The Executioner at the Institute for Contaminated Children (9 page)

“All right,” he said with a sigh. Eva pouted and I shook my head to dismiss her sympathy but felt a strong pang inside. I really didn’t want to hang up.

“Bye, Torrey.” That phrase never took me so long to pronounce.

“Bye, Sis.” The tone lingered and I closed my phone.

“Well, at least your Mom’s on her way,” said Eva. “That’s a good thing, right? Assuming they let her up here, I mean. Not sure if parents are allowed to visit.”

I bit my cheek. I didn’t care what terms we parted on, I’d love to see Mom again. It’d be amazing after all that’s happened, but it also gave me an unsettled feeling. And those feelings were the worst, because I knew what came after. The truth. “Not sure. Guess we’ll find out.”

Thunder rumbled overhead. “Uh-oh,” said Eva. “We better run again.”

“Saved by the storm,” I said as I recalled the rig to eat sand.

“Come again?”

“Never mind, let’s run!”

Eve nodded. By the time we were within feet of the school, it was like the waterfall fell directly on us this time. The icy water felt just about ready to turn to snow. Good thing I had a strong immune system, or this would seriously ruin my first week. Although it wouldn’t hurt to read up on what happened to students who got sick. At least the school was heated.

We ran up the steps to the Institute, careful not to slip, only to see a shape standing by the glass door. Dan.

He didn’t look too happy. “Done prancing around? We’ve got training to do if you want to make it to an event.”

I grimaced. I was all for winning, but not if it meant discomfort. “Can’t you see we’re soaked? I’ll go change and meet up with you, deal?”

He laughed and walked off. “Not if you wanna eat lunch
and
dinner.”

My face contorted. Damn. He was right.

I looked to Eva, who shrugged, completely soaked. I still felt bad that she had trouble earning points. I bit my lip and called after him, “All right, but on one condition: Eva gets to help.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—Blindsided

T
odd and Hailie were apparently to assist in my training too. “Can’t miss a chance to earn points,” Todd said with a wink. My stomach certainly wouldn’t blame him; it growled again. Something told me this would be a regular routine until I stocked up enough points not to squander them on food. This had never been a problem at home. We always had more than enough to eat in the fridge, so the thought of not having enough points made me dizzy. I really should have been more careful.

We were in the middle of a large white room filled with sculptures and paintings—an art gallery. Apparently, the artistically inclined students got major points for submitting something extraordinary to the gallery. But only if it would knock something else off the wall, or replace another sculpture. So it really had to stand out. It usually made me a bit uncomfortable; art drew too much attention to itself. My eyes settled on a statue of Justitia.
Her again?
Not that I minded. The sight of her put a smile on my face, and the theme continued. In fact, a majority of the work had some kind of underlying theme of justice. One was a sculpture made entirely of scales that hung off each other. Kinda cool, sort of like an extra long chandelier. Each pail held a small light that reflected off the metal. With the lights dimmed, it almost resembled a Christmas tree.

“You sure it’s okay for us to practice in here?” I said. “What if I—I mean
we
knock something over?”
Who said I was clumsy
? Hopefully my nervous laugh didn’t give me away.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll be fine.” Dan brushed the comment off with a flick of his hand. “What are they gonna do, take points off?” Todd and Hailie laughed. Eva raised an eyebrow, one hand on her hip, and gave me a skeptic look. My mouth turned pancake flat. Not like I chose him as my partner.

Dan removed his headband, ruffled his hair, and came to stand behind me.

He took the band in both hands and as it began to cover my field of vision I exclaimed, “Eww! What do you think you’re doing?” I squirmed from under the sweaty band and jumped to Eva’s side.

“Do you prefer we tear off one of our shirts? Those cost points, you know,” said Dan. “Unless you’d like to contribute yours.” He wagged his eyebrows between us two and gave a wolfish grin.

My face burned and I bit my lip fiercely.

“Why cover her eyes?” said Eva, her expression set. She still didn’t trust Dan or his friends. Good girl.

“Training, duh,” said Hailie. “Just because Donna can guess, doesn’t mean she knows how to use it in all fields. She has to be able to use it physically just as well as mentally. Trivia will come up later, but this is a good place to start.”

“We’re gonna have you make your way through the gallery without knocking anything over,
and
we’ll move around. You have to identify us. You can touch, but you have to be careful. Don’t want to touch a sculpture. They have alarms,” said Todd.

I paled. “You want me to do
what
?”

“It’s a great way to practice for an event,” said Dan. “Trust us, we’ve been through it. Now, come on. Hurry up and let me cover your eyes. You’re not getting any less hungry.”

My face squirmed and I exchanged a forlorn look with Eva. Her lip twitched but she nodded. A heavy sigh escaped my mouth. This better not get us in trouble. I finally consented. Dan tied the icky headband around my eyes and I flinched. It wasn’t as warm as I expected, or as wet. In fact, it had a nice scent, probably his shampoo. That’d be one way to identify him, I guess.

“So are we ready?” I said.

“Hold on. This is gonna be a bit like blind tag,” said Dan. “You’re gonna count to fifty and we’ll disperse. Then we’re free to move around. For every right guess, you earn twenty points. Wrong guess, the points you earn after that decrease each time by five. So fifteen, ten, five and then zero. Touch the statues, game over. Identify us all, and you win the game with an extra fifty points. Got it?”

I nodded firmly. “Roger that. Quick question, though—who decides the points? Like why can’t you assign more than twenty?”

He shook his head. “Still haven’t read the rule book, have you?”

I showed my lower teeth. “Sorry,” I whispered.

“This isn’t the first time we do this type of training. For Hailie, we threw darts while she was blindfolded, and she had to dodge.”

My jaw dropped. “You serious?”

“Don’t worry, she barely got scraped. They weren’t very sharp, anyhow. For Todd, he did an obstacle course on a bike. Again, blindfolded. And for me…well, you get the point.” I was about to ask him to clarify, growing slightly angry, but he continued, “Every time you invent a new training round, you have to fill out a form and send it in for approval. For our class, Lenora approves the points. If she thinks we assign too many, she lowers them, and so on. The form gets sent to the Monitors, graders who watch the whole thing on camera, so they know the point assignment is authentic.”

“Ah. Okay then.”

“Oh, and no one’s allowed to talk, which means you shouldn’t ask us questions. Game ends otherwise. Ready? Set? Count.”

Their footsteps roamed around me. I tried to keep track of where each went, but I had to count at the same time. “One…two…three…” all the way to fifty. I felt like a twelve year old and my heart sank a bit. The gallery was huge, and I wanted to eat. Couldn’t we just play pool again?

I extended my arms as I took my first step, and then immediately lowered them. Stupid. If my hand brushed one of the statues, the game would end. But how was I supposed to know where to go? I breathed in.
Trust your instincts, Donna. Pretend you’re the Daredevil.
My mind went blank and I followed the odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like a compass. I stepped forward, and something pulled me to the right.
No, not that way,
it said.
Don’t go straight.

I followed the magnetic pull. This was possible. I hadn’t bumped into anything yet. Footsteps echoed to my left and my head shot in their direction. My pace picked up a bit. I could do this. Each right step gave me more confidence, until that magnetic pull spun around and told me to stop. Probability of a wall ahead? Very high. The footsteps had turned right. I followed. Just like playing Operation, except I was in the body, and I had to refrain from touching the metal sides. It seemed ages had passed since I went through the maze until I came closer and closer to one of the four people I was supposed to identify. They stood in the doorway; too easy. But since this was my first try, I guess they were trying to do me a favor. Heck, I’d take it. Not that I thought I’d ever get this far. We stood a few feet apart and I came nearer, about to open my mouth when I remembered the rules. My hand reached out, and brushed the person’s chest. It was either Todd or Dan. I tried to think of how to distinguish them. Todd was a bit shorter, and so was his hair. But I didn’t need to go that far. I could already detect the strong whiff of his shampoo. I opened my mouth again to say his name, yet something stopped me. What if they used the same shampoo? They could be roommates, for all I knew. Yeah, that was a good argument. I just hoped Hailie wasn’t nearby, or in the same room.

My hand reached out to touch his face and I smiled. Long face, smooth skin with a hint of stubble. I don’t know why I thought of him as a jock before; he wasn’t that manly. The way he carried himself, though, you’d think he owned the football field. It was Dan for sure.

“Tyrell,” I said.

He grinned with my hand on his face. It felt uncanny. Like I might actually be able to trust him. I could picture playing a round of
Monster Jam
with him and cursing when either of us made the other eat dirt. My heart picked up a bit of speed.

Dan didn’t say anything. Such were the rules. But by now I completely believed my instincts and my senses.

Only three more to go.

CHAPTER NINETEEN—Bribe

A
s many points as I had earned in training—which, suffice it to say, could have been more if Dan hadn’t tried to trick me by getting in my way time and again—I still couldn’t eat while I was completely soaked. My feet were frozen and I would catch a cold if I went on like this. Eva, however, said she had to get something, and I should go take a shower first.

“Are you sure?” I said. “You’ll get sick.”

“Don’t worry, a couple more minutes soaking wet won’t kill me. But I owe you one, so I’ll be right back. You go first.”

“For what? I didn’t do anything.”

“You let me help out in the training session. I just stocked up on points, yo.”

“Well…you would have done the same.”

She grinned. “See you in a bit.”

I smiled back and we parted ways, her down the stairs and me staring at my ascent begrudgingly. I’d probably be dry by the time I got to floor 14.

I literally jumped in the shower, my icky wet clothes shed as fast as possible and scattered on the bathroom floor.

“Ahhh…,” I sighed at the hot water and steam that warmed my body, toes to nose. In a way, it was somewhat rewarding. I let the heat sink into me until no part of my body felt cold, turned off the tap, and blinked a few times as I searched around the bathroom. No towels.

I suddenly remembered Dan’s comment about how even clothes cost points. You had to be kidding me. Not even towels were free? At least they provided toilet paper! But I couldn’t dry myself off with that. And towels were likely what Eva had gone to get!

“Eva?” I called tentatively. “You there?”

She wasn’t back yet. Maybe there was a line at the counter or something. So much for a favor.

And I hadn’t even brought in a fresh pair of clothes. My palm met my forehead a bit too loudly. A red mark formed and my brow creased. My eyes shot to the shower curtain. I sighed. No other choice.

I dried myself off with the miserable-sized hand towels we had used last night and this morning from our luggage, wrapped the shower curtain around my torso, and slumped out of the bathroom like an old lady with a crooked back, clutching the curtain and hoping it wouldn’t fall down.

My eyes brightened and delighted in the silver tray at the foot of my bed. I ran up to it and observed the delicious dinner, including steak, salad, pasta, Italian soda, and a dulce de leche desert. Now that was more like it! Yum! Don’t tell me…this was Eva’s gift for me? Starry eyed, I wanted to weep. That girl was an angel. A genuine angel. How could I deserve a roommate like her? I was not worthy.

I plopped on the bed and began to dig in when I heard a muffle behind me, something like a laugh, and turned slowly to first see a pair of male feet. A cold shiver ran down my back. I turned around completely and dropped my fork, sprang back from my bed like I had just sat on a bed of coal, and gaped at Dan sprawled over my sheets. He finally burst out laughing.

“Pffft—Hahaha!”

My face reddened as I looked down and then clutched the flowery curtain tighter to my body.

“What the freakin’ hell!” I exclaimed, still beet red. “What are you doing here?!” He kept laughing. I grabbed the mini rule book and began to flip through it fervently. “There has to be something in here about guys not being allowed in a girl’s dormitory!”

“Well, yeah, naturally.” Dan’s laughter died down. “But you forget. We only get points for
following
the rules. No one cares if we break them.”

I shut the rule book, feeling utterly stupid and agitated at the same time. He really didn’t care about breaking the rules or getting caught.

He laid back, hands behind his neck, and gave me a smarmy look from under his bandana. “You know, you should worship me now for bringing you such fine cuisine.”

I took a tentative step forward, almost like a defensive cat.

“Wait…you brought that?… Why?”

“Haha, kidding. It was there when I got here.”

“Oh,” I said. My face dropped a bit. “So what
are
you doing in my room?”

“Just came to tell you we’ll train tomorrow morning in the history museum. Around nine. Be there, and don’t be late. You get more points for being on time. Not that you’d know that. Just read the damn rule book already.” He got off the bed and walked out of the room with his hands in his pockets. I cringed and threw the rule book after him. It hit the door frame.