Redemption Prep - Samuel Miller Page 0,20

a game like rock-paper-scissors, despite its fifty-fifty mechanical probability, could be played with probabilistic skill. When a player ties or loses (66.6 percent odds), they rarely repeat that action, so playing the inverse action doubles an opponent’s odds of success. As long as staff members thought they were being successful in their search—and they were, almost every time they checked a dorm—they wouldn’t alter their strategy. They would continue in the same direction, making the safest place to avoid being seen exactly where they had just been.

Evan ran thirty feet down the second-floor hallway. A flashlight came down the stairs and he ducked left, pausing for sixty seconds, then following behind it to the stairwell. He used the wall to guide himself to the third floor and turned the corner into his hallway, where he froze.

He’d failed to account for a variable. Emma was the one who was missing. There were ten gray suits outside her door. Evan swallowed and walked toward them.

He could hear Neesha answering questions inside her room. There were flashes exploding outward as staff members took pictures. Through the sliver of her door, he saw a huge shadow. Yanis was standing over Neesha, pressing her with questions.

“Evan Andrews.”

Dr. Richardson was on the edge of the group. She was taller than most of them, and unlike the suits to her right and left, she wasn’t wearing a mask or cover of any kind. The skin of her face was pulled back tightly over her skeletal structure. Her lips were barely visible and always pursed, which made her look to Evan like an amphibian. Every time she spoke, regardless of where she was looking, it felt like her voice was coming downward, from on high. “Where have you been? It’s well past the announcement of the sweep.”

“I—I was i-in the . . . the . . .”

She frowned. “Is that a stutter?”

He swallowed. “I was on a walk. I didn’t realize it was a sweep.”

“Really? You didn’t notice the blaring sirens and bright red lights?” She nodded to his door and he unlocked it. She followed him and pointed to the bed. “Sit.”

Dr. Richardson closed the door behind them. He’d taken a class with her last year, everybody had to in their Year One, on foundations of psychology and morality. She’d described the work he did as “theoretically correct, but practically confused.” She always seemed disappointed in him but he couldn’t understand why.

“Where were you tonight, really?” she hissed.

“I—I told you. I was outside.”

She didn’t believe him. She scanned the room with her flashlight, jumping between the Utah Jazz basketball posters. He could see the tack on the corner of one had popped out, the top of the poster curling under against the wall, and his hands seized on the bed behind him.

“When was the last time you saw Emma?” she said, assessing his response out of the corner of her eye.

“Just leaving for mass.”

“How did she look?”

“Normal.”

“Did she say anything?”

“N-no.”

“When did your stutter come back?”

“It’s not back.”

“It’s psychogenic, remember. It doesn’t have anything to do with your mechanics; it is not your body’s natural state. You’re choosing the blockage.”

“I know.”

“You just have to more consciously consider the connection between your thoughts and the way you express them.”

“I know.”

“The beautiful part about follies of our thoughts is that we have the power to change them.”

“I know.”

She smiled sadly down at him. “Then why do you still stutter?”

A passing gray maintenance suit bumped the door and for a moment, Emma’s room was visible again. He could see the empty spot on her desk where her journal had once been.

Dr. Richardson pushed the door shut completely. “Is there anything you want me to know about?” she asked. She’d noticed the unrest in his hands. He was accidentally feeding her S2—Subtext.

“No.”

“Your testimonial journal,” she said, her back still turned. “You don’t want me to read it?”

“No, you can read it.”

“Students are so precious about their journals.” She shook her head. “They forget, they’re written for the staff. We’re supposed to be using them to evaluate your progress. What would be the point if we couldn’t read them?”

“You can.”

“And yet, they also rarely tell us anything we don’t already know.”

Evan could feel his throat closing. Dr. Richardson was getting closer to the walls and looking over every few seconds. She knew something she wasn’t telling him. She was probing deeper with every new item she found; nothing in the closet but the same solid-colored, JCPenney zip-ups; nothing under the bed but a