Redemption Prep - Samuel Miller Page 0,22

in the center of the board, then sat, a flashlight in his mouth, and began to read, stopping only to notice the peaceful, focused look on Emma’s face in the middle of the madness.

Neesha.

ACROSS THE CEILING of her room, Neesha watched as the red lights clicked off and the yellow light of the back lawn started to leak through the window once again.

The school had cleared out Emma’s side of the room; all the textbooks, piles of clothes, and photos on her wall had been loaded into trash bags and carried out by maintenance workers. The footsteps outside died down, the siren was turned off, and the school returned to its normal resting state.

Neesha lay alone, shivering under her covers. She hadn’t slept in a room by herself since the third grade, when her family had to clear out their attic after she got chicken pox. She hated the feeling of it. Every sound was magnified; every change in the wind felt like the violins that brought in the start of the horror movie.

It was well after midnight, at least six hours since mass, and no one had seen Emma. The school had locked everything down, searched all possible areas, and still, the bed across the room was empty. Five hours ago, when Yanis the maintenance man had been in here with his MONKEY machine, she was sure it was some kind of miscommunication—Emma wandered too far for a cigarette, Emma ran off with Aiden, Emma was playing a weird prank. But five hours later, any hope of that had disappeared. Even before meeting Zaza in the woods, something about tonight had felt off. Now, two hours past midnight, it was evident something had happened, something terrible, and Neesha couldn’t stop thinking about the worst possibility—that Emma was the something.

Emma had lied to her. There was no phone call before mass. Which meant there was no reason for Neesha to make the drop tonight, unless there was. Unless everything that had happened tonight, starting with Zaza, was part of Emma’s plan: get Neesha involved, then disappear. If the school was closing in, now Neesha would be completely liable. Whatever punishment had been meant for Emma, it was coming for her now.

There was a soft knock on her door.

It was so quiet she tried to ignore it at first, but thirty seconds later, it happened again, four quick raps and then silence. She slid out from her bed and clicked the door open.

Zaza stood in the hallway, the hood of the same Adidas jacket thrown over his head.

“Can I come in?”

Her heartbeat doubled, surging with rage and pushing blood into her fingers. She turned to let him pass, and as she watched him enter, casually, as if nothing had happened, she felt the full chill of the night sweeping in with him.

As soon as the door latched shut behind him, she sprang, throwing her right palm upward at his nose.

“Ah, fuck!” Zaza went tumbling backward onto Emma’s bed, clutching his face. “What’s that about?”

“You’re lucky I didn’t kill you,” she said, taking another step over him.

Blood seeped its way out around his hands, thick streams rushing down the bright yellow stripe on his sleeves. She watched for a moment as he struggled to plug it, helpless against the speed and strength. She pulled a few tissues from the desk and handed them over, keeping her distance.

“That’s a myth, you know,” he said, his voice more nasal than usual. “You can’t kill someone like that. The skull bones are too strong.”

“I’m sure you know that from the zero fights that you’ve been in.”

“I think it might be broken.” He sat up against the wall, tissues stuck from both nostrils like tusks. “Why are you hitting me?”

Neesha cleared her throat. “First, I want my money back, now.”

His eyebrows bent. “Your money? The . . . wait, what do you mean back?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I don’t.” The tissues shook with his head. “I don’t at all.”

She stared at him for a long moment.

“You think I took it?” he asked. “Are you forgetting the part where I gave it to you—”

“I know you took it. I saw you busting ass out of the chapel.”

“Everyone was busting ass out of the chapel—”

“Convenient, huh.”

Zaza shifted on Emma’s bed, some blood from his sleeves spilling over onto the mattress. “You think I took your money, then came over here three hours after curfew, so I could what . . . gloat about it?” Zaza ran his