Academy 7 (23 page)

He shoved open the broken door and sprinted into the night without looking back. Shadows of wood buildings flashed past him on either side of the street. He took a corner, then another one, heading uphill. Twice he tripped over unseen obstacles, but he kept going, his breath now coming in heavy gasps.
He should be dead on his feet by now
, Aerin thought as he cut behind a merchant’s shop and scrambled over a fence, then launched once again into a steady run.

The sky was beginning to lighten in the distance, and still he kept going. Now he was skirting the edge of a high stone wall, the silhouette of the castle in the background. The gate, torn from its hinges, lay on the ground.

Her father ran through the opening. No guards moved to block his path. Not a single person stood in the courtyard. Or at the castle entrance. Or the foyer.

Tony sped down a corridor littered with broken glass and skidded to a halt at the edge of a thick door. It was propped open. For a moment Aerin could see only him, not the room into which her father was staring. Then he sank to the ground.

And she saw what he did: the thick beams running across the ceiling, the ropes wrapped around the beams, and the figures dangling from the ropes—two bodies, their heads lolling against the knots that had severed their breath and ended their lives. That of an elderly man with white hair. And that of Aerin’s mother.

 

Aerin’s screams filled the Spindle’s chamber. High-pitched panic slammed off the walls and echoed back at her, like a laser cutting into her skin and burning through her organs. She sank to the floor.

The simulation had long since come to an end, its final image searing her brain. What more was needed to make her father into the man she knew? A man, without passion or conviction, who lapsed into silence for hours at a time and had raised his daughter alone, outside the realm of any planet or political boundary.

Her lungs began to ache, but she could not stop the screaming. After years of horror, anguish had found a way out, and she could do nothing to curb its escape, would not have if she could.

Then warm arms circled her chest and rocked her back and forth. Dane was saying something. At first, the words failed to break through her emotion, but they continued, soft and steady, until she realized he was repeating the same line over and over. “You’re all right. You’re all right. You’re all right.”

She wanted to argue with him, to tell him she could not be all right, that she should
not
be. But the words tangled in her brain, and the screams drowned into tears. “I don’t . . . I don’t . . .” she choked.

“Don’t what?” he whispered in her ear.

She was thinking of her mother. “I don’t even know her name.”

“Ilaina.” It wasn’t Dane who answered. “Or, more correctly, Her Royal Highness, Ilaina Seranee of Mindowan.” And the rigid figure of Dr. Livinski stepped from the elevator.

Chapter Twenty-one

DANE WAS LIVING ANOTHER NIGHTMARE. WITH THE echoes of Aerin’s screams in the background and the images of last night drifting loosely through his vision; the penetrating stare of Dr. Livinski as she had stepped out of the elevator; the long, silent stretch of darkness on the ride down, down through the Spindle’s stem, not to the hangar, but all the way down to the secret underground tunnel that led to the empty basement room of the Great Hall; the almost hollow shell that had been Aerin as she and he were escorted back to the dorm by the principal. And the love—yes, love—that had shown in his mother’s eyes as she took his father’s hand during the first simulation.

He tried to brush aside the visions. But the present experience of waiting for the beginning of the announcement ceremony was no more comforting. The hard bench dug repeatedly into his thigh as other first-years moved up and down restlessly. Voices swarmed over one another, and sweat was building up on the back of his neck, no doubt the result of the dense crowd packing the auditorium—fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and who knew who else—all eager to provide emotional support for their own Zack or Zelda. Dane’s father had not come.

The principal moved to the front of the room with her thick stack of invitations for the lucky students who would be returning to Academy 7.

He would not be among them.

Don’t care,
he told himself.
Don’t feel.

He had known when he had agreed to take Aerin up to the Spindle that it would cost him. And it did not matter that he had yet to be punished. Because the woman standing at the podium with her head high, her neck stiff, was the same woman who had stared at him last night with that cold look of . . . disappointment. He didn’t know how else to describe it. She controlled his fate, and he could do nothing to alter that imbalance of power.

Don’t care,
he reminded himself. Because if he didn’t care, she couldn’t hurt him.

But she could hurt Aerin. He could not shake the memory of Aerin’s screams from his head. They had ripped through him, exploded out of her like the voice of insanity, and there had been nothing he could do. Nothing but hold her and lie to her by telling her she was all right.

He could not look at her now. Could not bear to see the blank gaze that had gone right past him when she had walked away from him last night.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dr. Livinski’s voice tore through the room, “welcome to the Academy 7 Announcement Ceremony.”

The room sank into a brutal silence.

His heart spiked. Maybe this was why she had not punished him last night. Because she knew it would be more painful to live through the ceremony without hearing his name.

She began with the second-year students. The third-years would have their graduation ceremony later in the evening, a moment of pure celebration.

This. This was altogether different.

He had nearly forgotten that the second-years would be here, that they also had to be invited to return. There was no limit on the number of upcoming third-year students. They just had to satisfy Dr. Livinski.

A task, Dane knew, that was not worth taking for granted.

He listened with dull awareness as one by one the second-years rose to the sound of their names. The chosen students, smiles of relief spread across their faces, retrieved their envelopes and climbed the small staircase to the stage. A human line grew slowly until it covered the distance between the thick gathered curtains on either side.

The principal set down her remaining envelopes and clasped her palms together. “May I present next year’s senior class.”

Polite applause filled the room but faded rapidly beneath the rise in tension as the older students departed the stage. And the climax of the morning approached. Dane couldn’t feel his hands. Or his feet. A strange, frayed breath filled his chest as the principal once again lifted an invitation.

And called a name. Not his. Or Aerin’s. His soul emptied out, then refilled as she touched another envelope.

No,
he ordered himself.
Don’t hope.

But again and again his chest rose and fell as the envelopes dwindled. Despite himself, he began counting the first-year students on the stage. “Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.”
Only two spots left.

But the names never came. Dr. Livinski was raising a hand, introducing the next year’s class. Dane could not take in the words. Applause broke throughout the room. And the envelopes were gone.

Don’t care. Don’t feel.
But it was much, much too late for that. Because he did care. It scared him how much he cared. And he did feel. He felt the muscle of his heart rip apart, and there was nothing he could do but watch it bleed all over the dreams he had never meant to have.

A piercing cry escaped from the end of the bench. Yvonne’s. It had not taken much thought to realize she had reported him last night to Dr. Livinski, but there was no satisfaction in knowing she also had failed to make the cut. Or that the final two spots, the ones the principal had chosen not to fill, had belonged to him and Aerin. Until last night.

The audience descended in a raucous swarm: rushing to comfort the rejected students and congratulate those on the stage. Swinging arms and shoving elbows jostled past. Legs scrambled over the bench, and voices clattered in his ears. He felt the approach of another person.

Aerin.
He could not face her yet.

Then another shadow, this one he could not put off or avoid. Cold disapproval sliced the air as Dr. Livinski issued her stern directive. “Both of you. In my office. Now.”

Chapter Twenty-two

DANE FELT THE GLASS WALLS OF THE PRINCIPAL’S office close around him. He slumped down in a chair, letting the iron bars of its back dig into his spine and remind him where he was headed.

There was a prolonged silence.

Vaguely, Dane realized Aerin had yet to sit down. He reached for her hand, but she shook him off.

Dr. Livinski, also standing, began to reel off last night’s crimes, counting deliberately with her fingers. “Trespassing, breaking and entering, illegal access to classified data—”

“It was my fault,” Aerin blurted.

No!
Dane tried to pull her down.
I’m the one with the record. Keep your mouth shut.

But again Aerin rejected him. “It was my idea to break into the Spindle, not Dane’s.” She pulled free of his hand.

Chair legs scraped across the tiled floor as the principal slid into her seat, eyebrows arched. “Elaborate, Miss Renning.”

Dane cringed. He could not expect Aerin to share the brutal account of her life. She had stripped herself emotionally bare last night, and he had seen the toll it had taken. But before he could open his mouth to argue, she began to talk. Her chin was up, her gaze level. The events were the same as those she had shared last night, but the words came faster, succinct, peeling from her lips with . . . confidence.

The principal interrupted only once, clearing her throat. “Indeed, I was made aware of your father’s death just prior to Christmas. His ship was identified before it was crushed.” She threaded her long fingers together. “Those of us on the Council held a meeting to listen to the
Fugitive
’s flight recorder.”

Dane shuddered and closed his eyes. Then that explained the real reason why the General had returned and how he had known—known how and when Aerin’s father had died. And known Aerin was lying.
He thought I was taunting him by bringing her home,
Dane realized,
that we both were.

But Aerin did not allow the principal’s revelation to interfere with her own. She tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear, gave a brief nod, and began to talk about the tech lab break-in; then the flight through the spiral; and finally the simulations, ending with the stark description of her mother’s death.

Dr. Livinski unthreaded her fingers and rubbed her forehead. “That entire rebellion.” Anger grated through her voice. “Such a waste!”

Dane’s eyes widened at the heartless comment. He had not considered the possibility that the principal might know more about the events surrounding the simulations. Her words from last night suddenly came back to him:
Ilaina Serranee,
Aerin’s mother’s name.

Of course Dr. Livinski knew more. She was on the Council. “Mindowan was swallowed up by the Trade Union,” she said, then reached into her desk drawer and withdrew a thin black object. “The rebellion fell apart without Tony.”

Tony?
The informal name blared into the room.

And Aerin clutched the edge of the desk, then sank into the vacant chair. “You . . . you knew my father?” Her voice faltered for the first time throughout the confrontation.

There was a long pause as the principal ran a thumb across the edge of the rectangle in her hand, then flipped over the object.

To reveal a photograph.

Shock ripped through Dane’s body. He had never seen the photo before, but he recognized every one of the four Academy 7 students in it: Aerin’s father, wearing a wide, beaming grin; Dane’s own father, less jovial, but still smiling; Dane’s mother, so beautiful, so . . . happy; and the young woman from last night’s simulation, the one who had remained on the couch throughout his father’s argument with Tony. Dane raised his gaze slowly to the principal’s face, then dropped it again to the young woman in the photo. The sharp features were the same.

“We were close,” Dr. Livinski said, compassion exempt from her tone, “all of us.” She paused. “At one time.”

It had never occurred to him that she might have known his mother.

“You were there during the argument between my father and Dane’s,” Aerin whispered.

The principal tapped the edge of the picture, rocking it sharply. “And I would rather not have been. Gregory was furious.” Her gray eyes flicked to Dane, then back to Aerin. “Of course, Tony might have broken the news more gently.”

“Their friendship didn’t survive?” Aerin asked.

“No,” the principal said, “Gregory had just enlisted in the Allied Air Force, and he didn’t do it lightly.”

“When he enlisted, he committed his entire soul to the Alliance.” Dr. Livinski swept the frame brusquely back into the drawer. “Tony never did that. To him, freedom was worth fighting for, but it was not inseparable from the Alliance. He believed the best place to make a difference was on a planet where the people couldn’t obtain Allied support. Gregory never understood that”—she paused, then extended the thought—“though Emma did.”

Something in Dane’s chest tore at the sound of the name. Anger started to swell inside him. What gave this woman the right to have memories of his mother?

A brief shadow replaced the hard look in the principal’s eyes. “I think Tony hoped she would change Gregory’s mind. There was a lot more to Emma than her wealthy family. She was brilliant, you know.”