“I was born there. But I haven’t seen it since I was little.”
“Maybe you should visit,” Snow says, clicking his watch once more.
I always thought of Chicago as the place from which we’d been exiled. Forced out by the Gallos.
But it is my heritage just as much as Moscow.
I have American citizenship, not just Russian.
I pound the heavy bag with both fists, enjoying the satisfying thud as it gives way before me.
The second round of the Quartum Bellum takes place in February. The Sophomores have already been eliminated, so I don’t have to worry about Lola Fischer endangering Cat again.
Instead, I have to endure the fiendish creativity of Professor Penmark, who organizes the competition for maximum discomfort. Usually Professor Howell sets up the challenges—this one has a sadistic flair that could only come from the master of Torture Techniques.
Professor Penmark orders the three remaining teams to form a horizontal line along the Moon Beach, with our asses in the sand and our feet facing the water.
Then he strings a chain all the way down the line, looped around our wrists and ankles, with several different types of padlocks between each student. The challenge is to pick the locks before the tide comes in and drowns us.
This would be difficult enough if the water weren’t freezing and the waves random and vicious, trying to tug us out into the ocean.
To add to the fun, each team receives only one lock pick that has to be passed along the line student by student.
As soon as Professor Howell fires his starter pistol, the pick begins to move down the line. Progress is spurty, with some students easily popping their padlocks, while others struggling for an agonizing period of time. Several of the locks are in hard-to-reach positions, and the padlocks quickly become jammed with sand and bits of seaweed.
The waves start washing over my knees before the pick is even halfway down the line. Each rush of frigid, salty water makes the students shiver until the chains clatter like castanets.
“I can’t do it,” Coraline Paquet sobs on my left. “My fingers are ice.”
“Pass me the pick,” Motya grunts. “I’ll help.”
Kade, Leo, and Claire have all stationed themselves at the very end of their respective lines, so they’ll be the last to be unchained. Unlike most years, I’ll be sorry to see any of the Captains eliminated, because I know how badly they all want to win.
The water is up to my chest by the time I get the pick. I have to work blind, trying to feel the tumblers when my numb fingers can hardly grip let alone sense.
“I dropped it!” a hysterical Freshman girl shrieks. “I dropped the pick!”
“Find it!” Kade cries. “Comb the sand.”
Chained where he is, he’s incapable of assisting.
“It’s too late!” she cries. “The waves took it!”
I can see Kade gritting his teeth, furious and helpless.
“Find something else!” he cries. “Who has a Bobby pin?”
“I do,” another girl says, further down the line.
“Pass it along,” Kade orders.
The girl pulls the pin from her bun, straightens the minute metal rod, and passes it down the line.
It doesn’t work as well as the lock pick formed for that purpose, but after a few minutes of struggling, the first girl manages to free herself. She passes on the Bobby pin.
The Freshmen are behind now.
I fumble with the last padlock on my right ankle, finally finding the appropriate angle and popping the hasp. I pass the pick along to Ares, glad to get the fuck out of the water.
Now only Ares, Anna, and Leo are left on our team.
Ares finishes quickly, taking only a few seconds to pop his locks.
Anna takes a little longer, as she has four separate padlocks on her length of chain. She grits her teeth, her slim shoulders shaking as the icy water hits her again.
“You’ve got this,” Leo murmurs to her.
“Almost there . . .” Anna mutters, and finally the chains fall away.
She passes Leo the pick.
The water is up to his neck now, and the next wave hits him right in the face. He holds tight to the pick, jamming it into the lock.
Meanwhile, the shorter Claire Turgenev is already almost entirely underwater. She has to tilt her head all the way back to catch a breath between the waves.
Stubbornly, she refuses to submit.
“Don’t you fucking stop, Jasper,” she says to the second-last Senior, spitting out a mouthful of