to me. I shouldn't have to be the one who props his hopes and dreams up, without him returning the favour. If I support him unconditionally, shouldn't he do the same?

I don't imagine Benjamin will seek me out any time soon because I'm clearly low on his list of priorities. First is the Eastern League, second is the valedictorian's trophy, followed by all his AP classes and probably his car before he even spares me a thought. Inanimate objects and schoolwork over friendship.

Whatever. I push the troubling thoughts to the back of my mind. Maybe I can stew more about it after I get through today. When the thought of going to school appears, I sense something wrong. My room is much warmer than it usually is at six in the morning, and a quick check of my phone reveals—

I overslept. By three hours. What the fuck? How come my alarm didn't wake me? Surely, I wasn't that absorbed in my dream.

A blue post-it on my bedside table catches my eye. It reads, Heard you tossing and turning all night. Please finally get some much-needed rest today. It's weeks overdue. Breakfast is downstairs, reheat it. Love, Mom.

She must have taken it upon herself to switch off my alarm before I woke up. Was I really that loud last night? Nevertheless, her words calm me. This has been a hard week, and she noticed. Talking to Derek shook me up, questioning Terrence on the bus threw me into conflict, it all came to a head with Benjamin yesterday, and project deadlines have been raining down on me. I don't know how I've managed to stay on my feet.

I haven't made a habit of ditching, but this Mom-ordered rest day comes right when I need it. Seeing Benjamin is something I am dreading, much less prepared for. And a break sounds like the best way to reset for next week. Downstairs, I find the plate of hash browns, streaky bacon and scrambled eggs that Mom left out on the counter. I lazily eat it while watching reruns of an old soap opera I never finished.

Once I'm full and feeling more energised, I dress warmly and leave the house. I can't remember the last time I went somewhere without a heavy backpack full of books weighing me down. For once, all I carry is my phone and keys.

I can see tiny leaf buds on the skeletal tree branches lining the sides of the footpath, lime green and each only as large as a grain of rice. While adults work and children study, the streets of Carsonville are completely still, the picture of painted rooftops and pruned lawns suspended. When I breathe in, the air is cold, sharp, and sterile. Every breath I take feels medicinal, every exhale a cleanse of the stress that has been accumulating.

I realise halfway to my destination that I subconsciously took the route to Haywood Park. Maybe it's because I have some of my best memories in the town there. Benjamin took us boat-racing there in the summer. Delaney's wry, jaded laughter coats the playground in the winter. The walk to the park is as long as usual, but not anywhere as sweaty and unpleasant as it was in summer.

By the time I am crunching over the frosty grass, I'm actually quite toasty. The willows by the lake look less green, but the bare branches hugged by a light dusting of snow are still elegant in their own muted way. But all my musings on the beauty of the trees disappear when I step around them, onto the little jetty that stretches over the water.

Derek is here.

He sits at the end of the jetty, legs dangling towards the frozen lake, a cream-coloured scarf wrapped around his neck. The leather jacket he wears is lined with fleece, which I can see peeking up over the collar. With his back facing me and earphones plugged in, it doesn't seem like he can hear my footsteps.

Derek still doesn't move as I approach him slowly, leaning carefully over his shoulder to see what he's looking at. His phone rests low in his lap and he is completely oblivious to anything but the movements on his screen.

Glimpses of violin bows soaring and dipping in unison, and the gleam of swaying flutes catch my attention. Tapping steadily on his denim-clad knee, Derek's index finger keeps time with the conductor's baton.

He's watching an orchestra? How unexpected. For a few seconds, I let him watch the video. Then I swing my legs over jetty, sitting with a two feet distance between us.

When he first caught me in his periphery, Derek lazily turned his head, in no rush at all, as if he expected just another casual bystander. Maybe an elderly man on his morning stroll. But when his eyes lock on mine, the unguarded, relaxed demeanour freezes. He immediately pockets his phone and slips his earphones out.

"Don't stop on my account," I smirk coolly. A part of me is still pissed at him for so callously exposing my grief. It felt like he ripped off a bandage from a wound that hasn't healed properly, taking with it scabs and clots and rendering me raw to the world all over again. "What are they playing?"

The faint flush that appears on Derek's cheeks gives me a heady rush of victory. Finally, some indication that he's not just an emotionless, ruthless tormentor. He coughs, bowing his head slightly. Too late. I already saw that he's embarrassed, but at least I choose not to make a point of it — unlike he would, preying on any weakness.

Eventually, under my watchful gaze, he realises too that it's a lost cause trying to deny what he was doing. "In The Hall of the Mountain King, from—"

"Peer Gynt?" I arch a cheeky brow. "I didn't know you liked that sort of music."

Well, that's not entirely true. I knew very early on that Derek was a total band geek in middle school — going off what Drew told me — and a prodigiously talented one, at that. I still haven't forgotten the way he tuned Ashley's guitar string by ear.

"What sort of music?" he huffs.

"Classical." I assumed, like all the other Monarchs, he grew out of that phase when he started high school, ditched their friends and joined Brittany. Discarded with the rest of him, left behind to freeze. "I figured you'd be more of a rap fan."

Derek rolls his dark eyes, a faint expression of amusement flickering across his proud features. "If we're going by stereotypes, I see you as the type to get an aneurysm if they ever ditched school."

I laugh sardonically. "If we're going by stereotypes, I'd say you'd be the one to beat up classical music-loving band geeks. Not be one."

"Well. Here we are," Derek muses blandly. "The geek ditching school and the rebel a geek."

"Here we are," I echo. Derek regards me for several moments longer, his face saturated by curiosity. I rise from the jetty, dusting my hands of stray moss. I jerk my chin towards his pocket, where I know his phone and Peer Gynt waits for him. "By all means, go back to it."

When my back is turned to Derek and Haywood Lake, I hear scrabbling and solid footsteps on wood. He falls into stride beside me, hands buried in the pockets of his leather jacket. "I do like rap, actually," Derek mumbles defensively. "But no-one takes musicians seriously if they don't know their classics."

A surprised cackle of laughter slips through my lips, ricocheting around the statuesque banks of the lake.

Laughter because he looks incredibly unassuming, and even eager, and surprise because those are two words I've never before associated with Derek Hale. Menacing, frigid, merciless, would be more accurate. "You want to be a musician?" I question scathingly.

This is so puzzling. Here I am, having an innocent conversation with someone who I would have gladly never seen again yesterday.

Even more confusing, Derek's smiling at me. Not a big smile, or a confident smirk. But a content curve of closed lips that you'd see among the blissfully peaceful faces of children. "Ever since childhood."

Does he feel bad about forcing me to open up back in Music class? Is this his way of returning the favour, allowing me one glimpse inside him for the one he tore from me? Am I only accepting this offer as a distraction from Benjamin, and Terrence, and the contradiction between caring about both of them?

Yes. "What instrument do you play?"

"Guitar, mainly, drums and voice."

I immediately rebuke him, "You're not a singer."

"Why am I not?"

Because that's not the Derek I know. Not the Derek everyone knows.

I'm shocked by how much the boy beside me differs from the horrific image he presents to the world at large. The boy in front of me is the Derek I've known the whole year. Impenetrable, uncaring. The boy who yawns when yelled at, cusses teachers out, parks his motorcycle wherever he wants, who has a hundred different ways to flip the finger. But also the boy who secretly listens to orchestras in his spare time?

I'm shocked by how easily I warm up to him, though I hide it flawlessly, merely learning more about his musical inclinations. It sounds shallow and fickle, but it's true. There was no common ground between him and me before, only an ocean of hate. This hidden talent is like a newly discovered isthmus I can tiptoe across to his side of the battleground, to meet him halfway.

"Am I to expect a new gossip column outing me as a band geek in next week's newspaper?"

A cocky smirk curves my lips. "I won't tell anyone your secret."

"Good—"

"—if you give me one in return."

"What?" he asks. Derek narrows his eyes, his open — even enthusiastic — expression shuttering into that familiar, empty mask. At least now I know it's a mask.

Maybe he'll just flip me the bird and walk off. That'd be very Monarch of him. But who's Derek Hale, really? "Day to day..." I begin casually, testing my luck slowly. He hasn't tailed it out of the park, which is a good sign. But I cannot read his dark, glinting eyes for shit. "What goes through your mind the most?"

Derek turns his head erect, training his eyes on the horizon. Silently, we both take the exit and walk into the footpath. I don't know where we're going, but I don't care too much. I have nowhere to be.

In profile, it's easier to examine Derek. When he looks at me, I am so unnerved by his dead, unblinking eyes and stern frown. When he looks away, I note the slight tug of his brows, the twitching in his jaw as he considers my words for a moment. I can see him testing it in his mouth, rolling his tongue around the words he might say to me. But something must taste sour because he flinches.

"You sound like you want to hear a life story," he says flatly. "Then go read a book. I can't tell you anything." With those terse words, Derek picks up his pace and walks away.

I raise an eyebrow, immune to the biting edge to his voice. Suddenly, I am convinced he has a leash, too. In him, I see the pattern of heartbreak. The social isolation. The reputation that masks whatever Brittany is using against him. How many secrets is Derek hiding from the world? And more importantly, how many is he willing to tell me?

The couple of conversations we've shared in school are brief and interrupted frequently by the teacher. He holds back. Out of all the Monarchs, besides Brittany herself, I think Derek has the tightest grip on his emotions. Madison will spill her entire heart's contents to any doting ear. Reece has many chinks in his armour where he's vulnerable. Terrence has always shared too much with me, to the point of making me feel like I'm taking advantage.

But Derek. His usual persona reminds me of a granite statue. Anything, really, that is formidable and cold and hasn't been proven to harbour life. But today, I saw a brief glimpse of warmth. The telltale orange flash of a goldfish's tail under the ice.

If I am serious about freeing the Monarchy from the blackmail, which I am becoming more sure of with every passing day, I need to find something worth freeing in each of them. Something worth fighting for, despite the superficial dislike I harbour towards them. I've seen something in Derek. Now I just need to dig it up.

Derek shakes his head, chuckling as if he expected me to catch up to him. "Why are you following me?"

"Just happen to be walking in the same direction," I remark, spitting his words from the start of school back at him.

"Still going to say that when I get a restraining order against you?"

"Yes. I'll take it to my grave."

Talking to Derek really is a game of wits. A strategy is needed. Even when he lets his guard down around me, I have to be casual and gentle, making the conversation a fluid dance instead of a battle. Psychological warfare is about who can keep their emotions under control long enough to win the game, who has enough patience to wear the other party down until they melt. We're fighting ice with ice.

"Are you heading anywhere in particular?" I ask smoothly.

If he's walking to his motorcycle parked around the corner, I'll probably never get this opportunity to talk to him again. But, it seems like his mode of transportation has also been limited to walking.

We walk halfway through the town square. The shops begin to thin out before Derek speaks again. To make him feel more at ease, I patiently decided to only speak if spoken to. I think Derek picked up on that. Appreciated it, even, with the wary but impressed expression that enemies reserve for each other.

"It doesn't matter how hard you try. I can't and won't tell you anything." He adjusts his scarf, pulling the knitted material over his mouth and nose. "You know what Brittany's like."

"And you know what I'm like. I keep my promises," I say truthfully. "I promise no-one will hear whatever you choose to tell me today."

"I have somewhere to be, Sophie." My eyebrows shoot up. He certainly didn't seem occupied sitting at the jetty, watching videos. "Shocking, but believe me, there is life outside of the Monarchy. It's not that big of a thing."

Before I can compose myself, an edge has already sneaked into my voice. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one on the receiving end of it."

Abruptly, Derek stops walking. The snow crunches as he digs his heels in. Turning to face me, he says, "Really? You're going to say that to me?" We don't get to pick who we play.

I bite my tongue. Derek is right. They are in a similar position to everyone else, maybe even worse. I may have dangled this in his face rather unceremoniously on Wednesday, but now he seems to own it. At least, he's not going to let me sit on the fence. I either want to help them, or I want to hurt them.

I drop my guard. "I'm sorry." I place a gentle hand on his shoulder, pausing until he turns to face me. "I just want to help."

Derek is possibly the most guarded person I've ever met, but his gaze softens. Maybe for only today, I think he lets down his walls a little for me.

"What do I think of the most?"

I nod. Derek sniffs. "Alright. I won't tell you."

He starts walking, slow enough so I can keep pace by his side and silences my objection with a knowing half-smile. "But I'll show you. If you're willing to listen."