An Academy for Liars

Chapter 55

“I OWE YOU an apology,” said Dante. They were sitting in the same small classroom where Lennon had first met him. She couldn’t remember how she’d come to be there, or really anything after losing consciousness on the balcony of the chancellor’s mansion.

Lennon tried to speak, but her tongue was swollen, fat and useless behind her teeth, spit pooling at the back of her throat. She had just enough autonomy to swallow, but it was a great effort to work the muscles of her throat without choking.

Her entire body felt like a limb she’d slept on wrong, tingling and unbearable, numb from loss of blood flow. She managed to blink, the effort of closing and opening her own eyelids was equivalent to pulling the cord on a pair of heavy wooden blinds. Even thinking was difficult, but with great effort she strung together a few thoughts, taking stock of her situation. Someone had her in a psychic hold, that much was obvious. It was keeping her body and mind sedated, her instincts suppressed.

Lennon managed to lower her gaze, saw her own hands bound in her lap, her ankles tied to the legs of the desk she was sitting in.

“An unnecessary precaution,” said Dante. “I told them you wouldn’t run.”

Lennon tried to move her hands. Her fingers twitched, and then, very slowly, her hooked middle finger rose just above the rest of her clenched knuckles and straightened itself.

Fuck you.

Dante saw and smiled. “You still have fight in you. That’s good. You’ll need it.”

He sat down on the desk in front of her, and she was surprised to discover that even here he still smelled like the sea. Hot tears welled at the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks.

“Hey, none of that,” said Dante, but with a fondness that sounded sincere. He wiped at her eyes. “It’s okay. I’m going to tell you what happens next, and you’re going to listen, all right?”

Lennon managed to straighten her middle finger a little more.

“It’s going to be just like we practiced, with the gates to the past. As the chancellor dies—they say he doesn’t have a lot of time left—you’re going to raise them around the school. I’ll be right there with you the entire time, all right? There’s nothing to be afraid of. You can trust me if you do it just the way we practiced, okay? Like that first time? At my home. When the time comes, you just imagine that you’re there, you open that gate to the past, and you keep opening it, okay? You keep pushing until the walls of the cabin surround the entire campus.”

Lennon tried to plead. To beg. To curse the day she’d ever met him.

But all that escaped her was a tangled whimper.

“I know,” said Dante. “It’s going to take a lot out of you. More than you have to give. You saw William. I know that you know. And I’m sorry that I didn’t warn you…” He cut himself short. “This isn’t what I wanted for you. Everything I’ve done so far has been to try to spare you from this. I know you won’t believe that right now, but it’s the truth.”

Dante stood up, began to pace the narrow aisle between desks, staring at his own feet. “I’m not a good person, Lennon. I’m not a moral one. But I am loyal. I know that you probably don’t believe that in this moment—why would you, coming fresh off a betrayal like this one? But for some time now, I’ve harbored the belief that you could master your own abilities. And by that, I mean I believe you’re stronger than William. Strong enough to take on this task without being consumed by it. That’s what I trained you for. That’s what I hope for you. And I still believe you can do it.”

The door opened. Eileen’s secretary ducked her head inside. “The vice-chancellor wants a word.”

The door shut again.

“Hold on to your hatred; it’ll serve you better than sadness,” he said, and was gone.

After a few moments, the feeling began to return to Lennon’s hands and feet, so that she could move them a little, though she wasn’t strong enough to break her bonds. She needed help, but who could she turn to? Blaine and Dante had betrayed her. The rest of her friends and housemates likely didn’t even know where she was. If she wanted to escape, she would have to save herself.

Lennon shut her eyes. She felt her will leave her own limp body like a bleed and spill through the classroom and then beyond it, trickling through the long corridors of Irvine Hall and down to the ground floor, then across campus to the labs in Wharton. From there, it wasn’t long until she found her mark: the storage room where all of the rats were kept. She entered their minds like a parasite, overcoming them one by one.

Blood bubbled from her left nostril. Filled the seam between her lips.

She kept pushing further into their minds, leaving her own body to enter theirs.

Her vision split and fractured like the multifocused eye of a fly, a shard of each rat’s perspective held within her mind. She drew them all to the fronts of their respective cages, pressed their little pink paws flush to the glass, and then—with a knot of guilt in her stomach—forced them forward. Cages rocked and shifted, tipping off shelves, splitting open as they hit the floor.

A few of the rats snapped free of her will and fled, but Lennon—bleeding profusely now, from her mind and from her nose—corralled them back, reestablishing control as she herded the horde through the doors of the lab.

A tech shrieked and fled at the sight of them.

It was no easy feat to control such a large herd of rats, and despite Lennon’s best efforts, they began to scatter. By the time Lennon called them up to the second floor of Irvine Hall, where she was being held, the last of the horde had dispersed, with the exception of just one rat.

Gregory.

Lennon—defeated, bleeding, slumped in her chair—only noticed him when his teeth pinched her skin as he gnawed at her binds. He was bigger than he had been the last time she’d seen him; his teeth were white and long, and he made quick work of the thin binds that bound her wrists together. She cried, seeing her little friend, who had come all this way to help her, and not because she’d forced him to, but because she’d asked—more pleaded, really. She’d made her need known, and he had come to help her.

Gregory gnawed the bindings thin enough for Lennon to pull the rope apart and snap it.

From there, she managed to untie the binds at her ankles, working as quickly as she could, her fingers still stone numb and clumsy from the suppression. When she was done, she scooped up Gregory and tucked him carefully into the front pocket of her hoodie.

Still too weak to call an elevator—the suppression warping her mind and making her weak—Lennon resolved to escape across campus on foot. With all the elevators in Irvine Hall heavily guarded—and Eileen’s secretary permanently posted behind her desk—Lennon determined that her best chance at escape was the elevator in Logos House. If she was careful and lucky, she could slip in unnoticed, hide in her room or one of the storage closets along the hall, and then, when the coast was clear, take the elevator to one of the locations it accessed in Savannah and then make her way from there.

She didn’t think much of what she would do once she left the campus. Where she would run, or who would help her. In the moment, all she thought about was herself, and Gregory squirming in her pocket.

Irvine Hall was mostly empty that evening, and Lennon made it down to the first floor without being seen, ducking into empty classrooms when she heard footsteps ringing through the hall behind her. She moved quickly, knowing it likely wouldn’t be long before they realized she’d escaped. Or maybe they knew already, the person who held her suppressed having realized that the tether had been cut. She braced for an alarm—the toll of a chapel bell—ringing through campus to alert everyone that a fugitive was on the loose. But there was nothing. At least, not until she emerged from Irvine Hall, through a side door that allowed her to avoid the lobby, where she would’ve surely been spotted by the secretary.

She hid in the bushes as two professors, Dr. Lund and Eileen, approached.

“How did she wriggle out of your hold?” Eileen demanded; Lennon had never seen her so unkempt. Big patches of red on her cheeks, hair hanging loose and damp about her shoulders, as if she’d been interrupted halfway through a shower.

“I don’t know,” said Dr. Lund, and he too seemed frantic. “Ask Dante. He was the last to see her.”

They disappeared through the doors of Irvine Hall, and Lennon, crouching in the bushes, waited a full ten seconds before she sprang to her feet and ran. She was almost halfway across campus when the church bell began to toll, though it wasn’t the top of any hour and it rang longer and louder than it ever had before.

Lennon kept running. She’d almost made it to the middle of the square, ducking behind trees and hiding in bushes, successfully keeping out of view, when she first spotted Alec a few hundred yards away. Panicked, she enclosed herself in a nearby telephone booth, covered in ivy.

She clamped a hand over her mouth, tried to muffle her ragged breaths.

A shadow slid past the fogged glass of the phone booth, broken to fractures by the gaps in the ivy. Then it doubled back, stalled by the door. Lennon, pressing herself against the wall of the phone booth, held her breath.

The door opened. Alec stood in it and clucked his tongue with mock sympathy. “Oh, Lennon. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

Lennon could feel him entering her mind as he said this. Under the force of Alec’s formidable will, she was helpless.

She felt herself losing consciousness. Fighting back wasn’t an option, so she retreated, leaving the confines of her body as Alec took hold of her.

She was only vaguely aware of her own body, slumped uselessly against the back wall of the phone booth, Alec barring her exit, their faces inches apart. She felt like she was watching this happen to someone else.

Panic tore her mind farther from her body, and she felt herself fanning out—spreading thin across the campus. Racing across the lawn and through the brush. And then she found them, the rats that had scattered, gathered together in a shaking horde in the bushes a few yards out.

And an idea took form.

Lennon entered their minds, called them forth—a forceful coaxing—and then the horde began to run. There were shrieks and screams and yelps at the sight of the rat horde skittering across the campus, their little paws tramping across the sprawling green with surprising speed, until they found their mark.

The rats spilled into the phone booth and set upon Alec, clambering up his pants legs and ballooning through his shirt. He staggered back with a yell, foot catching on the bottom of the phone booth. He hit the ground, consumed by the writhing horde of rats. There were dozens of them, wriggling through his clothes and consuming his face. He gave a strangled cry.

Lennon lunged out of the phone booth and ran, her legs weak and leaden beneath her, half falling through the bushes as she struggled to drag herself across the Twenty-Fifth Square. But she was still so weak from the psychic suppression, and her pitiful attempts to firm up her knees were less and less successful. She was slowing down. If she kept pushing she knew she’d lose consciousness.

“Lennon!” Blaine stepped out onto the path ahead of her, waving her down. “This way!”

Lennon stopped dead.

When she still didn’t come, Blaine went to her, caught her by the arm, and dragged her along, keeping her on her feet. And it was a good thing that she did, because the moment Blaine’s arm encircled her, Lennon felt her legs go soft. It was Blaine who dragged her off the path and behind a live oak as several professors rounded the bend and advanced down the sidewalk Lennon had just been standing on.

“Why are you helping me?” said Lennon, panting and breathless.

“Because I’m finally brave enough to do what I should’ve done before,” Blaine whispered, and gripped her hands. “I’m sorry. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but I hope this is enough for you to know that it wasn’t all bullshit. That I do…regret not warning you sooner. I didn’t know anything for sure—I want you to know that. But I did know enough to suspect you were in danger. I just didn’t want to have to choose between losing you and losing my life at Drayton because I knew if it came down to it…” She couldn’t finish, just shook her head. “I hate myself.”

“It’s all right,” said Lennon. “It’s not your fault.”

But even as she said this, the betrayal stung anew. The reality that Blaine and Dante and almost everyone at Drayton she’d thought she could trust had participated in this cruel ruse, in one way or another. Were they all complicit? Because if Blaine had known, then who else? How many others? Eileen and Benedict were obvious answers, but what about Emerson, Sawyer—hell, even Nadine and Ian? Had they all been privy to this secret and iced her out? Her life the price of their admission to a world that they loved?

If she’d had to make the same decision, would she have done any different?

“Logos is crawling with faculty,” said Blaine. “They think you’ll go there first. So our best bet is getting you out through the gate in the faculty parking lot. I don’t think they’re expecting you there.” Blaine shifted Lennon’s arm tight across her shoulder, keeping her upright. They were moving slower than what was safe or prudent. But Lennon was too weak to go any faster. She was so relieved when she saw the gates of Drayton emerging from the fog that her legs went limp beneath her, and Blaine had to drag her the rest of the way.

The gates didn’t open automatically the way they did when Dante’s car approached them, so Blaine had to pull them open, mostly alone despite Lennon’s best attempts to help her, teeth gritted, shaking hands wrapped white and bloodless around the rusty pickets. Blaine had them open almost wide enough for Lennon to pass through, when Lennon first caught sight of Alec approaching.

His face was a ruin of bleeding rat bites. His lips were so badly bitten that when he attempted to speak, he spat blood, and Lennon couldn’t even tell what exactly he was saying. Gregory twisted in her pocket as Lennon attempted to wedge herself through the gate, while Blaine pulled and struggled, panicking.

When Alec’s will came upon her, it felt like a heart attack. She immediately began to black out, would have if Blaine hadn’t offered an immediate counterattack, lashing out her will, intercepting the connection between Lennon and Alec, distracting him just long enough for Lennon to wedge herself into the break in the parted gate. But she was only half through when the gate closed suddenly, swinging shut on her chest, crushing Gregory deep into her stomach, the poor rat writhing and panicking as the metal tamped down on him. He gave a pained little shriek, wriggled free of her pocket, and fled for the bushes.

“Gregory!” It came out in a raw gasp, the gate crushing against her sternum making it almost impossible to speak or even breathe.

Lennon’s vision went. Her bones shrieked agony. For a moment, she was certain she was going to die in the maw of that iron gate. But with the last of her strength, and a strangled scream, Lennon managed to drag herself free, landing firmly back on the Drayton side. Alec had advanced considerably, and he had Blaine on her knees now, bleeding from the ears with the effort of holding him back. She twisted to look at Lennon, helpless, in pain.

And that was when Lennon heard a shout from across the campus. She craned her head to see Sawyer, Kieran, Emerson, and the rest of her housemates from Logos charging for Alec. They attacked him as one, brought him to his knees, severing his hold on Blaine.

Sawyer, bleeding from the nose with the effort of containing Alec, turned to Lennon and yelled: “What are you standing there for? Run! ”

Lennon turned and broke for the trees, ran until her legs gave out beneath her. She dropped to her hands and knees, panting in the dirt. In the distance she could see the chapel and she started toward it, hoping to hide there for a little while and catch her breath, maybe regain the strength she needed to call an elevator.

“There you are.” She looked up to see Nadine emerging from the trees. “The whole campus is looking for you.”

“Nadine, I can explain—”

“Why did you kill Ian?” she asked, so softly that Lennon barely heard her speak. It was then that she saw it, a bit of metal clenched in Nadine’s left hand. A knife.

“It was an accident.”

“An accident ?” Nadine’s eyes flashed bright in the dark. “Lennon, you tore him apart. They wouldn’t even let me see what was left of him. They had to send ashes back to his family because what was left to bury was so gruesome they were worried what would happen if they gave them anything more. And you stand here telling me that was an accident?”

“Listen—”

“Shut up,” she snapped and thrust a pointed finger in Lennon’s face, spitting a little as she spoke. “He had a little sister. He had family. He had me .”

“I am sorry,” said Lennon. “But I can’t bring him back.”

“I was in love with him,” said Nadine, as though she hadn’t even heard her. “I’d been in love with him. I loved him even when you used him as a good lay and then cast him aside the moment that you found a better bet with Dante. I didn’t want to let myself feel that way for anyone, but I did, despite my faith, despite everything. I sacrificed so much to feel that. And the moment I was brave enough to admit it, to let myself love him, the moment I won him over, you had to take him for yourself. If you couldn’t have him, then no one could—”

“That’s not true.”

“Don’t you lie,” said Nadine, hysterical now. “I saw it that night, on the way to the chapel. I saw it in your eyes. You didn’t like the fact that I was with him. You were jealous—”

“I wasn’t—”

“—and competitive. You always have been. Even with Ian, you always had to be the best. That’s why you put that knife through his hand the night he was supposed to be initiated into Logos. We all saw you do it. I swear it looked like you were fighting a smile after you nailed his hand to the table. It was sick. You’re fucking sick, and if the school won’t hold you accountable, I will.”

With that, Nadine lunged at Lennon across the field, that knife sheathed in her clenched fist, her will a wicked thing that cleaved through the space between them and seized upon Lennon like the mouth of a snake. Lennon staggered, then hit the ground, extending her own will as she fell. Nadine crashed atop her, the blade of her knife embedded itself deep into the dirt, inches from Lennon’s head.

Nadine ripped the knife free of the dirt and raised it again, and Lennon caught her by the wrist as the blade’s tip hovered, inches from her abdomen. Nadine was stronger than she looked, much stronger, and Lennon couldn’t fend her off for very long. The knife pierced into the soft of her belly, and blood soaked through the waistband of her trousers. Her arm spasmed. Her grip failed. The knife cut deeper, and she could feel the tip biting into her hip bone.

A sharp trill cut the silence of the night.

An elevator bell.

The ground firmed and hardened beneath her back.

Lennon managed to shove Nadine off her just as the doors of the elevator split open behind her, and she fell into the cabin, crashing against the far wall with an impact so violent she very nearly lost consciousness. The doors closed. She slid down the wall as the cabin descended.

Gritting her teeth, she peeled up her shirt to examine the stab wound. It was deep enough to need stitches, but she didn’t think the knife had punctured deep enough to do any internal damage. She clasped a hand over the wound to slow the bleeding.

The elevator jolted—stopped—but its doors didn’t open. After a few long minutes, she began to panic, beating on the doors, and frantically fitting her fingers into the crack, breaking nails in her desperate effort to pry them apart. She had just begun her first attempts to scale up the walls of the elevator and push at its paneled ceiling when the cabin began moving again. Slowly at first, grinding into motion with a sound she’d never heard before, like a can being crushed in a fist. And she could feel the walls of the elevator trembling almost, as if threatening to give under the pressure.

Again, Lennon wedged blood-slick fingers into the crack between the doors and tried to pry them apart, to no avail. The lights flickered and the elevator bells began to ring, as if in warning. But then the sound distorted as the cabin slowed. It was at this time that Lennon collected her thoughts enough to determine that someone had gotten hold of the elevator and was dragging it off course. Dante, perhaps?

Water began leaking through the elevator doors. A small trickle at first, thickening to a rivulet that washed across the floor and flooded over the tops of her loafers.

The cabin filled fast.

Up to her ankles.

Her knees.

Her hip bones.

Lennon tried to pry open the doors again. But if it was difficult before, it was impossible now, with the cold water spraying in and blinding her, making it impossible for her fingers to gain purchase between the slick metal doors.

The water climbed up to her collarbones, and she began to take deep breaths, trying to saturate her blood with as much oxygen as she could. Her feet lifted above the floor of the elevator, the water climbed higher, and her head wedged against the ceiling.

The lights flickered then died.

In the darkness, Lennon took a final breath.

She thought of Dante.

Her lungs swelled and burned.

She thought of Carly and what this would do to her.

She thought of Blaine.

The doors didn’t open. The elevator didn’t move.

When Lennon realized that this was the end—that she couldn’t hold her breath for even a moment longer—she decided to make things quick. She opened her mouth, inhaled a lungful of water, and blacked out.