by Sophie Davis
With Gracia still recovering from her procedures, the Dame’s morning announcements had indicated that Suzu would be pulling double duty as captain of both the 4P girls and 2P girls.
Those farthest from Suzu continued to fuel the rumor mill with all sorts of theories about what would come of the cadets who’d been apprehended, mixed in with chatter about whether Kev Leon was really as good-looking up close. Once they were safely out of the conversations, Ritchie leaned closer to Cressa.
“Only Lyla was caught. Shyla got away,” she muttered, barely moving her lips.
“Then why isn’t she here?” Daphne hissed, leaning across Cressa to take part in the conversation.
“They took her to interrogation,” Ritchie whispered. She shot Suzu a glance to make sure the older girl wasn’t paying attention to them. “Shyla made it back to her room before Leslie checked in, but Madame Gillis didn’t believe she didn’t know her twin had snuck out. She might be in just as much trouble as Lyla.”
Wracked with guilt, Cressa glanced across the table at Nydia. She felt horrible about nearly getting her roommate in trouble. At least Madame Gillis and Leslie had left Nydia alone, once Cressa turned up in the bathroom.
When she finally made it back to her room from med bay, Cressa had apologized profusely for involving her. But Nydia had refused to look at her, let alone speak to her.
“Do you know who else was caught?” Cressa whispered.
Ritchie shook her head. “No. I’m guessing we’ll find out soon, though, since we have lessons with the boys today. Once we see who isn’t there, we’ll know.” Again, her eyes flitted to Suzu before she continued. “How did you guys get away?”
Daphne opened her mouth to answer, but Cressa quickly cut her off. “We left not long after you did. I started to feel sick, and Daphne went with me, to make sure I was okay. We were already back on the floor before the others were detected.”
Cressa shot the younger girl a pointed look, silently begging her to go along with the story. Ritchie didn’t know that Kev was wandering around the tunnels right along with the rest of them, and she hoped to keep it that way. Not only for his sake, but for theirs as well. At the moment, Ritchie was acting more like a coconspirator than a potential tattletale. If she got word about Kev aiding their escape, jealousy might make her change her tune.
“Yeah, guess we dodged a bullet, huh?” Daphne quickly agreed.
“Let’s make a pact,” Ritchie said seriously. “I won’t breathe a word about you guys, if you don’t say a word about me. Even if we’re found out, we won’t narc on each other. Deal?”
“Deal,” Cressa and Daphne echoed.
It wasn’t a difficult decision; Cressa had no intention of narcing on anyone.
Suzu stood and cleared her throat, effectively attracting the attention of the table.
“4Ps, you all have a combat training session this morning, followed by refresher courses on telekinesis and light manipulation. Rollings, Jersey, Zinc, and Wickersham—after lunch, you all will be taking your next advancement exams.” She paused and turned her attention to the 2Ps. “Phase Two cadets, I will be observing your classes today. You also have a telekinesis refresher this morning. This afternoon, Madame Brink will be holding one-on-one sessions with each of you, focusing on invisibility. Beaumont, you are the only 2P taking an advancement exam today, which is scheduled for late this afternoon.”
Startled by the news, Daphne dropped her fork on her plate with clang.
“I’m guessing you didn’t know?” Cressa asked. “Something tells me you’ll pass, no problem.”
She was happy for Daphne. Being so young while advancing so quickly was truly impressive. But Cressa was saddened by the thought of losing her new friend. Defying gravity to circumvent a broken neck and spiriting through secret passageways with an allegedly dead movie star had a way of bonding people.
Without Daphne, Cressa didn’t have a lot of options for friendship among the 2Ps. She was having a hard time getting a read on Ritchie, and hadn’t yet decided if she could be trusted. Nydia wasn’t speaking to her. And Shyla Towers probably hated her for escaping the guards. All in all, it would be a lonely phase sans the little canary.
“Don’t worry,” Daphne said to Cressa with a wink. “I don’t plan on passing. Being a 2P just got a whole lot more interesting.”
Though she knew she should dissuade Daphne from failing on purpose, Cressa grinned. “Yeah it did,” she replied.
The morning lesson with Madame Gillis was a disaster. The class as a whole was too distracted by the previous night’s scandal to truly focus; everyone was speculating about which four were actually part of the nighttime adventure, and who was being held for questioning. Then there was Kev, whose presence was another obstacle vying for the instructor’s attention. Hoping to catch his eye, many of the 2P girls had gone to extraordinary lengths while primping that morning.
Makeup wasn’t permitted at the Institute, so girls like Ritchie had improvised in the short time between breakfast and lessons, creating eye shadows, blush, and lip coloring from soap, markers, and charcoal pencils. Even Daphne, Cressa noticed, had taken extra care when doing her hair, using something that made her typically messy mop of blonde appear sleek and smooth.
“He totally winked at me,” Cressa overheard a 2P named Claudette say to her practice partner, a cadet called Dina.
“You’re dreaming,” Dina retorted. “It was definitely me that he was looking at.”
Stifling a grin, Cressa tried to return her attention to the task at hand. She wanted so much to be above fawning over Kev, though he never strayed far from her thoughts.
Daphne, Cressa, and Ritchie were working together in one corner of the classroom, practicing telekinesis. Madame Gillis had provided several objects of varying weights for the cadets to move with their minds, and the trio was taking turns shuffling each to the other side of the table. The most challenging was a pitcher of water; they were supposed to transfer the contents to an empty container. So far, none of the three had successfully done so.
Kev—who, to Cressa’s immense relief, was evidently not one of the four cadets feeling the Dame’s wrath at that very moment—was practicing with a short, freckled boy not far away. Unable to help herself, Cressa kept looking over, hoping to catch his eye. She knew it was silly; with so many options, he would never think twice about Cressa. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a bond with the movie star after their daring escape the night before. The big question was whether he felt it too, or if he simply saw her as another face in the crowd fawning all over the movie industry’s golden boy.
“Stupid brats,” Ritchie muttered, glaring at Dina and Claudette. The pair was still arguing over the recipient of Kev’s offhand glance. Ritchie huffed, attempting to move the water from one pitcher to the other while her attention was on the other girls. The water leapt in an arc from the first pitcher, but flew past the target, landing in a puddle on the floor. “Crap. Daphne, get me some towels, will you?”
As Daphne started towards a cabinet across the room, the classroom door banged open. Shyla Towers stood in the doorway. Dark circles marred the thin skin beneath her listless brown eyes. Her ponytail was askew, and looked as though the hair hadn’t been brushed in days. She shuffled her feet when she walked, reminding Cressa of a zombie from an apocalypse movie.
Cressa, Daphne, and Ritchie stared, mouths agape, then shot uneasy glances at one another. Whatever had happened to Shyla, her condition didn’t bode well for the four cadets who were actually apprehended in the tunnels.
Did they find out about the rest of us? Cressa wondered, a shudder wracking her body. Did they search through her mind?
She eyed Daphne and Ritchie, both white as ghosts and visibly unnerved. Thankfully, the instructor’s attention was locked solely on Shyla.
“Cadet Towers, so kind of you to join us,” Madame Gillis said, pursing her lips in annoyance. “You are already behind. We are practicing telekinesis, you can work with Karmine
, Ritchie, and Beaumont.”
Shyla gave no audible response, but shuffled towards Cressa and Ritchie.
“Girls, help Cadet Towers get caught up,” Madame Gillis commanded.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cressa and Ritchie replied in unison.
Silently, Shyla joined them. Cressa waited until Madame Gillis went to scold a pair of girls who were using their powers to make pencils sword fight, then she rounded on Shyla.
“What happened to your sister? What about Hartley and the Jacobs? Are they PDs now? Does the Dame know we were down there?” she hissed.
Shyla stared blankly at Cressa, almost as if looking through her. After several long, uncomfortable moments, her lips started to move, but no sound came out.
“Don’t bother. It’ll be a while before she can think on her own,” a boy’s voice murmured.
When Cressa looked over, she was shocked to find Kev kneeling beside her, a small rubber ball in his hands. He held it up, and in a much louder voice added, “Sorry, guess I don’t know my own strength. It wasn’t supposed to travel so far.”
Using her hip, Cressa bumped the table holding their practice objects, causing a paperweight and three foam peanuts to fall to the floor. Bending down to retrieve them, she muttered, “What do you mean? What did they do to her?”
“Interrogation, by the looks of it,” he said, his glittering eyes looking impossibly sad.
“Right, but isn’t interrogation just a fancy word for questioning? I get that it can be traumatic and all, but she’s like the walking dead.”
Kev shook his head, eyes darting nervously towards Madame Gillis. The instructor was still berating the sword fighters.
“It’s a little more serious than just questioning,” he replied, leaning in so she could hear his whispered explanation. “I mean, they do ask questions. But you don’t answer verbally. They pull the thoughts from your head, so you can’t lie. It’s super intense, from what I understand. And, depending on the interrogator, whether he or she wants the experience to be pleasant or not, it can be painful. Just pray they don’t call you down next.”
Standing abruptly, Kev returned to his partner.
“Sorry about that,” he called over his shoulder. “Guess I just need more practice.”
Between her own lingering fatigue from the night before, Shyla’s return, and Kev’s ominous statement, Cressa found herself struggling to move even the lightest of the objects telekinetically. Suddenly, opening the heavy stone doors in the tunnels seemed like a cakewalk compared to levitating the virtually weightless foam peanuts.
By the end of the lesson, Madame Gillis was hoarse from yelling at the cadets for their failures. Cressa didn’t really blame her for being so upset; the cadets were making her look bad. Each one of them had passed their telekinesis exam, so this should have been an easy lesson. Instead, they were acting more like 1Ps on their first day.
The 2Ps invisibility training was an even bigger catastrophe. In addition to Madame Brink, the dedicated light manipulation instructor, Suzu, Leslie, and Gregor walked around the room to give one-on-one instruction to each cadet. Even though this was a solitary exercise, Cressa, Daphne, and Ritchie made sure to position themselves near each other, so that they could talk when no one was paying attention to them. Because they were impatiently waiting for Shyla to speak, they kept her close as well.
The zombie twin’s return had quickly shifted much of the focus off of Kev. A lot of girls still tried to catch his eye, but most of the not-so-discreet glances were directed at Shyla instead. Cressa noticed that Kev had reverted back to the lethargic shell she’d met in the elevator from med bay. He spoke only when someone addressed him directly, and barely made an effort to use his invisibility. Mostly, Kev stared off into space, his expression nearly identical to Shyla’s. Cressa found it alarming, yet intriguing.
What game is he playing? She wondered.
By lunch, the day had gone from atypical to downright weird. Instead of eating in the cafeteria, Suzu announced that all of the 2Ps would be eating in the girls’ common room. This was exceptionally strange, since boys were not allowed on the girls’ floors and vice-versa, aside from admins and 8P leaders, like Gregor.
With all of the 2Ps present, the room was packed. Cressa, Ritchie, Daphne, and Shyla were wedged in one corner of the room, near the swinging chair the little canary had been sitting in on Cressa’s first night on the floor. Kev was close by, though surrounded by a gaggle of admirers, both male and female. He kept his eyes locked on the floor, not responding to any of the attempts to engage him in conversation.
Cressa was nibbling a black olive—a food she hated, but that supposedly intensified light manipulation powers—when the Dame’s serene voice boomed via the school-wide comm system in the commons.
“Good afternoon to all of my cadets,” the Dame began, her voice as sweet as the sugary apple pie Cressa’s mother baked on holidays. “I hate that I must address you today with devastating news, particularly after the triumphs I shared with you yesterday. But four of your own have shown their true colors, proving themselves traitors to our cause.”
The Dame’s pronouncement was met with audible gasps and boos from the gathered cadets. Only Cressa and her friends seemed confused by the Dame’s version of events.
“Traitors?” Daphne hissed to the others. “What does she mean? We were just having a little fun. How does that make us traitors?”
“Just be quiet and listen,” Ritchie replied quietly, twisting a lock of her magenta hair around her forefinger.
“It’s going to be okay,” Cressa reassured the younger girl in a soft tone. “Just stay calm, and try to remember that they’re going to be watching our reactions.”
“As those of you in Phases Seven and Eight already know, many of your dismissed brethren choose to remain at the Institute instead of returning to their former lives. They may not be deserving of the title of Privileged, but they are still eager to help our cause.”
“They don’t bloody choose anything. Nobody chooses to live in a cage,” Daphne muttered.
Cressa agreed, but didn’t say anything. There was no way a kid like Damon Bizon chose his current life. No one would ever choose to be a practice dummy for inexperienced cadets to use their abilities on. The custom was inhumane, at best.
Shyla started to shake. The twin hadn’t said a coherent word since her return from interrogation, though she’d mumbled a number of nonsensical phrases like “Carrots before peas” and “Must not blink.” Cressa would’ve preferred Shyla’s continued silence; her random mutterings were unnerving.
Still, it wasn’t as though Cressa was without compassion. Shyla may have bolted in the tunnels, not caring about the fates of the others, but seeing her so broken made Cressa’s heart hurt. When Shyla began to openly cry, Cressa wrapped her arms around the twin’s shoulders, holding her as her body was wracked with sobs. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Shyla, knowing that Lyla was at the heartless mercy of the Dame.
Throughout the commons, cadets were cheering the Dame’s words. It was just like in the auditorium, where the Dame handed out news of murders like candy to children deprived of sugar for most of their lives. Given their reactions to the news, it seemed the children were eager for more of the good stuff. Cressa was sickened by their excitement.
“Now, for the identities of the traitors,” the Dame proclaimed, causing a hush to settle over the room. “First, Hartley Pinkerton.”
When the Dame said Hartley’s name, a holo-image of the tall boy appeared at the front of the room where a spot had been cleared. It appeared to be a live-feed, though she couldn’t tell where he was.
To Cressa, he looked drugged rather than scared; he had the same vacant expression as Shyla. Hartley wore a red jumpsuit with a five-digit number over his heart, which Cressa found quite alarming.
PDs wore green. Sources wore white. Who wore red?
“Lyla Towers,” the Dame proclaimed, all trace of faux pleasantness gone from her v
oice. Lyla’s holo-image materialized beside Hartley. Cressa saw no light in the windows to the twin’s soul, just like Hartley.
Shyla shrieked shrilly when her sister appeared. Without thinking, Cressa clamped her hand over her mouth.
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she chanted, trying to calm the other girl.
But she was too late. Leslie and Gregor swooped over and plucked Shyla from Cressa’s arms.
“Where are you taking her?” Cressa demanded, too shocked to care about being disrespectful.
“Not your concern,” Leslie replied crisply.
Cressa watched as the 8Ps dragged Shyla out of the commons, wishing there was something she could do to help her.
“Don’t,” Kev warned in her ear.
If nothing else, the movie star was stealthy. She hadn’t noticed him move to sit beside her, and Cressa jumped at the sound of his voice.
“You can’t help her, Cressa,” he said softly.
For a brief, embarrassing moment, all Cressa could think was, Kev Leon knows my name. Nonetheless, the severity of the situation yanked her out of her girlish excitement.
“Where are they taking her?” Cressa whispered back.
At the front of the room, holograms of both Jacobs had appeared beside Hartley and Lyla.
“For a sedative, if I had to guess. If she calms down and stops freaking out, they’ll probably bring her back. If not….” Kev shrugged. “Who knows?”
“These four individuals were caught attempting to kidnap former cadets,” the Dame announced. Cressa’s head snapped up at the words, drawing her attention back to the announcements.
Kidnap? She thought incredulously. What the hell is she talking about?
“The cadets they were targeting are those who have chosen to remain at the Institute to aid you in honing your new abilities,” the Dame continued. “While I believe they were under the misguided assumption that these former cadets were being held against their will, this crime is of the utmost seriousness. I assure you all, every one of these former cadets is well cared for, and enjoys every luxury the Institute has to offer. They have remained here because they, like you, are committed to a Privileged world.”
