Redemption Prep - Samuel Miller Page 0,17
a water bottle. “Gotta stay hydrated, bro. Apex will fry your shit.”
Aiden took it and drank. He nearly emptied the bottle, handing it back to Peter with a small reservoir in the bottom. “I took one on my way here.”
“You got more?”
Aiden shook his head. “Not on me, but I just bought five hundred for the team.”
“Five hundred?”
Aiden shrugged. “It’s not really a thing to me.”
He could feel Peter surveying him more critically. “Are you the prince of some country or something? Did you invent a hair product?”
“My dad owns some grocery stores.”
“Huh.” Peter put a dip of tobacco in his cheek. “Now, you’re a basketball player, right?”
Aiden nodded.
“You any good?”
“There are NBA scouts coming to watch me next week.”
“Jesus, are you serious? Man, some guys have all the luck.”
“It’s not luck,” Aiden spat back. “I work for my shit.”
“Sure.” Peter spat on the ground in front of them. “Just saying, no one’s going to pay me millions of dollars to be in debate. I didn’t even get recruited here to debate. They just thought it was cool I could speak twelve languages, then stuck me with an activity.”
Peter watched him for another long minute, even though Aiden was making it obvious he wasn’t interested in talking. “Are you still here?” Aiden asked finally.
“Yeah, sorry, buddy. Just trying to figure this out.”
“Figure what out?”
“You’re trying out for the fucking NBA next week, and tonight you’re sprinting out here, during a sweep, to meet your girlfriend, who didn’t even show up?”
“So?”
Peter shook his head. “Nothing. Just interesting.”
The sirens shifted, faintly droning in the background, raised a half step, and they heard the far-off announcement that the sweep was starting. “Alright, that’s the edge of my patience,” Peter said, moving down the bleachers. “Good luck, buddy.”
He stopped once he was on the ground and turned back to Aiden. “I hope she shows up. Kinda looks like you lost yourself up there.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Good luck next week, buddy.” Peter shrugged and strolled off.
Aiden sat alone for another ten minutes, overreacting anytime a sound echoed from the forest or the school behind him. The last time they were here, just the two of them, Emma confided something in him. What did she say? He could barely remember, but it was serious, about flowers and her parents, how they treated her. She’d said something that didn’t make sense, how she didn’t want to be special, or how she wished people would pay less attention to her. It was hard to listen to Emma when she was in one of her hopeless moods. She’d talk like the sky was falling, then forget it all the next day. But this one was different.
Whatever it was, he hadn’t done anything about it then, and it was too late to do anything about it now. Emma had moved on to whatever was more important than him, and he was left here, in their spot, alone.
Evan.
“PEACE BE WITH you,” a maintenance worker said, standing in the doorway, blocking most of it.
“And also with you,” Zaza said from his desk chair.
“You know the drill, right? I’m gonna look in all your stuff, you’ve gotta open it for me, you signed up for this, et cetera?”
“Yeah, sure thing.”
Evan tucked himself into the doorway. His face was a few inches from the frame of the door, and he flinched every time the red light behind him exposed his position.
“Do you think it’s weird they make you all dress like janitors?” Zaza asked. He leaned back comfortably, like he had nothing to hide. If he did know something about Emma, he certainly wasn’t going to give it up to a random maintenance worker.
“No way. I had to sweep some of the labs in the chemical science building one time—I don’t know what kind of crazy shit they’ve got going on in there.” The maintenance worker had walked across the room and was looking in Zaza’s closet. “How’d you get the solo dorm?”
“Two years. Since late in my Year One—”
“That’s lucky.”
“—when my roommate had a mental breakdown.”
“Less lucky.”
“It’s fine. Half the kids in the C-School have had mental breakdowns. Mostly the ones who don’t win their reviews.”
“Win their reviews?”
“Yeah, we get judged one-on-one against a classmate, so only half the people pass. It’s stressful.”
The man knelt to scan his flashlight under the bed.
“What are you guys even looking for?” Zaza asked.
“Just trying to ensure that everyone is accounted for.”
“So someone’s missing.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“And you think they might