Chapter 21

 

MY AFFECTION FOR my group of brats was severely tested over the next couple of days. They were hard working. I had eight in the year group that I was trying to save. I taught the younger ones, but like a proper gym teacher, but my eight were there all day every day.

Three of the girls in the group had decided to hit PMS all at the same time and were either screaming at each other or howling like babies. The “I can’t train because I’m having my period” made me push them harder.

They had no idea that I could feel things. Suffering was relative, I got that.

I’d been trapped in a concrete block full of hormonal women for over a decade. I knew what period pain was. These kids were just being whiners.

The boys, on the other hand, had become gladiatorial with each other. Every session, they were pushing to be better than the guy next to them. Whereas I was having to force a few of the girls to train, I was having to force a few of the boys to stop. Not surprising, Jed was one of them.

Aside from the wonders of teenage angst, there was Miroslav and Jessie.

Every teacher had their favorites. Something I’d hated as a kid but those two made me proud to watch them. Miroslav’s body was starting to adapt to his regime. His calves were building up and his confidence with it. He was lanky and skinny before but now he was starting to change. His shoulders were getting broader and he was beginning to look buff.

Jessie was a skinny little mouse with long, wiry brown hair. She had wide eyes that took in everything as if soaking it up for the first time. Her enthusiasm for learning was matched by her quiet, sweet demeanor. Now her asthma was under control, she seemed a lot calmer than before. I still kept in mind that Renee had said she might need to talk sometime but baby steps.

She was Miroslav’s best buddy from what I could tell. Jessie was razor sharp and I wondered why she’d been lumbered in my group.

After one session that left most of the group gasping for air, I spotted Miroslav loitering outside my office. Most of the kids had dragged their hinds back to the dorms to collapse, so seeing him of all people still standing caught my curiosity.

The closer I got, the more tension filled my body.

“You okay there?” I asked, checking that nobody was eavesdropping on me being nice.

Miroslav shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall. To anyone else it would be a show of attitude but to me it showed he felt faint. His fists would be balled up in his pockets, his legs crossed to stave off passing out.

“Come in and take a seat.” I led him by the arm into my office. I had one seat, so I sat him there and perched on the desk. “S’up?”

Miroslav tucked his long brown hair behind his ear. “It’s Jessie. I’m worried.”

“She getting picked on or somethin’?” Maybe this was what I’d need to talk to her about.

“She has a problem.”

I’d felt that. “She does?”

He studied his feminine hands. “She . . . I . . . we . . . They come to us for help.”

“Okay?”

Miroslav huffed out a breath. “We might have helped . . . too much.”

My stomach tightened. That sounded like a confession to something. My thought process powered through possibilities. Some were so terrible that I started to wonder about myself.

He pulled out a book from his pocket. I’d seen him with it a lot. He often wrote in it. He held it out to me.

I took it and thumbed through. It was full of sums and stuff. “You’re starting a secret geek club?”

Miroslav chuckled. His poster-boy grin slid into place. “It’s equations, answers to math problems, answers to all the tests.” He pointed to different pages. “We use it to help others when they are struggling. So they don’t . . .”

I knew he meant go missing. That sounded noble and sweet. “But?”

Miroslav sighed. “Jessie likes Kevin. He noticed how much she could do.” He tucked his hair back again. “He fooled her into helping him and showed it to the principal. They think it’s his work.”

Kevin was a scumbag. “Maybe the principal will know it ain’t his?”

Miroslav shook his head. “Jessie’s been doing his work for a long time. They think that he is a genius.” He met my eyes, his wide. “Those kind of kids go missing. The special ones get hurt. Jessie tried to warn Kevin but he won’t listen.”

Most would have been smarting that some doofus had stolen their limelight. “You’re worried ’bout her?”

Miroslav nodded. “Jessie saw her adopted parents being killed. She is terrified of armed men. It’s a weak point . . .”

What did that have to do with copied work? “You lost me.”

“She’s hurt, upset because of Kevin.” He took a breath. His heartbeat made mine speed up. He was panicking. Not good.

“Calm. I can help. Just tell me.” I kept my voice as soft as I could.

“Men visited yesterday. They were in the principal’s office. Jessie had to deliver a message . . . she saw them.” All said like this should illuminate me.

It didn’t.

“They had guns,” Miroslav blurted.

“Maybe they were just agents or cops?” They sounded like the cretins that Frei had described and were probably buyers.

“They did not look like police. Jessie kept saying that she needs to protect me . . . us.”

“What aren’t you saying?” My hand started to shake as I held onto the book. Miroslav was terrified.

“She doesn’t want to watch it happen again.”

I hated guns. I didn’t blame her.

“She is clever. Codes, entries, she has a brain for it. She writes it in her book.”

If it fell into the wrong hands that would not be good. It explained why Kevin, if he was the genius, had drawn Huber’s attention. Jessie was a potential thief.

“She burned her copies, right?”

Miroslav nodded. “But it is still in her head.”

“So she knows how to break in and she’s scared of guns . . .” A terrifying realization popped into my head. “And the men are here today?”

He bit his lip.

“Miroslav, where is she?”

“I begged her not to go. I was too scared to go after her.”

“You trust me with this?” I tapped the book. Frei needed it. She needed to know why.

“It is all up here.” He tapped his head.

“I’ll keep you safe, you hear me? I ain’t gonna let anything happen to you.”

Miroslav looked up at me with shock in his eyes. He gripped onto me and I hugged him. Dumb as it was, I felt connected to this kid as much as I had Jake Casey. Maybe it was some weird logic but I couldn’t fail him like I had Jake.

“You stay here. Drink water. Rest. I’ll go find her. She’s probably just hiding.”

He nodded.

I took the book, shoved it in my pocket, and strode to Frei’s building. I hoped Jessie was just hiding, but my instincts told me a whole other story.

 

I TRIED TO keep calm and not draw attention to myself as I entered the foyer of Frei’s building. Well, a collection of buildings more so, dotted all around a courtyard with a massive tower at the center.

I couldn’t figure out what the tower was for. It looked pointless. There was no door to get in. No reason for it to be there. It had no clock but it did have a platform up top. Seemed a strange thing to have but maybe it read the weather or something.

I could hear clanking and clattering so I followed the noise to a hall. Frei was hanging off a climbing wall, forcing her group to do it blindfolded, without ropes.

She rappelled down the second she saw me, her eyes intense. “What is it?”

I fought to find my voice. I didn’t know why I was exhausted. I hadn’t walked that far. My breath came in gasps. I groaned. Jessie had asthma.

“Deep breaths,” Frei whispered, handing me her water. “Don’t pass out on me.”

The way my vision was darkening, I wondered if she might be right. “Miroslav, Jessie . . . genius . . . thief.” I bent over at the waist, Jessie was doing something strenuous and it was sucking the air from me.

“They are geniuses or thieves?” Frei whispered, leading me to a chair in the corner. She kept one eye on her students and dropped to her haunches.

“Miroslav’s a genius . . . Jessie’s a thief and . . . a . . . genius.” I rubbed my clammy hand over my face. Sitting down weren’t helping. “Jessie is scared of guns.” I wobbled. Frei’s strong hands held me upright, the talc tickling my nose.

I glanced at her group all climbing the wall, hoping they couldn’t hear me wheezing.

“Too busy focusing,” she said, her fingers on my wrist as she took my pulse. “It’s too fast.”

“Feels like it.” I was expecting it to smash its way out of my chest like in the cartoons. “Said she wants to protect Miroslav from men with . . . guns.”

Frei’s blue eyes flicked to and fro as she thought. I tried concentrating on her, hoping I could stay conscious that way.

Her hair was impeccable as always, spiky, white blonde. Her strong arms prominent in her fitted sleeveless vest. It was gray with Caprock Academy on it and her red shorts were the smallest I’d ever seen. They hugged her powerful lean legs.

Climbing was good for you by the look of it.

“Anything else?” I met her piercing eyes. She’d been repeating herself because she was peering at me, forehead wrinkled up in concern.

“This.” I handed her the book Miroslav had given me.

“This is advanced . . .” She frowned. “Codes?”

“Door locks.” I sucked in the air, wishing it would help me feel better. “She wants to save him from getting hurt. They think clever kids go missing.”

Frei’s eyes widened. For a pale person, she glowed with a deep healthy tan. “You told—”

“No, I ain’t said nothing.”

Frei nodded. She got to her feet, glanced at her group, and pulled her phone from inside her shorts. I didn’t think she had the room in there.

She tapped her thumbs swiftly over the keys. “Letting Renee know. She’ll check her block.”

Dizziness washed over me and I gripped my head to stop it falling off. “Jessie ain’t in my block. I checked.”

She tapped the phone to her chin. “A couple of buyers are here today.”

I felt heat sear through my fingertips and dropped from the chair to the floor. Images shot before my eyes.

“Talk to me, what do you see?”

I gasped with the pain. “Rifle. Cold. High. Can’t breathe. Chest tight.” I felt the room sway. “Rope . . . harness . . . hurts . . . Fingers.”

Frei peered down at me. “Keep the kids inside.” She tapped away on her phone. “Stay indoors.”

I was on all fours, wondering how I could do anything useful as Frei powered toward the doorway. “Keep away from the windows.”

I glanced up at her. “Put armor on.”

Frei grinned. “She’s up the tower. The wind speed, that height, she’d have to be an elite sniper to hit me.”

It didn’t make me feel better. Bullets still hurt even if they were meant for the person they hit or not. “You won’t stand a chance.” I fought to right myself.

“You’d think you were worried, Samson.” Her smile was confused and lopsided as she cocked her head. “Just keep your side and I’ll go wrestle the genius with the gun.”

“I am worried,” I muttered after her. I stared up at the tower through the window. I hoped Jessie was intelligent enough not to fire, to realize that it was dumb letting off rounds in a place full of people.

Whatever the intention.