I didn't have a plan. I just knew I had to act now.
My heart pounded as I ran to the front of the common room, ignoring the protests from my friends behind me.
"Lorraine, don't—"
"Wait, what are you doing—?"
I didn't stop.
I climbed up onto one of the battered tables at the center of the room. The legs wobbled under me, and the ferals barely spared me a glance, still grumbling about lost dorm points and the stench that clung to the air like death.
No one noticed me. No one listened.
I opened my mouth to speak, and was drowned out by a dozen conversations, angry muttering, hopeless sighs, the clatter of mops and buckets being passed around.
No one cared. Not yet.
So I jumped back down, snatched a metal pot and a rusted spoon from the kitchen shelf, climbed back up, and slammed them together.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The room jolted. Heads turned.
BANG.
Every conversation stopped. All eyes were on me now.
My hands trembled as I dropped the pot at my feet and took a breath that scorched my lungs.
And then I began.
"One of us was murdered again."
That was all it took. Silence. Thick, stunned silence.
"She was just a girl, just like any of us. She was murdered, and left there to rot, hanged at the cafeteria. And do you know what they said? Nothing."
I scanned the room. Some ferals looked confused. Others looked afraid. But a few, just a few, looked like they already knew.
"They covered it up like she never existed. Not a whisper of justice. Not a single investigation. She died like an animal, and they didn't even flinch."
I took a step forward on the table, my voice growing stronger.
"And now this? Our dorm trashed. Our points stolen. And we're still the ones punished. Still the ones blamed. Always us."
A wave of uneasy murmurs swept through the crowd. I could feel their eyes, feel their anger starting to boil beneath the surface. I pressed on.
"They treat us like garbage. Less than that. Like pests they can squash whenever they please. And we take it. Day after day, we take it. We stay quiet. We clean up the mess. We still end up with more dead bodies. We let it slide because we're scared, because that's what they want."
I paused. Let it sink in.
"But I'm done being scared. I'm done pretending silence will save us."
I held up the piece of torn white fabric, stained with dried blood.
"She died fighting. She fought hard enough to rip this from her killer's body. She tried to live, and she still died. Because no one was there to help her. No one was there to raise hell and demand justice."
My voice cracked. My vision blurred. But I didn't stop.
"How long until it's you? Or your best friend? How many more of us have to die before we decide our lives actually matter?"
A single voice spoke up.
"What can we even do?"
I looked at the boy who asked, then swept my gaze across the crowd.
"We speak," I said. "We stand. We protest. We remind them we're not shadows. We're not ghosts. We are wolves. And they can't silence all of us if we raise our voices together."
More whispers now. Murmurs of agreement. Uneasy nods.
Felix stepped forward. "I'm with her. I've had enough of being treated like a stain they're waiting to scrub off the academy floor."
Callum looked torn, but Elise.... Elise's eyes were burning. She didn't say a word, but I knew. She was with me, too.
I steadied myself.
"I promised someone… that we could be more than just victims. But I need you all to prove it. We've got one day. Twenty-four hours to stand as one pack. To protest as one voice. To demand that what happened to her never happens again."
A long silence followed.
Just as hope began to spark, just as hands lifted in slow, hesitant agreement, she spoke.
A girl I didn't know well. Thin, with hollow eyes and a permanent limp. She stepped forward from the crowd, her expression hard, her voice hollow.
"My brother came here last year," she said quietly. "He never came back home."
Silence fell again, this time colder.
"He was strong. He had dreams. He said he was going to make it out. Said maybe he'd even be the first feral to graduate from this cursed place." Her voice trembled, not with tears, but rage that had long since frozen into numbness.
"But he vanished in the middle of the semester. No warning. No goodbye. Just... gone. And when we asked what happened, they told my parents it was suicide. But my brother wasn't weak. He wouldn't have done that. He was murdered. Just like the girl you're talking about, just like every single feral that has died since we came."
Her eyes met mine then, dark, jaded, tired.
"And nothing happened."
I opened my mouth, but she raised her hand to silence me.
"This academy doesn't care if we die. This system was built on our blood. We are worms to them. And you know what happens to worms?"
Her voice rose now, bitter and sharp.
"No matter how hard we wriggle, no matter how loud we scream, we still get eaten by the eagle. That's our place. Struggling just makes the suffering last longer."
She turned to the others. "So stop fooling yourselves. Survive. One day at a time. And pray that when the predators come, your death is short and swift."
Her words hung in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre.
And slowly, painfully, the mood shifted.
Hands that had been raised dropped.
Eyes that had begun to glow with something like hope dimmed once more.
And like mist under morning light, the spark of rebellion began to fade.
One by one, the ferals turned away from me, shoulders hunched, spirits heavy. No one argued. No one fought. They just… gave up.
They picked up the brooms and buckets.
They began to clean.
Defeated.
Hopeless.
Silent.
My chest tightened. I remained standing on that table, fingers trembling at my sides, torn fabric still clenched in my fist. Watching them sweep up trash dumped by nobles. Watching them clean the filth of others as if it were their own shame.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
They didn't believe yet
But they would.
They had to.
Because I was done watching my people die.
Even if I had to drag them out of the dirt myself, kicking and screaming, I was going to make them fight.
Even if I have to do it alone.