THE SOLDIER HURRIED FORT TO the dorm, then shoved him inside and slammed the door behind him. All the boys turned to look at Fort, but for once, he didn’t feel embarrassed by all the attention. Almost dying seemed to have put his priorities in order.
“There was . . . something in the officers’ mess,” he said quietly. “Something from . . . I don’t know, another dimension or something. It wasn’t human, whatever it was. I think the school was just attacked.”
“What are you talking about?” a boy Fort didn’t recognize asked. “There wasn’t an attack. There are alarms all over the base that would have gone off.”
“I don’t know what it was,” Fort said, trying and failing to slow his heart back to a normal speed. “It was wearing some kind of armor, I think, but it had tentacles, and it spoke in our heads.”
Someone snorted nearby, and Fort turned to find Bryce sitting on the bed next to his. Or was it Blaine? He couldn’t even begin to remember at this moment which was correct.
“Is this what you’re going to do for attention?” Blaine asked. “Since you’re done getting pitied for the D.C. attack, now it’s time to make up another one?”
Anger coursed through Fort, and he slowly turned to face the Destruction student, just now noticing that Chad and Trey had moved to surround Fort. “I’m not making this up. I was just in the officers’ mess, and—”
“The officers’ mess? That’s where I usually have dinner too,” Chad said. “What did the tentacle monster do, order the steak?”
His two friends snickered, while the rest of the boys went back to whatever they were doing before Fort entered. Were they serious? Something supernatural had just appeared out of nowhere, and none of the boys even cared? Or did they really just not believe him?
“Must have been a really bad attack,” Trey said. “You know, considering how none of us heard anything, and no one’s outside bringing in the tanks. By the way, Band-Aid, who said you could take this cot?”
“Who cares about the bed?” Fort shouted. “I’m telling you—”
“This is our bunk,” Blaine said, sitting down on it and shoving Fort’s clothes off. “We use it as a spare. Pick another one, or we’ll see how long it takes to burn that uniform of yours.”
“The one you’re wearing,” said Trey.
“I think that was implied,” Blaine said, giving the other boy a dirty look.
Trey shrugged. “I could see it going either way. But it’s not very threatening if we’re just talking about lighting his extra ones on fire.”
Blaine sighed. “Did you get my point, Band-Aid? That we’re going to burn you and the uniform at the same—”
Fort plowed into the boy, crashing them both to the ground. Blaine landed hard, still surprised by the attack, and Fort punched him in the stomach, once, twice, a third time, rage overwhelming his mind. All the anxiety and betrayals and terror of the past day bubbled up inside him, and he let it out on the boy beneath him.
Someone yanked him backward, and he lashed out wildly but missed as Blaine rose unsteadily to his feet, one of his hands burning with a deep red flame.
“Hold him,” Blaine said to the other two, and strong hands grabbed Fort’s arms, pulling them behind his back painfully. “Of course you’d fight like some kind of . . . normal, without any magic.”
“At least I fight one-on-one!” Fort shouted, kicking out at Blaine, though his foot came up short.
The two boys behind him laughed, and Fort began to smell smoke. They dropped his arms, releasing him, and he quickly pulled his now-flaming shirt off and beat it on the ground to put the fire out. Trey and Chad now both had flames in their hands too, and all three surrounded him, leaving him nowhere to go.
“You chose that bed, Band-Aid,” Blaine said. “Now sleep in it.”
Even with the threat of being burned, part of Fort was still thrilled to have an excuse to fight again, to let his anger out. And it wasn’t like these boys didn’t deserve it. But a voice that sounded a bit like Jia’s broke through his fury, reminding him that if he got caught fighting, he was probably going to get sent home even earlier then Dr. Opps already wanted.
“No,” Fort said finally, taking a deep breath and lowering his hands. “I’m done with this.”
“Lie down on your bed or we burn you,” Chad said.
“If I lie down, then you’ll just burn the bed,” Fort said, his eyes flicking from Blaine to Chad to Trey.
The other three boys just looked at each other. “And?” Chad said.
“So if you’re going to burn me either way, I’m not doing what you say.”
Someone groaned loudly from farther in the dorm. “All right, I’ve had enough of this.”
All four of them turned to find the tall boy Fort had seen in the cafeteria earlier, the only healer to actually still have his appetite. The boy strode toward them from his bed at the far side of the room, and the three Destruction students actually seemed to shrink in response.
“This is none of your business, Sebastian,” Chad said, but Fort saw him back away a bit.
“It is if you’re annoying me,” Sebastian told him, his hands glowing a strange color of blue. Fort could feel the cold coming off them from a distance, and he realized with a start that these Destruction students were actually afraid of a healer.
“We were just having some fun with the new Band-Aid,” Blaine said, holding his hands up defensively as Sebastian grew closer.
“Cool, let me join in,” Sebastian said, and lunged forward, grabbing Blaine’s flaming hand. The fire was immediately extinguished, and the boy started to yell in pain as some sort of pustules began to grow on his hand.
“Stop that!” Chad yelled, and launched a yellow bolt of energy at Sebastian. The healer just sidestepped the magic missile, letting it slam into an innocent Destruction student behind him as his hand stayed locked on Blaine’s.
“I’m never quite sure what I’m going to get with Cause Disease,” Sebastian said, then reached out his free hand toward the other two. “Apparently Bryce has had the chicken pox in the past, so that’s what came up for him. It’s pretty rare now, actually! Want to see if you two are that lucky?”
Both the other boys immediately put up their hands in surrender, their flames going out, as Blaine—no, Bryce—fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. “They itch,” he whimpered as the rash spread over his face and the rest of his body. “They itch so bad!”
“I wouldn’t scratch,” Sebastian said, releasing him. “Not unless you want permanent scars.”
Bryce angrily pushed to his feet, his hands on fire once more, but Sebastian just threw him a look. “Apologize, or I leave you like this.”
The flames on Bryce’s hand gradually went out, and he sniffled loudly. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. Would you please fix this?”
“Apologize to the new kid,” Sebastian said, nodding toward Fort without looking at him.
Bryce wiped his nose, then turned to Fort. “I’m sorry. You can have this bed.”
Fort grabbed his extra uniforms. “That’s okay. I think I’ll take one in the back.”
Sebastian waved a hand over Bryce, and his chicken pox immediately cleared up. The Destruction boy laughed almost hysterically in relief as Trey and Chad pulled him away. Sebastian, meanwhile, just turned and strode back to his bed. Fort followed quickly behind him, noticing Cyrus was waiting in the bed next to the one he’d pointed out that Fort would chose earlier that day.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Fort told Sebastian, as he moved to match the other boy’s pace. “I don’t need people protecting me here. I can handle myself.”
Sebastian gave him an ice-cold smile. “Did I ask? They were bugging me. If they’d set fire to you outside, I’d have been fine with it.”
Fort paused, not sure if he was kidding. “I’m . . . I’m Fort. I’m a healer too, and—”
Sebastian’s hand locked on Fort’s wrist, and he felt his head grow cloudy as his whole body started to ache. “You were the one distracting Jia in class. She usually covers for Mason. I had to heal, like, half a dozen of his wounds when he got back from Destruction training.”
Fort began to shiver violently, suddenly feeling like the room had dropped ten degrees, but he refused to look away. “Maybe he should have been better at bone mending, then.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened a bit, but he smiled wider. “Welcome to the Oppenheimer School, new kid. Let’s hope you survive the experience.”
And with that, he climbed onto his bunk, leaving Fort to collapse into his new bunk with a full-blown case of the flu.