by Eva Chase
While everyone else in my room was settling in for the night, I roamed around the library and then the first floor rooms, doing my best to occupy myself and ignore the creeping fatigue that demanded rest.
I had to sleep, at least a little. No amount of self-discipline could remove that need. But if I held my eyes open for as long as humanly possible, the sleep I did get could be brief and intense, if not completely satisfying.
It was never going to be satisfying, no matter how long I lay in bed. If I couldn’t maximize the benefits, the most practical strategy was to minimize the unpleasant bits.
As I came around the staircase toward the dean’s office, my gaze caught on a flash of orange hair. I halted.
Trix was standing in the hall next to the stairs, studying one of the portraits as if searching for a deeper meaning within it. As I watched, she sucked her lower lip under her teeth, the uncertain gesture at odds with the resolve in her stance.
A pang shot through my chest. A dozen things I’d have liked to say, half of them contradicting each other, rose up to my throat. Rather than risk them coming out, I backed away to the sitting room and forced myself to sink into one of the armchairs.
After a few minutes, her footsteps creaked up the stairs. I waited another few and then ventured out again.
Maybe it was because of that brief sighting, or maybe I’d have made the gesture anyway, but I headed into the kitchen to see what pickings were left after the dinner shift. The napkin I spread on the counter easily held a pear that was probably mealy if the ones we’d eaten at lunch were anything to go by, a hard roll I sliced open and stuffed with an equally hard chunk of cheese, and a tin of sardines that might or might not appeal. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, as Trix probably would have said. And we were all beggars in this equation, really.
I knotted the corners of the napkin and headed outside. The clouds had partly cleared for the night, filmy strands drifting between swaths of deeper darkness that glinted with stars. The half-moon cast a thin glow over the lawn, but I’d walked this route enough times, with or without a gift, that I didn’t need it to make my way into the woods. Most nights, I ended up out here. The cooler air kept me awake that much longer.
Because I did come bearing gifts, I picked my way toward the deepest part of the forest rather than sticking to the easier paths closer to the wall. I wasn’t sure exactly how large the campus grounds were, but I could walk for nearly an hour in this direction before hitting the far end. Tonight, it took about twenty minutes at a steady pace before another set of feet crunched over the twig-strewn ground.
I stopped and turned around. The guy I’d been expecting stalked between the trees, his hands dug deep in his pockets and his hair so rumpled I could tell it was messy even in the barest glimmer of light that penetrated the leaves overhead. I guessed at this point, the way he was living, he didn’t see much point in bothering with a comb.
As soon as you let appearances go, you might as well throw it all away, my grandfather muttered through my memories.
Shut up, Grandpa, I replied silently. Words I’d never dared say to his face while I had the chance.
“Pickings were pretty slim, as usual,” I said, holding out the napkin.
The other guy took it and let the corners fall open. “Looks like a fucking feast to me. I’m not going to complain.” He looked up at me, his mouth slanting into a crooked smile. “Thanks. It’s always nice getting a little variety.”
He dug into the roll-and-cheese with a ripping sound that made me think about what he must eat out here the rest of the time. I guessed most of that time he wasn’t in a state where he cared.
I couldn’t have said exactly why I’d started making these periodic overtures. It’d just seemed like a natural thing to do when I was wandering the woods during these hours anyway. Maybe the impulse had been sparked by the memory of the guy in front of me springing to his feet in the middle of one of his first math classes under my watch and shouting, “This is bullshit.” A potent punch of honesty and anger that I’d never dared to express myself, as much as I agreed with it.
Not so different from the attitudes I appreciated in Trix, which I guessed was fitting.
Everything at this school was bullshit, but it gave me a small sense of satisfaction that I could make it a little less shitty for this one person who’d been willing to say that out loud. Normally I’d have walked on and let him eat in peace. This once, with a thread of tension I couldn’t explain thrumming through my chest, my legs stayed locked in place.
“She’s just gotten here,” I found myself saying. “She’s still looking for you.”
Cade’s shoulders went rigid under his bomber jacket. The look he shot me over the remaining half of the roll had an accusing vibe. “I can’t see her. It’s better if she doesn’t know.”
Better for her or for you? I thought, but didn’t say. Who was I to criticize someone else for avoiding Trix when I’d just spent all day doing the same?
But she wasn’t here for me anyway. She was here for the guy in front of me, even if she didn’t know exactly what lay at the end of that search.
“I can’t tell her anyway,” I said. The first rule of Roseborne College was you couldn’t talk about what was actually happening at Roseborne College, whether you liked it or not. “I’m just saying. Maybe, if she had the full picture—”
“No,” he snapped, almost a growl, as he cut me off. “Don’t you dare try to tell me what she needs. I know her. You don’t have a fucking clue.” He looked down at the remaining food I’d brought him and then back up at me. His tone softened slightly. “Eventually they’ll have to kick her out, or she’ll give up. As long as no one gives her any reason to hope.”
They weren’t likely to at this point, but I didn’t think Trix needed any outside party to supply her with hope. She seemed to generate plenty all on her own. The guy was right, though—I didn’t really know her. Not anywhere near the way he did.
And that might have been why the defeat in his voice rubbed me the wrong way. I managed to hold my tongue, just barely, at least from saying anything outright caustic.
“Well, you know where to find her if you ever change your mind,” I said, and turned my back on him to ramble farther into the woods. The streaks of moonlight drifted like roaming specters with the shifting of the breeze through the leaves, but I welcomed their company. I’d take them over the ghosts waiting back by my bed any day.
Chapter Six
Trix
On my way up the staircase after lunch, I paused at the squeak of hinges in the righthand hall, the one Ryo had told me held only the professors’ rooms. Peering over the railing, I saw a girl around my age slipping past a door just beyond the inner archway. Tear tracks marked her cheeks beneath her red-rimmed eyes, and her body trembled as she drew in a breath, apparently to get a hold of herself.
I eased back down the stairs. When I reached the hallway, a guy was ducking through the same doorway the girl had come out from, his mouth set in a flat line. The girl wasn’t trembling anymore, but she swiped quickly at her eyes.
What fresh hell was going on over there? “Hey,” I said. “Are you all right?”
The girl flinched at my voice and then glared at me. “I’m fine. Mind your own business.”
Well, okay then. She stalked off, and I stepped closer to the door, wondering how much trouble I was likely to get in if I yanked it open to get a glimpse inside.
“There’s no point in bothering,” a sweetly clear voice said behind me. “It’ll be locked. The counselor only lets one person in at a time.”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Violet standing by the base of the stairs. After a few days, the fire-ravaged side of her face no longer sent a startled jolt through me, but I still had to contain the urge to ask if she was all right.
“Counselor?” I repeated, since she was apparently in a sharing mood. “Like, as in guidance?”
“Something like that. We have a session every week or so, man
datory. To work through our ‘issues’.” She made air quotes as she said the last word.
I hadn’t made it through my first week yet, but I’d looked over my entire schedule pretty closely. I pulled it out and double-checked. “I don’t have counseling on here anywhere, unless they call it something very different.”
“Thank your lucky stars,” Violet said in a singsong tone, and headed up the stairs without another word.
Great. Now I was even more confused—and even more curious. I eyed the door for a minute longer, but it seemed unlikely these sessions were super short. Maybe they only started up for students who’d been attending class for a certain length of time? I’d certainly seen plenty around here that could give a person “issues.”
What if that room held the key to Cade’s disappearance?
“What are you looking so serious about?” Ryo asked, ambling over to join me.
“I just found out about counseling, which I seem to be exempt from.” I tipped my head toward the door. “I guess you must have those sessions too.”
Ryo let out a short laugh. “It’s nothing all that exciting. Blah blah blah, toxic this, meditate on that. I wouldn’t feel left out.”
He made it sound like no big deal. I’d have believed him if I hadn’t seen how that girl had looked when she’d come out. Although maybe she just took the sessions more seriously than Ryo did? From what I’d seen, he cruised along without letting much of anything faze him, at least not in any overt way.
Which was part of the reason I still found it hard to take his friendliness completely at face value. Why was he so easygoing with me when my mere presence seemed to annoy just about everyone else? It couldn’t be only that he saw me as a fellow interloper among the privileged set, because I’d seen quite a few other students since I’d stuck around who dressed casually or brashly enough for me to guess they had to be scholarship kids too, and they hadn’t buddied up to me.
I didn’t have to trust him to appreciate having a bit of company in this strange place, though. At least he seemed to try to answer my questions, even if he didn’t have much of an answer to the most pressing ones.
And, being totally honest, he was very easy on the eyes. A couple of times I’d found myself daydreaming about him coming to me with some information he’d stumbled on, and us joining forces as coconspirators to dig up all the secrets this place held. Shared glances across classrooms, huddling together as we spied on the professors from the shadows, a quick victory tumble into bed after we uncovered some thrilling revelation.
Those daydreams had been followed by a jab of guilt that I’d let my mind wander in that direction at all. I was here to find Cade, not to pick up guys. Obviously the coldness of the other students and the overall unsettling atmosphere were getting under my skin more than I’d have liked, that was all.
Who was I to think I deserved the enjoyment of even a quick hook-up, after all the blood on my hands?
“I guess I’m grasping at straws,” I said. “I don’t know what else to do.” I just knew I had even less chance of picking up Cade’s trail beyond the campus walls.
“Maybe you could use a break from all that searching and analyzing for clues,” Ryo suggested in his offhand way. “Do you have anything in your schedule in the next hour or two? We could get out of here, take in some fresh air—I hear that’s good for clearing your head.”
It couldn’t hurt, and he might open up more when we weren’t surrounded by other students and the staff. I wasn’t getting anywhere standing around in here. I swiveled on my heel. “Sure. You can give me the tour of the rest of campus now.”
“I’ll try to make it as entertaining as possible.” He swept his arm toward the main door.
Outside, the clouds hung thick and heavy as they had the first day I’d arrived. I didn’t think it’d rained in that time except a light shower I’d heard pattering against the bedroom window one night, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen the sun except filtered to a dull glow through that haze.
The breeze was heavy with dampness to match. I tugged my leather jacket closer around me, wishing I’d opted for my jeans and not the skirt and leggings that the chill seeped right through.
“Badminton court,” Ryo said, gesturing to a span of cracked cement surrounded by a rusting chain-link fence. “As you can tell, not getting a lot of use these days. I think the forest over there is just for show—no one really goes in there. I guess you could call it atmospheric if you’re into creepy.”
“I’ll pass on that.” I scanned the lawn as we meandered around the side of the sprawling school building. “Are there any gardens or that sort of thing, other than the roses on the wall?”
Seeing all the vegetation around me made my fingers itch to add order to it and bring out more life and color. I’d always done my best thinking with a spade in my hand and the smell of fresh-turned earth filling my lungs. Plants didn’t give a shit who you knew, whether you lived up to some random ideal, or how you were greasing the wheels for them. Give them the space and the sun they needed, and they’d unfurl without a single demand.
Ryo shook his head. “Not as far as I know. If there were, they’re probably lost to the weeds by now. I mean, the weeds got pretty much everything.”
As we came around the back of the building, he pointed to a concrete rectangle in the ground up ahead, the gray tiles around the edges bordered by green tufts of those weeds. A metal stepladder was poised at one end. It wasn’t until we walked closer that I realized it’d been the steps to a diving board, only with the board itself snapped off near the base. The broken pieces lay at the bottom of what had once been a swimming pool.
More weeds sprouted from the gaps in the walls. The only water the pool held was a few stagnant puddles on the grungy floor several feet below us. A mildewy stink wafted up, temporarily drowning out the rosy scent that permeated the campus.
“Must have been nice when this still got used,” Ryo said. He sat down and let his legs dangle over the edge, then patted the tile next to him for me to join him. “That is, assuming it ever got warm enough that you’d want to jump in and cool off.”
I hunkered down next to him, trying to picture the pool clean and filled with bright water, the sun beaming overhead. It must get warmer in the summer, right? But then, how many people would stick around for summer classes?
“I’m starting to think it’s always gloomy here,” I said, tipping my head back toward the gray sky. “That rosebush is going to get even more sparse if Mother Nature doesn’t bring back the spring sun pretty soon.”
Ryo’s arm twitched as he moved to rub his mouth. I glanced over at him just in time to see a shadow cross his face and disappear. Something I’d said had brought out the melancholy he mostly kept under wraps.
Seeing it gave me the courage to push more this time than I had before. “This school is pretty gloomy in general. And weird. Everyone takes the same classes? There don’t seem to be any majors? And some of those classes—what the hell is up with Professor Hubert and Composition? Doesn’t any of this seem incredibly strange to you?”
Ryo set his hands behind him and leaned back on them. “Sure, it’s weird. You get used to it, though. Find the good parts and focus on them.”
I couldn’t hold back a guffaw. “What good parts?”
His gaze slid toward me, and a little smile curved his lips. “I’d say you’re one of the good parts.”
I hadn’t expected the compliment. A tingle of heat raced up my neck and over my cheeks. I jerked my gaze away.
“I just got here. Anyway, this is a college. It’s supposed to be preparing you for careers or whatever. I don’t see how anything here manages that.”
And I’m pretty sure that somehow it’s devouring at least the occasional student so thoroughly everyone who’s ever met them forgets they even existed.
Yeah, that still sounded just as crazy as it had four days ago. I rubbed my starburst scar instinctively.
“It’s experimental
,” Ryo said. “A general grounding that’s supposed to touch on every area we’d want touched. Believe me, no other college would have taken me, so it’s not like I can complain that I should have picked a different option.”
I looked at him again, raising my eyebrows. “You managed to get a scholarship to some exclusive experimental program, and you couldn’t even have found a community college with a working swimming pool that would have given you a shot?”
Ryo looked right back at me. In that moment, the melancholy showed clearly behind his light brown eyes, as if the clouds above were being reflected from deep inside.
“How many other options did your brother have?” he asked quietly.
There’d been nothing accusing in his tone, but the question made me bristle before I could catch myself. “He could have gone all kinds of places if he’d wanted to,” I said, the defensive words tumbling out faster than I could catch them. “He was really smart. He just didn’t have a lot of patience for school.”
Or much of anything else. I thought of the jobs he’d lost in the year after he’d graduated from high school—when we’d been meant to be saving for our own apartment to get away from the Monroes for good—and then shoved the memories aside. They felt too much like a betrayal.
“He came here because the scholarship people didn’t seem to mind exactly what his grades were,” I added. “They said they looked at how he’d performed in certain areas—I don’t know.” The truth was, even that part sounded absurd when I said it out loud. And then there were the parts I didn’t want to say, that snagged in my throat with a piercing ache.
It hadn’t just been what he’d thought he’d find here that had prompted his decision. He’d also been escaping what he’d been left with back home. He’d been escaping the horrible mess I’d made, without even knowing I was to blame.
So really, when you got down to it, this was all my fault.
“There you go,” Ryo said, without letting on if he’d noticed any of my discomfort. “It was the same for me—not the best grades by a long shot, but they saw something there that told them I was the kind of candidate they were looking for.” His smile twisted and then smoothed out. “Anyway, never mind about that. I shouldn’t have brought him up. I know how frustrated you’ve got to be.”
