The 13th: Frozen Destiny (3 page)

She gazed at him. She didn't know Ryan well, but he seemed like an okay guy with a problem similar to hers. They could become allies. She turned toward the dead end. “I think there's a secret passage.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Or maybe you lost him.”

“Yes, because he used a secret passage.” She walked back to the wall and slid her hands over its surface. “There must be some lever or handle that opens it.”

“Let me try.” He joined her, the side of his hand touched hers.

A weak current of electricity made her hand shiver. Frowning, she peeked at him, and by the way he stared at their hands, knew that he had felt it too. “It's just static,” she said, but more to herself, since... The first time she had met Ethan and their hands brushed against each other, she had felt an electric current, too. Just thinking that both touches had the same meaning, if felt as if she was betraying her boyfriend. But there was no way they could have the same meaning, especially not since she felt such a strong electric current because Ethan's powers were the ones -- Wait, what powers?

“What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just...” For a moment she debated whether or not to tell him. “Lately I have stumbled over reality, when on second thought it doesn’t make any sense.”

He stared at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

“It's hard to explain.” She furrowed her forehead. “It’s about little things that I think happened, but didn’t. And small facts that don’t add up.”

“Because you dreamt about them?”

She tilted her head, thinking about it. “It could be. Maybe the sickness muddled my brain a little.” She faced him. “Hey, Kate said you were quite sick, too. Do you have any weird side effects?”

“Like hallucinating?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to gauge if he was making fun out of her. She noticed his mouth twitching at the corners. She pinched her mouth, turned on her heel and stomped away. Here she had been thinking that she had found an ally with the same goal: to find out what was going on with Ethan. And Kate. But he preferred to make fun of her.

“Hey, don’t be mad, please.”

She accelerated her step.”

“What about the secret passage?” Ryan called after her.

She ignored him.

#

Claire sat on the grass behind the dorm, watching Tyler and Ethan playing basketball with a couple of boys. Tyler was very good at it, while Ethan was playing a sorry game. “It's like he isn't aware of his own height,” she commented to Mandy, who was sitting beside her.

“He's not good as Tyler, but I have seen him play better.” Mandy leaned back on her arms. “He's not on the team, so it doesn't really matter.”

“On the team?” But there was no team here, was there? Claire stared at the playground before her, which was actually a grass field with buckets tied to the trees. They never played basketball in gym classes or any other sports like volleyball, mostly they ran and played dodgeball.

“I don't know why I said that.” Mandy gave a nervous laugh and straightened.

Could it be that this was another case of little facts that didn’t add up? “Hey.” Claire shifted closer to Mandy, carefully eyeing Ryan, who sat a small distance away waiting for Kate who had been detained by a teacher. “Do you ever get a feeling like you are in a dream? You know, where everything is logical and makes sense when you think about it, but at the same time feels new and foreign?”

“Well...” Mandy pulled her knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She frowned and looked as if she were going to say something, but then a yell from the playground drew her gaze and a smile lit her face. Seeing Tyler playing hoops always managed to do that and to distract her. “Not really.”

“I do, sometimes.”

Claire's head whipped around. How had Ryan managed to get so close without her noticing?

“I'm sorry about before. I just wanted to lighten the mood, I didn't want to anger you or anything,” he said in a low voice, so low that Claire doubted Mandy could hear it. “When you asked me about side effects, I planned to tell you... Do you remember that time in the dining room when you asked who I was?”

She nodded and slowly shifted away from Mandy and closer to him, but not too close.

“I thought the same thing about you.”

“Really?”

“I think I have memory problems,” Ryan said. “Do you think it's possible that it wasn't the flu, but something else?”

“Like what?” Claire glanced at Mandy, who was occupied with admiring Tyler taking a shot. Good.

“I don't know.” He rubbed his elbow. “This might sound far-fetched, but what if it was some sort of medical experiment?”

“Are we the only ones who have these reality and memory problems?”

“Mandy could have them, too.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“You don't know that.”

“No, I don’t know that, and neither do you. The other thing, have you noticed --” The cut between his eyebrows smoothed out and a smile like a sun lighted his face. “We'll talk about it later,” he said to her and stood.

Claire followed his gaze and saw Kate coming their way. Her eyes returned to Ryan's face and at the look of pure love that shone from his eyes suddenly a pang of jealousy burned through her. That was how Ethan used to look at her. While now -- she turned toward the playground -- he barely even glanced at her. And when she mentioned anything about it, he tried to blame her bad health. Maybe he really had fallen out of love.

She waited until the end of the game and then joined Mandy, who rushed toward the boys. Mandy launched herself at Tyler and got a half-hug in return, while Claire only brushed Ethan's shoulder to let him know she was there.

Ethan's eyes as they turned to her were dull and without any spark.

She inwardly sighed and forced her mouth into a smile while her fingers curled around the edge of her shirt, wrinkling it. “You played well.”

“I guess.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“We are going to the common,” Tyler said to them, ‘the common’ meaning the lounge part of the main hall.

“Yeah.” Ethan nodded. “I'll join you later.” He waved to them before he turned and walked toward the south side of the building.

Claire rushed after him. “Where are you going?”

“To the teachers’ chambers. I have an errand that I need to run. For that project.”

“Do you need help?” She drew up parallel with him.

“No.”

“Do you have some time later?” She had rarely asked for his time before or been the one to invite him on a date, since she had never had to; he was always the one who initiated those. He had spoiled her quite a lot in that regard.

“What for?”

“To have dinner with me. Just the two of us.”

“I'm not certain I'll be able to make it.” He stared straight ahead, not even giving her a glance, and quickened his stride.

She grabbed his arm. “What's going on?”

“I don't know what you mean.” He half-turned, and she expected that he would face her, but his eyes darted around.

Her jaw clenched and her teeth cut into her lower lip before she loosened her jaw with a sigh. She hated this... this evading and sneaking around. “If you don't want to be with me anymore, tell me.”

He scowled and tilted his head down. A wayward strand of hair fell on his brow.

She automatically lifted her hand, as so many times before, to tug on it. She caught herself and her arm fell to her side. “I love you, and breaking up...” Her throat contracted and she had to clear it as pain cut through her like a poorly sharpened knife. She felt as if the distance between them widened with each passing day and she didn't know what to do to stop it. She knew she loved him, and as much as a break-up would have shattered her into small pieces, she didn't want him to force himself to be with her.

He lifted his head, his cold eyes -- when had they become so cold? -- bored into her. “I don't want to break up with you.”

“Then why... Why are you shutting me out? Why are we so rarely alone and why don’t you ever...” …kiss me? She had to clear her throat again. “You don't even hold my hand anymore. I feel like we are not a couple anymore, only distant friends.”

“A teacher asked me for a help on a project for extra credit, that's why I don't have time for you. I told you that.” He shook his head at her, disapproval written all over his face. “You are so insecure and demanding, you are making a big deal out of nothing.”

Because he didn’t look at her the same way he used to do and because... The old Ethan would have pulled her into a tight hug and assured her that he loved her and that she was worrying for nothing, while this Ethan made her feel stupid. “Yes, you already told me that.”

#

The rain drops fell onto the stone rail of the balcony overlooking the inner yard and speckled the grey surface with dark dots. Hidden behind the pillar Claire observed Ryan and Kate, who stood by the door leading into the girls' side of the dorm. She had been following them since she had, an hour before, noticed them in the common room. She waited until they parted with quick peck on the cheek and Kate disappeared through the door before she stepped out of her hiding place, careful not to expose herself to any bystanders in the yard below. “Hey.”

He strode to her. “Hey.”

“We should talk.”

“Yes.” He looked around. “But not here.”

“Follow me.” She led him across the balcony, inside and then through the strings of hallways into the library. “Nobody comes here,” she told him as she closed the door. “Have I noticed what?”

“You don't dilly-dally, do you?” His gaze slid over the shelves then stopped on the dusty table. He leaned on it.

“But you do?”

“Sometimes.”

“Have I noticed what?”

“This.” With his hand he made a wide circle.

“You don't mean the library, do you?”

“This place. It's strange, isn't it?”

“How?”

He sighed. “Think about it. This is a boarding school with classes, teachers and homework and extra-curricular activities.”

“Yes?”

“How often have you had to do homework or study for exams?”

“A lot.”

“In the past week?”

She thought about it, already prepared to count on her fingers, but she couldn't remember doing homework or studying. “Not at all. Could we be having a slow week? We did have an epidemic.”

“We are all in the same class, but Ethan and I are one year older.”

She could have said that was because they had repeated a year, but they were both overachievers, not underachievers.

“And another thing, do you know any other students?”

“Of course I do, there's this...” She furrowed her eyebrows as she tried to bring forward the name of the students she had met, but all that she got was a few blurry faces.

“Well?”

“Is this even possible? To be here for three years and only know five people?”

“Now think about teachers.”

She got the same result. “I don't even know what they look like. Why haven't I noticed this before?” She knew the answers as soon as she pronounced the last syllable. Because she was too preoccupied with Ethan and her relationship. “What does this mean?”

“I don't know,” Ryan said. “I noticed it when I thought about asking around to see if anybody else is having the same memory problem as I am. My guess is that this is some sort of a lab and they are doing experiments on us.”

That sounded so far-fetched. “What kind of experiments?”

He moved to the table and perched up on it. “A drug that influences memories or maybe dreams. Or maybe something that messes with one’s mind.”

That would explain some things, but it was too unbelievable. “They would be putting it into the food.”

“Yeah.”

“And they would have cameras everywhere to monitor our behaviour, wouldn't they?”

“Yes.”

“Even in here?” She lifted her eyes and scrutinised the high arch full of spider webs and the tops of the shelves that lined the walls which must have been covered with a thick layer of dust.

“They could be.”

“Yes, of course.” She nodded, her eyes widened comically.

He rolled his eyes.

“Listen, I'm not saying that it couldn't be true, but... Aren't experiments usually done in a sterile environment, which this is far from, and under close scrutiny?”

“Yes, they are, but --”

“And another thing: Why would they only do experiments on us?”

“Mandy and Tyler could be included, too.”

“Not likely.” She sighed. “It would only explain your memory problem and my muddled mind.” On second thought she added, “And Mandy's slips of the tongue. But it doesn't explain not knowing other students.” And the thing that bothered her the most: “And Ethan's behaviour.” Pills could mess with the mind, but not with the heart. She still felt the same for Ethan, while he, by the looks of things, didn't, even though he had said he didn’t want to break up with her.