by Meg Collett
Luke’s jaw clenched. “She’s not a normal—”
“I don’t give a damn what she is. Now, instead of killing ’swangs, you’re here, teaching a murderer. Like you’re some fucking professor coward.”
“The professors here aren’t cowards.”
Mr. Aultstriver snorted with ugly laughter. “Yes, they are. They should be out there fighting. Dean Bogrov has made this school soft, ruined it with his stupid ideas for the ‘future.’ If I ran this place—”
“If you ran this place,” Luke interjected, voice steady, “it would be an army base instead of a school. You would have twelve-year-olds out there fighting in the war before they’d learned what fear really was. You would kill us all.”
Smiling cruelly, his father leaned into Luke’s face and snarled, “Damn straight I would. And I would send you right to the front lines where you could get some sense into your head.”
Luke didn’t respond, which was obviously a tactical move to further piss his father off. I had to give it to Luke. He had balls. Big, manly balls.
Stop thinking about his balls, Ollie!
“Such a waste.” Mr. Aultstriver shook his head at Luke, disgust dripping from his eyes. “Such a complete, pathetic—”
I’d had enough. Honestly, if I never heard one more horrible comment from some piece-of-shit parent again, I would die a happy person. Some people were such wastes of space.
I stomped from the locker room as loud as possible, drawing their attention. With a warning in his eyes, Luke stepped forward like he wanted to intercept me before I reached his father, but I swerved around him and planted myself directly in front of Mr. Aultstriver. I smiled sweetly, smiled so big that my teeth dried in the stiff air of the gym.
“You must be Mr. Aultstriver! I’m Ollie, you know, the worthless orphan murderer. I would say it’s real nice to meet you,” I drawled, “but you sound like a real fucking asshole.”
I surprised myself, but I wasn’t going to cower in front of this guy. The silence after my introduction was so resounding that I imagined I heard the dust percolating up in the air-conditioning unit. Luke stared at me with complete shock; it was the most animated I’d seen his face in weeks. I couldn’t help it; I felt a little flutter in my stomach that I’d gotten such a raw reaction from him. If I was going to get smacked down onto the mats for saying that to his father, it was worth it to see the look on Luke’s face.
I wished he would let me see more of his true reactions. But then, that would mean we were friends, and I doubted Luke wanted that, even if he had defended me moments ago.
Mr. Aultstriver’s face turned redder and redder, but Luke recovered first from the shock. He snapped, “Do your laps, Ollie. We won’t be practicing today.”
“But tomorrow—”
“That’s enough.” Luke’s harshness set me back on my heels, but when he cut his eyes to his father, who was still fuming mad, I realized he wanted me out of the line of fire. “Go run,” he softly added, fingers skimming against my back to steer me forward and away.
* * *
That evening, a thick group of students clustered around our table to eat dinner. After my stunt with Jolene, Sunny and I had taken her spot as queen bee of the first-years. Not that I cared, but I was happy to see Sunny enjoying having more friends and not being called the Cowardly Lyon anymore.
The students around us chatted about their favorite topic of late: Fields, which was right before winter break, almost a month away. All the first-years had to pass the semester’s final written exams in all their classes followed by a physical examination called Fields. No one knew exactly what Fields consisted of or how we would be tested during it because the older students liked to keep secrets from the first-years.
Rite of passage or some bullshit.
I didn’t join in on the gossip about Fields. Once I got through my evaluation tomorrow, I would worry about Fields. Until then, I only thought about passing Dean’s test and gaining Luke’s approval.
My thoughts kept drifting back to the conversation I’d overheard in the gym. Luckily, Sunny carried the constant chatter from the start of the dinner to the end, and when we finally headed back to the dorms, I sighed in relief, ready to be by myself.
An hour later, surrounded by silence and alone in my room, I hadn’t gotten any studying done. And I wouldn’t. Not until I talked to Luke. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I knew I needed to say something. I needed, like really needed, him to understand I wasn’t some naive brat with a super-hero complex, especially after he’d defended me to his father. I wanted him to see I was a real person with a past horribly similar to his own.
I needed his approval. And I hated that.
I slammed my Weapons textbook closed and checked the clock. I had plenty of time before curfew to make it to the hunters’ barracks, which stood separate from the students’ dorms, and tell him my side of the story.
The Death Dome thumped with talking, music, and general chaos. I made my way through the students shouting back and forth to each other on the third level and down the stairs to the entry, where I swiped my card and silently slipped outside. The silence was like a soothing balm after the cacophony of the Death Dome, and I picked my way across the courtyard in relative peace as I headed toward the row of apartments across from the general store.
The barracks’ front door was similar to my cell door, but without a lock. The hunters were free to go and come as they pleased. Not wanting to be seen, I hurried down the cramped, narrow hall that smelled like sweaty men, checking the doors for any sign of the apartment that belonged to Luke. I got lucky. His running shoes—muddy from his morning run—sat outside his door.
I knocked. Nothing. Light streamed out from beneath his door. When I knocked again and got no answer, I tried the doorknob and found it unlocked. I twisted the knob, feeling nervous, which was almost as horrible as needing Luke’s approval. Before I backed down, I swung the door open and stepped inside.
Luke sat on his bed, earphones in his ear, jamming out to screaming rock music. With a jolt of shock, he jerked to his feet, hand clenching around a slender, gleaming knife.
Blood ran thick down his left forearm from deep cuts he’d made in his flesh.
“What the ever-loving fuck?” I spat, feeling instantly sick to my stomach.
“Ollie!” He held his arm out to the side, where it dripped leaky tears of blood onto the floor, the knife like a bomb in his hand. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
I snarled in disgust. It couldn’t be anything else. I backed out of his door and went to close it behind me, but he moved too quickly.
Luke grabbed me from behind, snagging my waist with one arm and pulling me back inside. He slammed the door shut. I turned around, forcing him to step back, and crossed my arms over my chest. “You have two seconds to let me out of here before I rip off your other arm.”
Luke wasn’t impressed by my threats. “Let me explain before you throw your tantrum.”
“I wasn’t going to throw a tantrum.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“You’ve said that already.”
“I’m . . .”
Luke obviously struggled to explain, and I had a horrible thought. When he’d sent me to go run before his father exploded, had he taken my place in the line of fire? Even as I thought it, I knew the answer: of course he had. But what had I abandoned him to? “This isn’t about your father, is it? Because of the stuff he said? Luke—”
“No,” he said quickly, cutting me off. He shook his head, jaw clenching. “It’s not him. I don’t care what he says.”
I watched him closely, and he didn’t shift under my gaze. He stared back at me, his green eyes so bright and lively in stark contrast to his perfectly schooled neutral expression.
“Then why?”
Luke took so long to answer, little lines forming between his thick, dark brows, that I answered my own question. A sound of disgust came up my throat. I backed to the door,
my hand on the knob, which made Luke flinch, his hand twitching like he wanted to reach for me.
“Are you training?” The words were an accusation. “Cutting yourself to school your reaction to pain?”
My disgust quickly morphed to a slowly building panic. Did Fear University really encourage its students and hunters to cut? My stomach rolled and I had visions of basements and freshly dug graves.
“When I say that you’re sort of right, don’t freak out, okay?”
My jaw dropped open. I turned to open the door, ready to escape, but Luke closed his massive hand around mine and the doorknob. His chest pressed against my back. This was the closest we’d ever been aside from when he’d stabbed me. I growled in warning, just in case he was getting stabby ideas again.
“Not all the hunters cut, okay?” His breath warmed the back of my neck. “Only some of us do. It’s an old method of teaching pain management. The school doesn’t condone it anymore.”
Slowly I turned back around, but Luke didn’t back away this time like I’d expected. “You mean, this,” I glared down at his arms, “was actually a thing once?”
“The cutting is an old-school method that my father taught—”
“You’re father,” I whispered, “is a jackass.”
The corner of Luke’s mouth twitched ever so slightly, and I wondered if he was about to smile. His chest brushed against mine with every exhale, making the hairs along my arms stand on end. “He is. But some families still use the cutting method to teach pain management. I’ve done it since I was eleven.”
I flinched at his words. His father had taught Luke to cut, maybe even held the blade the first few times. “That’s awful.”
“Hatter had it worse. His parents gave him ’swang saliva when he screamed too loudly from the cuts.” My jaw dropped open. Instantly, Luke looked like he wanted to rip his words out of the air. With a grimace, he continued. “It’s how some of us learn, Ollie. I’m not trying to hurt myself.”
“But you are hurting yourself! Shit, Luke. Look at your arms. You were bleeding all over the place.”
Luke didn’t look anywhere but my eyes. I’d come over here to explain myself to him, but he was the one trying to make me understand, as if he valued my opinion of him as much as I’d come to value his.
“We’re not like you. We have to learn how to deal with pain, learn to condition our reaction to it, our fear of it. This way,” he said, holding up his arm, “is an old-school method that I like to use every now and then to keep myself sharp.”
“Christ, Luke. That’s what I came to tell you. You the wrong idea about me. I’m not some unfeeling robot.” I swallowed and looked away. This was what I came to tell him, I just didn’t imagine it would be so hard. “Even as much as I would like to be sometimes.”
“The foster brother?” Luke asked softly, understanding in his eyes. How much had Dean told him about my past?
I clenched my arms tighter until I knew I would have bruises. My head screamed at me to shut the hell up, but my mouth didn’t listen. I wanted him to understand me, to understand the bad parts. I nodded.
Luke hesitated a moment, clearly thinking something over before he said, “I want to show you something. Will you come with me?”
“Okay,” I said, not having to think that long on it.
After hastily bandaging his arm, he took us back into the main building and down the winding staircase to the ward, which was silent aside from the soft whirring and clicking of machines. Surprising me, we went another level below the school’s hospital and subterranean garage. We came to a steel door with a large skull and cross-bone sign on it reading “Laboratory: Authorized Personnel Only.” With a swipe of his card, Luke let us inside.
Instantly, the scent of disinfectant washed over me. Above us, power-saving lights flipped on as we walked inside. Tools of every type, sleek computers, vented booths, unnameable machines, and countless microscopes filled every inch of room, all if it white and clean and far more technologically advanced than the rest of the prison ever hoped to be.
“This way.” Luke went into another room off to the side, which I assumed was a broom closet. Wrong. Inside, the sounds of a hundred scurrying feet accompanied the strong musky smell of animals. Luke flipped on the lights, and I gasped.
Cages upon cages of rats lined the back wall from floor to ceiling, spanning the entire length of the room, which stretched out much longer than I’d originally thought. A quick guess put the rats at a little over five hundred. They could only be down here for one reason.
Turning, I glared at Luke. “You really think that bringing me down here to show me the school’s freaking animal testing lab will make me feel any better about what you do to yourself?”
“I want to explain why.”
“And you’re going to explain that using tortured rats?”
“Yes.” Luke gave me a look that clearly meant to zip it. “These rats are constantly being taught to fear a stimuli and then conditioned to overcome that fear. Because of this lab and these rats, the school has learned much more progressive ways of teaching fear conditioning and pain management. We don’t have to do the cutting techniques anymore.”
I squinted at him, reluctantly curious. “How do the rats help teach people?”
“During testing, a bell is rung in the rat’s cage. Right after the sound, the animals receive a small shock.” At my narrowed eyes, Luke hurried on to explain. “It doesn’t hurt them. Much. But they learn to fear the bell because they know they will be shocked right after. It’s a fear stimulus. Once they are truly afraid, we slowly begin teaching them not to be afraid of the bell by not shocking them every time. They learn to overcome their fear. The techs down here monitor the rats’ brain activity during the testing, and we use it to train the third-year students who specialize in hunting during their fear conditioning classes.”
His father had mentioned fear conditioning. My eyes went back to the little rats scurrying around, their pink noses twitching at us. “Luke,” I said quietly, “did your father do this to you?”
“Fear University does not do this to people. Nor do they practice cutting as a method for fear conditioning anymore.”
He sounded like he was reading from a brochure and it scared me. “That doesn’t answer my question. Did he shock you like you were some lab rat?”
“My father,” Luke said, turning away from me, “and his training methods are not typical, but they’re effective.”
My stomach bottomed out, horror spreading through my bones and into the tips of my fingers. Had Hatter received the same kind of abuse too? “Luke,” I whispered, wanting nothing more than to hug him.
He ignored me, half his face lost to shadow. “I brought you down here because I wanted you to see that a little bit of fear is good. Ollie, you could be a talented hunter. You’re strong and smart and terrifyingly well equipped to handle this life for a civilian. But that’s exactly what scares me the most. Dean would do anything to have an entire army like you, but this war isn’t right for civvies. It takes a specially crafted hunter to kill ’swangs. Teaching civvies to not fear pain or death would create another kind of monster. Humans are meant to be afraid.”
His words surprised me, but they gave me a shot of pleasure straight through to my stomach. He didn’t hate me because I was a civvie, he was worried for me. “Would it be so bad if Dean had an army of hunters like me?”
Luke led me out of the rat hotel and closed the door tightly behind us. He spoke so quietly that I didn’t know if I’d heard him right at first. “Yes. It would.”
“You don’t trust him.” It wasn’t a question, because Luke’s eyes held answer enough for me. For some reason, he didn’t like Dean. The blood between the Aultstrivers and Dean Bogrov was of the bad sort. “That’s why you were scared when you brought me here. Why you tried to warn me away.”
“I trust the man Dean used to be, but sometimes I don’t trust how far he will go to win this war.”
“You ca
n go too far to win? But the guy lost his wife to a ’swang. Seems like a pretty good reason to be devoted.”
“We’ve all lost people. It’s so common and familiar it hardly affects us, much less drives us.”
I blinked, surprised by his cold remark as he headed toward the lab’s front door. I took a moment to look around the lab before we left. Now that I wasn’t overwhelmed by all the equipment, I saw another large, steel door with a red ‘x’ across it on the opposite side of the room. “What’s that?”
“That,” Luke said, and I knew the distrusting look was back in his eyes by the sound of his voice, “is the west wing side of the lab. No one is allowed in there but very, very high-ranking members of the university. I’ve never been inside.”
“Your father has?” I guessed.
Luke nodded. “Whatever is on the other side of that door worries me.”
“Because you like fear.”
“Because I think Dean is far too focused on making it easy for us to not be afraid or feel pain. It shouldn’t be easy. Fighting ’swangs is meant to be hard.”
“And I’m the easy way out,” I said, drawing Luke’s attention, which he leveled on me with all his dark, focused glory.
“War should never be easy.”
“But you can go too far to win it.”
“Of course,” Luke said, completely convinced in his convictions of honor and duty. Peg had been right about him being the old-school, old-family type. I marveled at his ability to have that devout mindset after all his father had put him through.
“So where does that leave me?”
Luke held the lab door open for me, and I walked out with one more glance at the west side’s door. “Don’t worry,” he said, sealing the door shut, “I don’t intend on making it easy for you. When we’re done training, no one will remember you can’t feel pain. You’ll just be a good, lethal hunter. You’ll be so normal, Dean will forget all about you.”
In the darkness of the stairwell, I sensed Luke beside me, his breathing slow and steady. I liked the way he felt, solid and reassuring, unyielding with a current of violence like electricity pulsing beneath his skin. “Will you forget about me if you’re not training me anymore?”
