those brief moments of joy when they’d broken out and the school was available to them again, they’d all thought it would end soon. That the teachers hadn’t tried hard enough to get them out, hadn’t been as desperate as they needed to be. Now they saw no amount of clawing would undo the chains, bring down the doors. That it was pointless to pretend things could still be the same.
They didn’t know how near or far the board was to meeting Marisa’s demands, whether there was a chance the doors would open this way. They barely knew what her demands were. That hardly seemed to matter. They knew only this: Marisa had stolen the lock-in from them.
8
11:34PM
When Marisa saw them coming, she tucked her book in her duffel bag and pushed the bathroom bucket out of the way. She’d expected them earlier, to have already been dealing with their anger for the past few hours. The assembly had provided an unexpected respite, and that added rest now made Marisa feel like she’d easily withstand whatever the mob would throw her way.
Despite the escalating madness, her fellow students didn’t rush at her, didn’t declare all-out mutiny quite yet. It was menacing enough for them to stomp their way from all around the school and gather en masse.
At first it was just a bunch of dirty looks. Most of these kids lived privileged lives, and the anger they’d felt was mild and temporary. Those who had felt true anger, deep and all-consuming, the kind that wrenched your stomach until you wanted to scream, had mostly been angry at the universe for the death of a parent or grandparent or friend, angry at politicians who were ruining lives (though not these angry students’ lives, since their rich and privileged lives were generally untouched by public policy), and they had never stared the object of their rage so directly in the face before.
Some were scared by the thoughts that cropped up in their heads, scared of the violence their imaginations were capable of, even if they could quickly reject it. They were afraid of what they had in them, what might come up to the surface if they weren’t vigilant.
Many of them staring her down had liked her since she arrived at CIS, had admired her intelligence and confidence, her passion. They liked being in class with her, liked the way she spoke her mind, but not every time, only when it seemed to matter to her. Almost everyone at CIS wanted to be closer to her than they were, even those who considered themselves her friends. They liked the way she smiled at them in the hallway when they passed her, brief and meaningless, sure, but a true smile, not the halfhearted tightening of lips most people offered to strangers.
* * *
Others, Jordi Marcos among them, relished these thoughts, even if they didn’t all have it in them to actually turn to violence. Here was the sole reason for their misery, the single person who had stripped lock-in night from them. (Though Jordi himself was confused about who, exactly, to direct his anger toward—Marisa or Peejay. Peejay, who had everyone’s love without earning it. Peejay, who had become the party host and hadn’t saved them from this hostage situation, who hadn’t delivered on his obligations. Or Marisa, who stood in the way of others’ fun, who shouted her causes in the faces of those who didn’t care.)
Marisa lifted her chin and waited to see what would come first, insults or rocks, or an attempt to rip the doors down. She wouldn’t try to talk them out of it or fight them, would only defend herself and her stance. They had a right to be angry. But so did she.
* * *
For a while it seemed like there might simply be tears. Some people in the mob clenched and unclenched their fists, but the gesture seemed more of an attempt to hold on to their own emotions than a threat. A lot of these same students had witnessed the strength of the chains, and though they wanted to test it for themselves, they knew already it was no use. They wondered what to do with their anger now that they knew where to point it.
Nothing had happened yet, and there was no music playing from the speakers that could have served as a cinematographic aide to increase tension (the background music that played on every lock-in night, a playlist of students’ favorite songs,