Chapter 23

 

ONE WORD THAT strikes fear into the hearts of students everywhere . . . midterms. I thought the mental institution during a full moon was something else, but boy, had I been in for a shock.

Teenage hormones, exam pressure, and the extra spiciness that a place like Caprock threw in made them all crazy. So crazy that fights broke out at random, kids hobbled around with injuries. It was strange to watch them all. The silent march they did between classes. How much they telegraphed their disputes, their worries, their terror just through body movements. The look in their eyes was more telling. You could see who was thriving, who was breaking, and who had an inbuilt drive for survival.

And survival it was. Frei hadn’t pulled any punches when I’d asked her over dinner one night.

“Why are the kids so worried? I don’t get it. So they fail an exam or two.” I stabbed at my food. I’d been bombarded with hysterics and drama all week. I didn’t know what was going on with my group.

“The rumors start at this point. Jones and Sawyer will be instigating it.” Frei was as unmoved as always.

“Rumors?”

Frei looked up from her food. “What happens to the ones who fail. The stories get wilder. You’ve seen the way the whispers work, how damaging they are.”

I had. In Oppidum I’d felt the full brunt. “But it’s just lies, right?” I pushed my food around my plate. It was bothering me. I wanted to be able to tell my group it was nonsense.

Frei finished up her dinner and put her plate in the sink. I grabbed her arm as she passed by.

“It is all lies . . . right?”

She sighed. “No.”

No? I gripped her tighter with the panic. “What happens to them?”

Frei removed my hand from her arm and squeezed it. Her eyes were gentle. She knew I cared for the students. I couldn’t hide it. “They are deemed to have no value and are sold.”

That made no sense.

“What?”

“Sold to people who will use them for whatever use they can find.” Frei’s voice held a sadness that could only come from witnessing such a thing. “Any use.”

The idea shook me. I tried to hide it but I started to pay more attention to the way the students interacted with each other. Helpless to do anything but look on. Helpless but in making sure my group passed. It was all I could do.

The closer the midterms got, the more the atmosphere changed. That stillness filled the air. That hanging. That collective holding of breath as summer storms rolled through.

My group broke up into social clicks. Jessie and Miroslav always together. The other girls huddled close to one another or wide apart, depending on where they were in their friend-to-foe cycle. Jed and his boys strutted along with arrogance but I didn’t miss a couple of well-placed shoves when someone came too close to Jessie, the girls, or Miroslav.

Something in Jed had started to change. It was for the better. They would need him.

The gold group took a lot of hits. They were being targeted with the full anger of teenage rage. Most of the time it was by the kids in Jones’s and Sawyer’s groups. The influence of the teachers was starting to tell.

It was like they had joined forces and were hunting the others. A pecking order in place, a need for the lowest to prove themselves and that rage was growing inside them. To survive they wanted to get rid of any competition. The ringleaders would then turn on the ones beneath them. I could see it. I’d seen it inside. I had no idea how I could stop it escalating.

Frei’s group stayed away from everyone else and each other. There was a sense of unease that filled me when I watched them. I caught Frei watching each of them as if making mental notes. She watched all the students with a look in her eyes I couldn’t understand. Maybe memories of when she was here as a student. Whatever it was, it seemed laced with longing and regret.

I felt lucky not to have my burdens in full. I couldn’t imagine wandering around in a haze of angst, terror. I wouldn’t have coped with feeling the weight of teenage crushes, the panic to fit in, and that creeping sense of fear. I often caught myself looking for that cloud. Looking for the trailing suckers that fed off the victims below.

Here in Caprock, there was no escape. They never left the academy. Those who had families never went home. It was prison in all but name. The guards in huts posted around were meant to be security. I hadn’t missed the rifle lockers. I hadn’t missed the quick flick of a hand when a student got too close. They were sharks circling as if they wanted to pick off any weak ones.

Jäger scared even them.

At his height, he towered over most of the students but the way they scattered when he was near gave me goose bumps. I’d seen him drag a boy by the scruff up to his office once or twice but they’d always returned.

They didn’t re-offend.

It made me thankful I had Frei to protect me. Living with her hadn’t been the tense, awkward experience I was expecting. She made everything so easy. She’d started teaching me how to cook and she was a more patient teacher when folks weren’t watching.

I found it something to look forward to. I’d go back to the villa after classes and we’d have dinner. Frei would work while I read my way through the library.

We always did so in silence, so each night, I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time. It was routine. I was in a prison environment and that made me feel more in control.

Renee had always said I was institutionalized.

I hoped that control fed through to my group as I wandered over to the gym. It was assessment day. Harrison and a couple of visitors would be monitoring. Frei had told me the evening before that Huber would be one of them.

I’d had three months to get my group buff and it was starting to show. Miroslav had worked real hard and looked like a different guy. A lot of the girls had noticed too, which made me roll my eyes at the giggling from the corner.

“Listen up,” I said, hoping to cut the conversation I didn’t want to hear. “You know the drill today. It ain’t gonna be easy to impress but it’s important that you do.”

One of the gigglers, Leigh-Anne, raised her hand, long nails on show.

“Shoot.”

“Why?” She asked.

I folded my arms at her. She was a tricky one at the best of times. She had a tendency not to take her medication so I had to watch her. She could fit at any time. “Why what?”

“Why do we have to impress?”

How did I get out of this one?

“Simple,” I said it like I knew. “It makes me look good.”

That brought a chuckle of appreciation. They did that a lot. I waited for it to calm as it was laced with an edge of hysteria.

“The other thing is that I think you’re worth something.” There went my mean facade. “Everyone in this place treats you real bad. I seen it and I was like you were once.” I held onto my arms, hoping I could cover the splurge of truth. “It took me a long time to figure out I was okay with being different.”

All eyes were fixed on me, opened and focused. I felt the need to help them. If any failed, they’d be taken off someplace and sold. I didn’t what none of them suffering that.

“Being you ain’t ever gonna be easy. The folks out there won’t ever get you. What I want them to know is that different can be better.”

Their gazes grew more intense and I smiled.

“So make me look good, sure, but most of all make yourselves feel it.”

Jed stuck his hand up. He was a pain in the butt but he was growing on me. “You read that on a cereal box?”

The class joker. Titters and whispers rippled through the group.

“You want to run the track, twice, before we start?”

He dropped his hand with a deep scowl on his face. The kind only teenagers could perfect.

“Didn’t think so.”

Harrison tottered in and I turned, feeling the group’s eyes on me and my own nerves rattle around inside me. Harrison was flanked by two men. One was bald. His gray shirt strained over his biceps. He had pock marks on his cheeks, deep inset eyes with a greedy glint in them.

The other guy was sinewy. His gray hair wavy but styled, white at the temples. He wore a light gray suit and a sharp white shirt underneath. His low brow shaded piercing blue eyes. Everything about him was sharp.

I didn’t know which one Huber was but both looked dangerous. It once again made me marvel at Frei’s ability to survive.

“This is Samson,” Harrison said. She held a tablet in her hand with a stylus pen poised over it. “She is head of physical education.” She motioned to baldy. “This is Mr. Crespo.” She motioned to sharp eyes. “And this is Mr. Huber.”

So sharp eyes was Huber. Go figure. I nodded to them, not knowing how I should greet Huber.

His eyes twinkled as he flicked his gaze over me.

“Let’s see how many we can salvage,” Harrison said in such a dismissive manner that I scowled.

If she saw it, she didn’t acknowledge it, and turned to the kids. I sat down next to Huber, Crespo, and prayed that my group pulled off a miracle.

 

AS HARRISON TOOK us outside and ran each kid through a vigorous fitness test, Huber guided me away from the others. “My girl says you’ve done a good job with what you have.”

The way he talked about Frei was paternal. “I learned from her.”

He kept his eyes on the proceedings. Harrison was demanding more and more from each kid who went up. “She’s always been a good teacher. She speaks highly of you.”

She did? I straightened my shoulders at that. “Anyone who knows her would feel the same way about her.”

Huber’s face didn’t change expression from the mild interest in proceedings but something flickered across his eyes. “If they knew she was running wild . . .” His jaw flexed. “That I’d allowed her to do so . . .”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what he was fishing for.

“She says you’re unique.” His eyes met mine with an odd look that I couldn’t read. “Shame, that you never came my way.”

So he could sell me? Did he want to be flattened? “Er . . . thanks?”

He smiled. “It’s a compliment. Take it.”

And that sounded like an order.

“She said they are sold for their uses?” I felt sick. I felt like crying. I felt like I needed to grab the kids and rescue them.

“If she didn’t tell you, neither will I. It’s better you don’t know.”

He was so calm about it all. Crespo was eying each kid like they were lunch. Harrison was more and more pronounced in her desire to fail them. How could they do it? How could they act like these people were worth nothing?

“You are all sick bastards, do you know that?” I couldn’t hold it in, and I was ready for Nan to rattle me for cussing but it hurt. It hurt to watch the terror. It hurt to watch the lack of emotion these people had.

“I didn’t make the system,” he said as if I hadn’t just insulted him. “I just work in it.”

“It don’t matter. You let this happen.”

Huber met my eyes. “I never pretended I didn’t. It’s business and she’s right.”

“About what?”

Harrison’s scowl grew deeper as she challenged each kid. They were more than a match for her test. I’d made sure of it. They could do it several times and still be ready to go again. My group were not being sold.

I tensed as next up and last in line was Miroslav.

“She is right to speak highly of you.” He wandered to Crespo who looked as unhappy as Harrison.

I held my breath as Miroslav began his test. I had rigged it so that everyone performed the test sitting down. If he didn’t stand, he’d be safe.

“Nan, if you can hear me, help them,” I whispered up to the sky, following it up with a silent prayer. The sun overhead made the temperature soar. Miroslav’s condition didn’t do so well in the heat.

He needed help. Help from somebody who cared.

I leaned against the wall, powerless to do anything but watch. Miroslav started off great. He sipped his water as much as possible. It had salts and minerals in it. It tasted foul but Frei had come up with it and he’d improved with it.

I found it hard to join up what I knew of Huber, his manner and the way he treated Frei, to the cold businesslike way he talked.

He seemed to have accepted the way things were but then he wasn’t the one being sold.

Miroslav finished the test. He wobbled but he’d managed it. Harrison looked ready to spit feathers. I held my breath as a sly smile touched her lips.

“You will stand as we run through the results.”

My heart sank.

The heat made me feel tired. Miroslav couldn’t do it.

“Nan, please?” I slammed shut my eyes and said a prayer up to the Big Guy. It needed a miracle.

My group stood in the beating sun. Miroslav stumbled to his feet and joined them. My heart started to pound in my chest. I knew it was from him. My legs were shaking.

I glanced up to the sky and “ask and you will receive” popped into my head.

I shut my eyes and did just that. In fact I begged.

My heart got faster. Harrison was a quarter through reading out. She was taking it real slow. I opened my eyes. Miroslav’s gaze locked on mine.

He was scared.

I could feel his fear pulsing through me. I was terrified for him. My knees creaked like they’d buckle.

“Hold on,” I mouthed to him. “Hold on.”

His shoulders rose and fell as his breathing got more labored. My chest ached. Any second he’d have to bend over. His body couldn’t hold him up.

Harrison glanced over at Crespo with a snide smile.

I kept my eyes locked on Miroslav. I didn’t care if I had to take on the entire school. I couldn’t watch him be dragged away. I couldn’t.

Miroslav’s eyes flickered. My heart hammered so hard that I could see my t-shirt jumping with it.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please help him.”

Miroslav’s sweat trickled down his nose. I held my breath.

He was gonna drop.

His face contorted.

No . . .

Jed moved. He shoved his arm underneath Miroslav’s shoulder. I could almost hear him whisper as he smiled at him. “I got you.”

Ryan went to Miroslav’s other side, tucked an arm under his free shoulder. He smiled at Miroslav then turned to the front. Harrison glared at him but Ryan puffed out his chest. His resolute courage pulsed from him, I could almost feel them. Three boys side by side not buckling in spite of the snarl from Crespo, the scowl on Harrison’s face. They weren’t letting him fail.

Jed looked at me and nodded. He wasn’t letting go.

Jessie hurried forward and linked arms with Jed. Leigh-Anne followed joining Ryan, Jane, then Ian, then Ty. A silent order seemed to pass down the line. Each one linked arms with the next. Every kid defiant, every one of them making the choice to stand firm.

It looked like a show of unity, of teamwork but they were saving Miroslav’s life . . .

And it felt like they knew it.

I could do nothing but nod back, mute with tears. They were taking care of who needed them most. 

Unity, spirit, strength.

These kids were something else. Every one of them was a hero.

Harrison and Crespo exchanged a look.

Huber’s lips twitched, his eyes glinted with amusement. “I don’t look good with sunburn, Ms. Harrison. Hurry it up.”

She narrowed her eyes at the kids, then turned to her tablet. She finished the list, announced they passed, and stomped off. She didn’t so much as utter a word my way as Crespo followed on behind her.

Huber turned and nodded to me before following.

I met Jed’s eyes, fighting the urge to run over and hug him half to death.

“Miss Samson, he’s gonna hit the deck if we let him go.”

Miroslav’s heart hammered away, mine in chorus. I strode over and grabbed Miroslav’s other arm from a wheezing Ryan. Jed and I carried him inside. The girls brought over water and we lay him down.

“You did real good,” I whispered to Jed as he rammed his hands in his pockets. “Real good.”

Miroslav’s heart started to slow as he lay still.

Jed shrugged. “He helps me with my homework. Him and Jessie do so much for us. Least I could do.”

I met his eyes, tapping Ryan’s pocket to tell him to take his pump. “I’m proud of you. All of you.” My voice was raw with relief, emotion, and joy.

“We make you look good?” Leigh-Anne chirped at me from over her water bottle.

“Good? You just made me look like a genius.” That made me laugh. “Get Miroslav back to the dorm. Take the rest of the day off.”

They all looked at each other. I was sure they’d never heard an order like that before. With all their medical issues, it was amazing they’d passed let alone held up to the heat and held on for Miroslav. They all needed the rest.

“You want to spend a beautiful sunny day sweating in a gym?”

Lots of head shakes, confusion, whispers.

“You earned some time to relax. I mean it. Go be sixteen.” I met Jed’s eyes. “Without making me regret it.”

Ty wheeled the chair over as I pulled a shaking Miroslav up and placed him on it. “You heard the lady.”

“What do we do if anyone catches us?” Jessie chewed on her nails.

“You tell them if they got a problem, they can come and see me.” I nodded at the growing number of excited smiles. “Now get, before I change my mind.”

“Yes, Miss Samson.”

Now they sounded like they were in the military. Frei would have been proud of that. I watched them go, like a family, like a team and my heart lifted.

I liked these kids.

I liked them a lot.

Jed had been a hero today. He’d been a leader. 

I smiled up at the sky, thanking the Big Guy for listening. “When he can’t help, he sends somebody else” is what Mrs. Stein had always said.

Technically, she was on about the fact he would know I was up to no good graffiti-ing her café. Right now, it had gained new meaning.

I smiled and wandered back to the villa. If Huber was here, Frei would need my support. Least I could do was cook up a great dinner.