door handle.
Neesha.
“I’LL BE HONEST, I thought you guys were kidding about the sweeps when you were training me.” A voice with a slightly southern accent drifted around the corner. “Going into students’ rooms and shit? What’s the point of that?”
Neesha slid closer, angling to see around. There was a gathering of maintenance workers in the C-School Lounge, a gathering she’d have to get past.
“Yep,” another voice answered. “And we never even find anything. It’s just to scare ’em, I think, keep ’em from getting ideas.”
“Why, though? What’s the point?”
“Kids are too damn smart. They’re freaks.”
“What do they think kids’re gonna do, though? Run away?” the southern accent protested. “Why’d they run away from here?”
“Every kid’s an asset, gotta protect the assets.”
Breathlessly, she slid out into the darkness, cowering as far as possible from the fireplace, clinging to the circular outer wall. Above her, the maintenance workers were congregated on the first landing, two of them facing out over the lounge.
“I don’t know. I feel like maybe these kids have something special they don’t tell us about. Can’t think of why else you’d need so much security. Plus, why lie about it? Telling the kids we work in maintenance—”
“If one more of these little fuckers asks me to fix a toilet—”
One of the men laughed. Neesha ran her thumb over the key in her pocket.
“That’s what I’m saying! The kids never do anything, hardly break any rules, but we’ve got forty trained military guys out here in bumfuck wherever? For what?”
“Is it a good job?”
“Sure, pay’s great, but—”
“Well, then shut up about it.”
The other two men laughed, and she used the moment to slide into the doorway, unlocking the door to the C-School and clicking it open.
“Y’all hear something?” the Southern accent asked, and she froze.
“Listen to this guy! Little kids got you paranoid, bud?”
“Guess you’re right,” he mumbled. “I’ll shut up and drink my coffee.”
Neesha ducked through the door and turned to sprint away. The hallway was empty, multicolored as always, the neon reds and blues of the labs more vibrant in the darkness. Her footsteps clattered loudly on the linoleum. She could hear her heartbeat pumping in her ears as she reached the door to the Pharma Lab. She could see through the window that the room was empty. She pushed the door open.
“Schoolwork, I presume?”
Neesha froze. Dr. Yangborne stood behind her, smiling out from a lab across the hall.
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry, I just forgot something . . .”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I was thinking about what you said, about how I should be taking more of an initiative, and so I figured . . . today was a good day to get started.”
Yangborne nodded.
“So . . .” She stepped backward, turning away from him. “I’m just going to grab a few things, and—”
“How ignorant do you think we are?”
Neesha stopped in the doorway. “I . . . what do you mean?”
Yangborne was still smiling. “We test students every day. We monitor every aspect of your lives. You think we wouldn’t notice half our student population was high on amphetamines?”
Neesha’s stomach dropped. She stood gaping back at him.
Aiden.
AIDEN RUSHED TO the front of the room. Zaza held Dr. Richardson against the ground, half-triumphant and half-horrified.
“I can’t believe I did that,” he exhaled. “Who the fuck am I? Why did I do that?”
“You have a crush, Zaza,” he said, ripping off a huge piece of tape for Dr. Richardson’s hands. “And people do very stupid things for crushes.” They sat her up in a chair and Aiden wrapped a strip of tape around her arms behind it, then fastened it to the piano. Dr. Richardson flailed wildly within her bindings. “Keep a close eye out, and don’t let her make noise, alright?”
Zaza nodded, and Aiden rushed back up the center aisle and out onto the porch.
The back lawn was almost silent. One by one, the maintenance men who’d been in the woods had started to make their way back toward the school, each one asking about Dr. Richardson, each one receiving radio silence. They came out of the forest in groups of two or three, and each time, Aiden darted behind the top pillar of the church, praying they wouldn’t make the turn.
Every fifteen seconds, he checked his watch, waiting for 2:00 a.m. It was a Rolex, one he’d bought for himself before starting the school year. When he’d bought it, he’d stood with his mother, passing it back and forth, debating loudly in front of the attractive store