NS _ Who else would they be talking about.
Y _ And you don’t know anyone who would wish her harm.
NS _ No. Don’t you guys have cameras or something.
Y _ We do.
NS _ Did you see who did it.
Y _ A short person wearing a black jumper with a hood.
NS _ Where did they come from.
Y _ They entered the school from a blind spot. Outside the D2 common room. Went straight for your door and straight back out.
NS _ So it could be anybody.
Y _ That’s the problem yes. It could be anybody.
Aiden.
AIDEN SPENT THE next three days on high alert. Ever since their stakeout, he could feel himself being followed, watched, from under hoods, in corners of the school he couldn’t see. Twice, he’d tracked Peter down, in the Human Library, but Peter insisted the school was watching them and they were better off avoiding each other, so he took up the mantle of finding Emma on his own, studying the photo he’d taken and trying desperately to understand who they were, and what they wanted.
The only Apex he had left was a few pills that had clung to the bottom of his bag, so he rationed them, spilling them into twenty tiny piles in the corner of his desk and snorting one every two hours, as Peter had suggested.
He could already feel his last high wearing off as he stared out the massive window, watching as his classmates moved around the back lawn, circling each other in patterned chaos.
“Do you feel like you’re being seen?”
Aiden whipped his head around. Dr. Roux, his mentor, was staring down the barrel of his nose at him, his eyebrows crowding toward the center of his face.
“What? No. I mean, yes.” He shook his head, his brain rattling inside, trying to clear the cobwebs. He was in Dr. Roux’s office, in the P-School. It was his weekly assessment. It was Sunday afternoon. He was fine. “I’m fine. Why? I mean, what?”
“We’re talking about your performance in practice recently.” Dr. Roux cleared his throat. “You’ve described some frustration with your teammates and coaches, and I’m asking if you feel seen by them. Recognized? Understood?”
“Oh, um. I don’t know. I don’t know what they think.”
Dr. Roux noted it in the folder. “You understand your physical ability hasn’t changed?”
“Um, okay.”
“Your jump shot, your sprints, your weights—they’re all tracking consistently. Which means your blockages are psychogenic.”
“Psycho-what?”
“The problem is in your head. Slower reaction times, dismal free-throw percentage—these are problems are mental—a lack of focus—and they’re killing you.”
“They’re not killing me. It’s been a couple off practices.”
Dr. Roux leaned forward. “The rest of your teammates are improving, rapidly. Every other player is showing better metrics. The team—hell, the entire school—has reached an evolution point, with very few exceptions. It’s not enough to just tread water, anymore, Aiden. Failure to progress is failure.”
“But I’m not failing!” Aiden felt himself squeezing the chair. “I’m still the best one out there, by far!”
Dr. Roux sat back, nodding. “I’m sure that’s true. But we need to address the problem of whatever’s affecting you, and quickly. Let’s get back to your teammates.”
Aiden shrugged. “What about them? They’re fine. Annoying, but fine.”
“Have you considered their needs?”
“I’ve scored twenty-eight a game for two years. They should be considering my needs.”
Dr. Roux nodded. “It sounds like you’re having a difficult time empathizing with them.”
“Or they’re having a difficult time empathizing with me,” Aiden snapped back, turning his attention to the window.
Dr. Roux studied the folder for a few more minutes. “Would you like a snack?”
“What?”
“Perhaps a cookie? Some milk?”
Dr. Roux offered Aiden a tray with a small, store-made chocolate chip cookie and a paper cup. He shrugged and took them both, downing the cookie in a single bite, then tossing the milk into the back of his throat. It was thick and warm, dripping into his system, warming his insides from the center. He felt his stomach turn over a few times.
“That tasted weird.” He looked down into the cup.
“Well.” Dr. Roux smiled. “Cow’s milk is meant to provide the fat calves need to grow, far too much for human bodies. But you can’t deny its appeal next to a warm cookie. Let’s get back to the assessment.”
Aiden returned to the window. He’d never noticed how green the lawn was in the daytime, how patterned and strange its natural geometry looked from above. He found himself staring at separate students, wanting to know who they were, where they were going.
“Tell me,” Dr. Roux said. “How are you feeling about Emma?”
“I’m . . . I’m feeling—” Aiden considered it, rolling his shoulders involuntarily, aware of how nice the stretching movement felt underneath his skin. “I miss her. I feel like I’m missing something, without her. I don’t feel like myself when she’s not around.”
Dr. Roux leaned forward, excited. “Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know, I just . . .” In Dr. Roux’s posture, he saw his father for a moment. It freaked him out. He clutched the edges of his chair to anchor himself back in reality.
“Aiden?”
“Uh, I feel like everybody around here sees me as this . . . basketball player guy. Like that’s what I am, and what I’m good for.”
“And how does Emma see you?”
“Like . . .” His eyes drifted back to the window, where his classmates’ movements had become a dance; interconnected and sweeping and beautiful. They weren’t secretive, they weren’t watching him. They were all moving through the world just like he was, trying to get people to like them, trying to find their place, trying to get by. He didn’t see a basketball boy and a theater girl and a science nerd and a plebe. He just saw one person after another. “Like just a person,” he said.
“Just, any person?”
“Any person.”
“And how do you see yourself?”
The people outside bobbed and weaved, in and out and around each other, circling the dirt paths, making room for a new dancer to come wobbling in from the edge of the window, his movements off-balance, but familiar—
He leaned forward. It was Eddy.
Aiden stood up. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”
“Aiden, these assessments are mandatory, you can’t just walk out—”
“I’m sorry.” He threw his backpack over his shoulder. “I know you have to do your job and I’m making that impossible. But right now, I have to go.”
Dr. Roux stared for a long moment. “Alright, but please journal today.”
Aiden felt like his insides were exploding as he rushed down the stairs, through the P-School Lounge and out onto the back lawn. He pushed his way through a crowded path, parting students with his hands. He wanted to hug people, kiss people, but instead, he pushed past them, feeling their soft jackets and warm skin until Eddy appeared in front of him, disappearing into the chapel. Aiden followed him in without hesitating.
It was cool and damp inside, like the public library. The murals on the wall were bright, leaning forward out of their two-dimensional space. He’d never taken the time to look at them, but as he stared, he could feel them coming to life in all their strange splendor. In one enclave, a bearded man, Moses, huddled over a bush that burned like a fallen star, so radiant with heat that it almost looked metallic and smooth. In another, hippie Jesus handed the homeless men around him something that looked like Percocet. He wanted to go to it and take a Percocet from Jesus, but then he saw Eddy.
He sat alone in the center of the chapel. He wasn’t looking anywhere, or doing anything, or talking to anyone. Aiden’s footsteps were the only noise in the room as he approached.
; “Eddy,” he exhaled.
Eddy didn’t turn around. His face was frozen forward, staring at the mural in the front of the church: the story of Noah and the ark.
Aiden sat a row ahead, resting his arms atop the pew between them. “I’m not sure if you remember me, but . . . wait, do you remember me?”
Eddy didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. The outer rims of his eyeballs were swollen and purple; a cut across his forehead, hastily covered with a loose Band-Aid, still looked fresh and bloody. His hair was thrown over it, unwashed and sticking in strange places. He was younger than the picture of him in Aiden’s head; his cheeks were soft; his eyes were buried and harmless.
“Oh my God.” Aiden cringed. “I did this. I did this to you.”
He couldn’t stop himself. His hands levitated upward, straight for Eddy’s face, sliding along his cheeks and grasping him by the neck. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I hurt you. I half-nelsoned you and body-slammed you into the ground.”
Eddy’s body reacted, not away from his hands but toward them. The tension in his neck released beneath Aiden’s grip; the creases on his face dissolved into smooth skin; his hands floated upward to meet Aiden’s, gripping onto the tops and squeezing.
“I don’t know what I was doing,” Aiden said, the words pouring out. “I thought I was being a hero, but . . . but I hurt you. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Eddy squeezed him more powerfully, more lovingly, reassuring him he was on the right path. The murals danced around them; the air got warmer and softer.
He felt tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes. “This is supposed to be the best week of my life but all I can think about is how I want it to be over. And her. I thought I was helping Emma, but . . . but I was just helping myself, and I fucked that up too—”
Eddy’s eyes snapped open.
“Eddy?”
“The flood,” he whispered.
The words chased away immediately, evaporating to the ceiling of the chapel and plunging the room into a cold and incoherent silence. Eddy’s hands hardened, suddenly unfamiliar, squeezing him tighter, trapping him there. He couldn’t tell what was real.
“I don’t—I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“The flood,” he said again, louder and more viciously, accusing Aiden. “The flood!”
“Eddy, I don’t understand—” He tried to pry his hands loose, shaking them, but Eddy squeezed more violently. “Eddy, please!” he screamed, and tore his hands away.
He took off running up the center aisle, leaving Eddy alone in the chapel without looking back. He sprinted all the way across the back lawn, unsure of where he was going, or why.
“Aiden!” someone was shouting at him. He spun—it was a Year One plebe, a recruit from Bosnia who barely got scrimmage minutes. “Dude, practice started thirty minutes ago. They sent a bunch of people to come look for you.”
“Thirty minutes? I just got in here like ten minutes ago.” Aiden spun wildly; the sun was starting to set. “How did I . . .”
“Come on, dude. Coach’s pissed.”
His chest burned; he needed something to pick him back up. “I gotta run to my dorm—”
“No time, dude. He said get to the gym or you’re not playing tomorrow.”
Neesha.
“FIRST OF ALL, your handwriting is terrible. Second, what’s up with all these little pro-Emma editorial comments? If anyone deserves heaven, it’s Emma. What the fuck is that? Neither of us even said that.”
“She’s very religious,” Evan said quietly. “That’s an objective judgment.”
“It’s not ‘objective’ where I come from.” Neesha took a Sharpie and drew a line through it. “What does this say, under motive for someone outside the school? Kidnap apple . . . kidnap-ably beautiful? Is that seriously a reason to kidnap her?”
Evan nodded. “Yes.”
In three days, she and Evan had turned her lifeless room into the headquarters of an all-out investigation. He was surprisingly equipped with arts and crafts supplies, as though preparing for exactly this kind of assignment. They’d stuck pink and green Post-its to the walls, surrounding every block-letter theory with a colorful array of details.
Despite her insistence that Emma had run away, and desperate attempts to focus their search—Evan was still suggesting wild theories.
“When did you put this up?” she asked, pointing to the AIDEN TOOK HER theory.
“He has a motive,” Evan mumbled.
“Says you.”
“Says the pattern.”
“She,” Neesha read from a Post-it, “changed her breakfast plans Wednesday morning. Pretty sure that isn’t some secret clue into her inner psyche—”
“It is.”
“—and she’s not about to break up with, objectively, the best-looking and, also, not for nothing, the richest guy at this school. And her best customer.”
“I saw it.”
“Okay, well, I saw him in church, and he didn’t look like someone who had just been broken up with.”
Evan shrugged. “Maybe he was acting.”
Neesha glared at him for a long moment. Evan had spent a lot of time around Emma. They seemed to have schedules that fell perfectly together, putting them in the same place for breakfast, the same study halls, at the same events. But every time he recalled time they’d spent together, their interactions seemed to lack one major activity: talking. He couldn’t remember the specific things she’d said to him. Maybe because she treated him like she treated everybody else—an object to be ignored until useful. A fan.
“I think we have to go back to potential exit strategies,” Neesha said. “None of these theories feel developed, when the most logical answer is staring us in the face.”
She pointed to the block letters in the center of the wall—EMMA RAN AWAY, and the three Post-its hanging below: Emma lied about phone call, Neesha forced to do drop (setup), and School was looking for Emma (Apex).
Evan looked away, the way he did every time she steered them back to this. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“I know that this is hard for you to hear,” Neesha said. “But in all likelihood, she was getting out to save her own ass.”
“What about the thing on your door?”
She winced. He was right; that was the one piece that didn’t square with her theory, but she shrugged anyway. “It was a prank,” she said, more confident than she felt. “That’s what everyone else is saying, anyway. There’s been so much weirdness lately, somebody probably was just trying to get some attention—”
“That’s association fallacy,” Evan said. “When two events of significance occur close—”
“I know what an association fallacy is, plebe,” she spat back. “Like you associating your happy, super-fun friendship with Emma with her not wanting to run away.”
Evan stared out the window. “Where would she go?”
Neesha sighed, her eyes wandering to the tape marks above Emma’s bed where the photos no longer hung. “I feel like I don’t know anything about her anymore.”
They sat in silence, surrounded by information. It had taken them three days to get to this point, the moment of clarity where realizations should start to form; but now that everything they knew was within reach, she couldn’t find anything to grab on to, or anywhere to begin. She could feel the school closing in on Apex. Day after day, more of their customers were being brought in to speak in front of Yanis; it was only a matter of time before one of them squealed, and the school found out what she was selling, and the school found out where she was getting it from. Neesha had started spending almost all of her time with Evan, but for all of the obsessive questioning, they weren’t any closer to finding Emma.
Obsessive questioning; the phrase reminded her of Yangborne on test days. “We need to get more scientific about this,” she said. “Run an experiment. Test our best theory. Hypothetically . . . let’s say you’re Emma, and you decided you wanted to leave Redemption. H
ow would you do it?”
Evan shrugged. “Through the forest.”
“Exactly. The center gate would be way too hard to get over—”
“And cameras.”
“—so you go out into the forest, around the gate.” Neesha mapped the grounds in her head. “Where would she go?”
She noticed Evan shift uncomfortably.
“What?”
“She had a favorite loop,” he said. “Around the Human building.”
“By the bench, that’s right! And there’s a path. That’s has to be it.”
“But . . . she couldn’t just leave,” Evan argued.
“What do you mean?”
“People notice her. They would notice if she was gone.”
“Exactly.” Neesha could feel the argument building steam. “So she would need to throw people off the scent. She goes somewhere public, shows up just long enough to be seen—”
“In the only other place with no cameras,” Evan finished her thought. Both of their eyes drifted out the window, across the back lawn, where the top of the chapel and the wooden cross were visible in the distance.
Neesha smiled. “So how do we test that?” she asked, then answered for herself. “We do it ourselves. Tonight. We break out of school.”
Evan was quiet. She could tell he was weighing it by the way his fingers seized at the top of his pants, one of his many ticks. He was a strange-looking kid, kind of like she imagined Marilyn Manson would look if he grew up in the Leave It to Beaver neighborhood. He wore an oversized button-up underneath his hoodie and spent most of his time with the hood drawn over his long brown hair. His mannerisms were strangely damp—from the way he talked to the way he cracked his fingers one by one as he processed information.
Really, he was exactly the kind of person Emma would pretend to care about, so they’d throw their loyalty at her. They’d probably had a few conversations, she’d probably asked him for help on some homework or something, and now he thought they were in love. Which made it impossible for him to believe she would abandon him.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Okay. We’ll do it.”
Redemption Prep Page 12
