The Bully (Kingmakers)

by Sophie Lark

  “Not this time,” the one called Brenner says.

  Closing in on me from both sides, they herd me in the opposite direction, to the northwest corner of campus.

  I see our destination, dark and plain and isolated from every other structure around it: the Prison Tower.

  My stomach clenches and my legs go stiff.

  Of all the places on campus you don’t want to go, this is the most dreaded.

  If you walk through those doors, something has gone very wrong.

  This is where they brought Miles Griffin and Ozzy Duncan before Ozzy’s scheduled execution.

  I don’t know exactly why they’re “escorting” me here, but I can guess what the topic of conversation will be.

  Brenner uses a keycard to unlock the door—the only doors at Kingmakers that are electronically sealed, impervious to the students’ lockpicking techniques.

  The other groundskeeper shoves me through the doorway.

  “Keep your fucking hands off me, or I’ll break your arm,” I snarl. “I can walk on my own, unlike you who barely looks like you can blink and breathe at the same time.”

  The groundskeeper clenches his fist, taking a menacing step toward me. Brenner clears his throat, reminding him that, for the present at least, their orders are to transport and not attack me.

  The Prison Tower has a squat and ugly shape, the interior damp and cold from the thick stone walls and lack of windows. I can hear water dripping somewhere in an irregular, maddening rhythm. The low ceiling of this bottom floor makes me feel cramped and claustrophobic—I could reach up and touch it without stretching.

  “This way,” Brenner says quietly.

  He leads me through a weathered wooden door.

  On the other side, as I knew he would be, the Chancellor waits.

  And worse, much worse—this time he’s accompanied by Professor Penmark.

  Lola Fischer stands off to the side, looking simultaneously eager and slightly nauseated. She shifts from foot to foot, fiddling with a lock of her long, wavy hair.

  The room is empty of furniture—no tables or chairs, no rug on the floor. The walls are bare stone without any windows. Yet I notice the presence of several metal hooks and rings, bolted to the walls and draped from the low ceiling. The shackles hang in the still air like a hangman’s noose.

  The door closes behind me, Brenner remaining in the room with us, the other groundskeepers staying outside.

  I stand before my three accusers. Taking a slow breath to calm my heart, I tuck my hands in my trousers so no one will see them shaking.

  “Dean Yenin,” the Chancellor says, in his low, gravelly voice. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  This is the oldest trick in the world, used by every traffic cop in existence when they pull someone over.

  You should never guess at your own misconduct.

  “No,” I say mildly. “I have no idea.”

  I refuse to look at Lola, or Penmark, either. I keep my gaze fixed steadily on the Chancellor, his eyes glinting like sunken treasure in the wrinkled coral of his face.

  “You’ve been accused of a very serious infraction,” the Chancellor says, quietly. “Or more accurately, your inamorata has been accused. You have a right to face your informer.”

  He nods toward Lola.

  I don’t give her the satisfaction of a single glance. She’s nothing to me. No matter how hard she tantrums for attention.

  My only concern is discerning what Lola knows, and what she’s told the Chancellor.

  The Chancellor waits, the silence thick and cold as fog.

  I keep my mouth shut.

  He who speaks first, loses.

  “Cat Romero killed Rocco Prince,” the Chancellor declares.

  Oh, fuck.

  I stand perfectly still, hands in pockets, face expressionless. He won’t get so much as a flick of an eyelash out of me.

  “Lola Fischer says you witnessed the murder,” the Chancellor says. “She says you’ve been using that information to blackmail Cat Romero for almost a year.”

  I stay silent, waiting to hear what else he knows. And more importantly, what evidence they have.

  “If you were not involved in Rocco’s death, now is the time to speak,” the Chancellor tells me, his coal-black eyes boring into mine. “This is your only chance for clemency. Tell me everything you know, and you may be absolved.”

  He wants me to throw Cat under the bus. He brought me here first, without her. He’s trying to get me to crack. Which means . . . he doesn’t have enough evidence without my testimony. Whatever Lola told him or showed him, it’s not quite enough.

  That doesn’t mean we’re not in a fuck of a lot of trouble.

  It only indicates that I might have a chance to take the heat off Cat.

  I take a deep breath, hoping I know what I’m doing.

  “Yes,” I say boldly.

  The Chancellor quirks one black eyebrow.

  “Yes, what?” he demands.

  “Yes, I know who killed Rocco Prince.”

  Professor Penmark leans forward with a hungry expression on his hollow face.

  “Well?” the Chancellor says, impatiently. “Are you going to tell us?”

  “No,” I say.

  This next silence is like the vibration after the ringing of a bell. A bell that can’t be un-rung.

  “Dean,” the Chancellor says ominously. “Choose your next words very carefully. Are you telling me that you did indeed witness the murder, but you refuse to confirm if the perpetrator was Cat Romero?”

  “That’s right,” I say. “I know. And I won’t tell.”

  Professor Penmark lets slip a horrible smile of anticipation.

  The Chancellor clenches his jaw, disappointed, but resolute.

  “We’ll see about that,” he says.

  Brenner strides forward and seizes one of my arms, Penmark the other. They force me down on my knees and raise my arms on either side of me, in the shape of a pall.

  Penmark pulls the chains down from the ceiling, closing the manacles around my wrists and wrenching them into position so the chains are taut and I can’t move.

  Lola stares at me, fixated. She looks like a child who flipped a switch, and now stands in awe of what she’s put into motion.

  Strangely, I’m not afraid.

  Whatever happens next, I know I won’t break.

  I’m the only thing left standing between Cat and certain destruction.

  Once I’m fixed in place, the Chancellor nods to Brenner.

  “Go get her,” he says.

  29

  Cat

  The moment I see that Dean is not waiting for me outside Chemistry class as promised, I know something’s wrong. Dean wouldn’t forget. He wouldn’t be late.

  So I’m not entirely surprised when a brawny groundskeeper seizes me by the arm and begins to drag me in the direction of the Prison Tower.

  I suppose I wouldn’t have been surprised either way. This is something I’ve dreaded every day since I chucked Rocco off that wall. Since I even started planning it.

  I did my best to cover my tracks—but I always knew this particular skeleton in my closet was clawing at the door, desperate to get out.

  I feel a numb, floating sensation as the groundskeeper pulls me across the endless expanse of lawn that separates the Keep from that dark, lonely tower.

  I should be terrified. But I’m not thinking about myself. The thing worrying me most is the knowledge that Dean failing to show up after class means they must have him, too.

  Sure enough, as the groundskeeper shoves me inside a small, dark room on the ground floor of the tower, I immediately spot Dean chained up in the center of the cramped space, on his knees with his arms up in the shape of a Y.

  “Dean!” I cry, wrenching out of the groundskeeper’s grasp and running over to him. I throw my arms around his shoulders as if I could shield him from harm. Quickly, before anyone can yank me away, he murmurs in my ear, “Don’t admit to anything, Cat
—not one fucking thing!”

  Now the full force of fear hits me, and my legs begin to shake. I feel very small in this tiny space, and horribly confined. The rings and shackles on the walls aren’t helping. Worst of all is the fact that I’m trapped in here with three of my least-favorite people: The Chancellor, Professor Penmark, and Lola Fischer.

  Lola looks torn between gleeful satisfaction and a strange, sick nervousness. I know she put this in motion. Now she’s learning the difference between a plan and reality.

  I learned the same thing the day I became a murderer. Nothing prepares you for fresh blood on your hands.

  “Cat Romero,” the Chancellor says without preamble. “Did you kill Rocco Prince?”

  I look at Dean’s face—pale and as determined as I’ve ever seen it. He gives one minute shake of his head.

  “No,” I say firmly.

  “Can you tell me what you were doing the day he died?”

  “It was the final challenge in the Quartum Bellum,” I say carefully. “My team was already eliminated. At breakfast, I cut my arm accidentally. I went to the infirmary. Dr. Cross stitched the wound. We talked for a while—I helped him change the sheets on the bed. Then Dean arrived at the infirmary—his shoulder had been dislocated in the challenge. I helped Dr. Cross to reset it. Afterward, Dean and I walked back to the field together, and I sat with my roommate Rakel to watch the remainder of the event.”

  In the days after Rocco’s death, I repeated this alibi to myself over and over so I’d be able to lie smoothly. But it’s been several months since I rehearsed. I stumble over my sentences.

  Apparently the Chancellor already checked on my movements that day. He counters at once:

  “I called Dr. Cross. He told me it’s possible that he fell asleep for a time while you were in the infirmary.”

  It takes everything I have not to wince.

  Dr. Cross didn’t fall asleep—I drugged him.

  I don’t think he knows that, and I doubt he knows he was supposed to be my alibi. He probably answered the Chancellor’s questions blithely, not knowing that my life was in his hands.

  “His head might have nodded for a moment,” I say. “But he was never asleep.”

  The Chancellor watches me closely, his eyes like two black scarab beetles, crawling and biting over my skin. I know he’ll catch the slightest hint of a lie.

  I use Professor Penmark’s interrogation advice while the man himself stands only a few feet away from me, smiling in his horrible way: I try not to fidget too much or too little, to give too many or too few details. I will maintain my baseline behavior no matter what.

  “Lola’s lying!” Dean shouts abruptly. “She hates Cat, she’s jealous of her! She’s just trying to get her in trouble.”

  “I heard her!” Lola cries. “I heard her admit what she did!”

  Fuck. I knew I heard something moving behind me the day I called Zoe and spilled the whole history of me and Dean. God that was so fucking stupid! How could I have been so careless?

  “She’s making it up! She doesn’t have any proof!” Dean says.

  “Then what about this?” Lola cries, yanking my sketchbook out of her backpack.

  “Show it to me,” the Chancellor says.

  Lola passes the sketchbook. The Chancellor flips through the smudged pages, his eyes crawling over each and every drawing. He turns the book so Dean and I can see it.

  “What is this?” he says. “And this?”

  He shows me the drawing I made directly after I killed Rocco—the girl sitting on the edge of a dark well, looking down into the yawning emptiness. And then, several pages later, a picture of a male figure falling through dark scribbled space.

  “Those are just sketches,” I say quietly. “I draw all sorts of figures.”

  The Chancellor continues to turn the pages.

  He passes through my drawings of Chicago—the Centennial Wheel, the Bean, the statues in Mount Olive Cemetery, the city skyline along the lake. And then after that, a portrait of Dean standing on the deck of the ship, his shirt stripped off and his face ferocious as he looks back over his shoulder at me. Then Dean again, closer up, just his face from the angle I see when he looks down at me, a mocking smirk on his lips. Dean again, lying back against the pile of pillows in the Bell Tower, with a rare expression of gentleness that only occurs after we’ve exhausted ourselves together. Then another of Dean, and another, and another.

  My face is flaming. I can hardly meet Dean’s eyes.

  I never told him that I draw him.

  Actually, I hadn’t realized how many times I’d done it.

  When I finally dare to look at him, he’s staring at the sketches, stunned.

  “Those don’t mean anything,” I tell the Chancellor. “It’s just practice. I planned to go to art school . . .”

  The Chancellor turns the pages back to the figure of the man falling through empty space.

  “This isn’t Rocco Prince?”

  “No,” I lie. “It’s just . . . a nightmare I had.”

  “She didn’t kill Rocco!” Dean shouts.

  “Then who did?” the Chancellor rounds on him.

  “I’m not going to tell you that,” Dean says.

  My mouth falls open in horror.

  Why did Dean admit that he knows?

  Dean shoots me a swift, repressive look, reminding me to keep my mouth shut.

  “If you won’t tell us what you know—” the Chancellor says.

  “Do what you have to do,” Dean says. His jaw is stubbornly set, his pale hair hanging down over one eye.

  The Chancellor nods to Professor Penmark.

  Penmark strips off his suit jacket, revealing a gray dress shirt with garters to hold up the sleeves. His bared forearms are lean and sinewy, his hands bony and dexterous as twin spiders.

  Now at last I understand why Dean admitted a portion of guilt—so he’ll be the one interrogated, not me.

  “NO!” I scream.

  The groundskeeper grabs my arms and yanks me back.

  Lola also takes a step backward, her hand flying up to her mouth. She’s pale, but her eyes are brightly interested, fixed upon Dean’s kneeling figure.

  Professor Penmark pulls a silver knife from his belt.

  “STOP!” I cry.

  He ignores me. With four quick slashes he cuts off Dean’s shirt, baring his torso to the cold. Dean’s flesh glows white as chalk in the dim light. The Siberian tiger tattoo on his back seems to snarl with rage at being so rudely uncovered.

  “Do you have something to say?” the Chancellor asks me, coldly.

  “Don’t say a fucking word!” Dean shouts at me.

  I’m frozen in place, not because the groundskeeper is holding me tight with arms pinned behind my back, but because I don’t know what I should do. I can’t bear to see Dean tortured by that fucking sadist Penmark. At the same time, Dean is begging me not to speak. We both know the drastic consequences that will follow if I admit the truth.

  Penmark stoops and rummages in a black leather bag that looks very like the kind a doctor might carry. Only Penmark is nothing like Dr. Cross or Dr. Rybakov—he prefers harm over healing. He straightens, holding a cat o’ nine tails loosely in his left hand.

  In an awful way, it reminds me of the whip Dean used on me during our very first encounter in the Bell Tower. Dean had carefully crafted his whip with soft leather thongs that wouldn’t actually cut or injure me.

  Penmark’s is made for maximum damage—the nine lashes cruelly knotted at the tips, then bound to an ivory handle.

  “I’m sorry it had to come to this,” the Chancellor says.

  Penmark stands behind Dean, raising the whip overhead.

  His teeth glint as he grins.

  He swings his arm down with vicious force. Instantly, nine gashes open up on Dean’s back, splitting his tattoo.

  “NOOOO!” I shriek.

  Dean lets out a strangled yell, jaw clenched and face sweating. His arms strain against the chains bi
nding them in place as his whole body jerks under the impact. Blood runs down his back in thin, bright lines.

  “Dean!” I cry. “I can’t—”

  He turns his head to look at me, as best he can in his constrained position.

  “Don’t,” he says, through gritted teeth.

  Penmark swings the lash again. It bites into Dean’s back, crossing over the former cuts, making Xs out of horizontal lines. I jolt and cry out as if it’s me being hit.

  “You can stop this any time,” the Chancellor tells me.

  He knows I killed Rocco. But he doesn’t have proof. He’s trying to goad me into confessing by torturing Dean right in front of me.

  Lola stands with her back against the far wall, biting on the edge of her thumbnail. She looks sick and yet captivated, like someone binging on too much cake.

  The rage I feel in this moment would make me a murderer all over again. If not for the groundskeeper holding me back, I’d cut her fucking throat for this.

  Penmark whips Dean again and again and again.

  Dean’s tattoo is obliterated, his back a hash of blood and raw flesh. His head lolls, jerking up with each strike.

  Tears pour down my face. I struggle futilely against the groundskeeper’s iron grip.

  I have to stop this, I have to tell them the truth. I can’t let them hurt Dean anymore.

  As if he can read my mind, Dean turns his head once more and hisses at me, “If you say one fucking word, I’ll never forgive you.”

  My heart is ripping in half, torn between my need to help him, and the knowledge that if I confess, we’ll never be together. I’ll be dead and he’ll despise me forever for my weakness.

  Dean doesn’t want me weak, guilty, and giving in.

  He wants me strong. Ruthless. Doing whatever it takes to get what we want.

  I look at Dean and he looks back at me, his face whiter than death but fixed and resolute.

  “I love you,” I whisper.

  Penmark raises the lash again.

  He whips Dean with cruel fury, five more times.

  “Stop,” the Chancellor says.

  Disappointed and resentful, Penmark lowers his arm.

  “Dean, you have been punished for your refusal to reveal what you know,” the Chancellor pronounces. “With no further evidence . . . I consider the matter closed.”