3 Students Remaining
A guard comes for me in the morning. Between hearing his key in the lock and the door swinging open, I have seconds to compose myself.
“What’s that?” he grunts when he sees me. I’m standing in the middle of the science lab, morning light streaming through the high, thin windows around me.
I hold up the water bottle. “This? I was thirsty.”
The guard looks suspicious. “I don’t remember you having it last night.”
“The janitor left it behind,” I explain, which isn’t even a lie. “It wasn’t open, so I took it.” The guard still looks suspicious, so I sigh, doing my best to sound annoyed as I add, “You can’t just lock someone up for hours without access to water. Even prisoners get water.”
This seems to do the trick. The guard’s expression hardens. He motions to the hall with his nightstick. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Still holding on to the water bottle, I make my way into the hall, careful to keep my hands curled around the bottom part of the bottle. The Drano is clear, but the consistency is off. If the guard gets too close a look, he might figure out what I’ve done.
The little balls of tinfoil rustle silently in my pocket. I’ll have to wait to add them when I want to set it off.
Scarlett’s already waiting in the hall. She looks immensely relieved when she sees me.
“Lia!” she blurts. “I heard screaming. I didn’t know…” She reaches for me, but the guard puts a stop to that.
“No talking!” he barks, slamming the nightstick against the door. Scar flinches and lowers her hand, chastened.
That’s about all I can take. “We get it!” I say. “You’re a badass. But this isn’t Rikers, so why don’t you take it down a notch?”
The guard’s beady eyes drill into me. “You don’t talk back to me,” he snarls, pointing the nightstick about an inch away from my face.
I’m careful not to so much as blink. I’ve dealt with bullies like this before. They’re mostly for show, in my experience. The most important thing to do is make it clear that you’re not scared, and you’re not going to back down.
“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to beat the students,” I say, though I’m not sure of that at all. Seems to me the guards in this place have been given free rein to do exactly that.
But my words must cool the guard down a bit, because he lowers his arm, nightstick dropping to his side.
“Move,” he snarls.
He takes me and Scarlett to the auditorium. At first I think it’s empty. Then I notice someone sitting in the second row, and my heart gives a double tap inside my chest.
Wyatt Sullivan.
“Welcome to your final test of the semester!” Wyatt says as we’re led down the aisle.
He doesn’t stand up, but only leans back in his chair, one leg braced against the seat in front of him.
“What an incredible month this has been! I have to say, I never would’ve predicted this.
Usually, I can tell exactly who’s moving on by the end-of-module tests, but this semester has been a surprise! Wild.”
A chill moves through me as his words—usually and this semester. He’s given up all pretense that this is the first time they’ve done this. How many classes have there actually been?
Wyatt continues, “Normally, attempting a jailbreak like the one you all pulled would result in immediate expulsion, but as we have one additional spot to fill, the faculty has decided to hold a lightning round to see which of you will be allowed to move on.” He grins as he says this, like he’s offering us all some fantastic treat.
Despite his salt-and-pepper hair and glasses, he reminds me of a high school student, with his wiry limbs and band T-shirt.
“Go ahead and choose an X on the stage. Our last remaining student should be arriving shortly.”
Scarlett and I make our way to the center of the room, where we find three Xs, each made of blue painter’s tape. Around each of the Xs are long, thin cracks in the shape of a square: trapdoors. I tighten my grip around my water bottle as I take my place.
“Make sure to stand directly on an X,” Wyatt explains from the audience. With the spotlights still hitting us full in the face, I can’t see him. He’s just a disembodied voice reaching out of the darkness.
Scarlett looks up at me, eyes full of terror. “Why are there only three?” she whispers. “There were four of us last night, and Grace and Daniel…”
“The screaming,” I murmur back.
Scarlett looks terrified, but she hesitantly shifts so that she’s standing directly on an X.
I think of the tiny pieces of tinfoil in my pocket. My plan. Probably best to do as I’m told, to avoid suspicion. I move to stand directly over the X next to Scarlett’s.
No sooner have I stopped moving than I hear the door to the auditorium slam open.
The spotlights are still blinding me, so I can’t see what’s going on, but footsteps move toward the stage, and I figure another student must’ve arrived.
I hear Wyatt give the same spiel he gave to us.
What an incredible month this has been! I have to say, I never would’ve predicted this, etc.
A moment later, Ian appears. He nods at me, then takes the X on my other side.
I exhale, and though I feel a slight twinge of horror that Aarav’s gone, I’m mostly relieved that Ian’s still here.
There’s a moment of charged silence. Then Wyatt’s voice booms from the audience. “Well then! Now that we’re all here, let’s begin. You three are the only remaining students of your class—”
“What happened to the others?” Ian asks. “Aarav and—”
“Aarav had an altercation with a guard and was punished accordingly.” Wyatt’s voice is disturbingly cheerful. “And Grace and Daniel both failed their final tests.”
“What about Rani?” I want to know.
“Rani is no longer your concern. Focus on your own curriculum, Ms. Michaels. Now, do we have any other questions? No? In that case, only one final test stands between you and the end of your first semester. This will be a pop quiz assessing your general knowledge from your classes. Answer the questions correctly and you will continue. Answer them incorrectly and you will not.”
I swallow and find my eyes drawn back to the unsteady floor beneath me, the thin cracks outlining what is most certainly a trapdoor that opens beneath my feet. I feel suddenly unsteady.
“If you’re ready, let’s begin,” Wyatt says. “Mr. St. Clair, in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who speaks the line ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks’?”
“Queen Gertrude,” Ian says immediately.
“Very good,” Wyatt says. “Ms. Michaels, on to you. In physics, what is the term for the phenomenon where light changes direction when passing from one medium to another?”
The inside of my mouth feels dry. I’m all too aware of the floor beneath me, the shifting feel of it, like it might give way at any moment. Sweat has broken out on my palms.
“Refraction,” I say quietly.
“Nice,” Wyatt responds. “Moving on to Ms. Randall. In which country did the art movement of Cubism originate, and who are its two main founders?”
We continue like this for what feels like a very long time.
No one misses a question in the first round, or the next.
But by the third, the questions get noticeably more challenging.
They’re more open-ended, for one thing, making it more difficult to know for sure whether you’ve figured out the exact answer Wyatt’s looking for.
I find myself glancing at Scarlett as I stumble my way through a definition of the quote “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This is the exact type of question she has a hard time with.
She prefers things that are black and white, that she can memorize.
She has a much harder time with things she has to reason her way through.
She’s perfectly capable of doing it; she just gets tongue-tied.
There’s a long period of silence after I finish my answer. Every muscle in my body goes tense as I wait, eyes anxiously moving to the trapdoor below me. Maybe I should have been thinking about my own answer, instead of Scarlett’s. I hold my breath. The trapdoor stays closed.
“Ms. Randall,” Wyatt says. “What is time?”
I feel a sinking in my gut.
Scarlett’s voice is hesitant. “I’m…sorry?”
“You are to provide a definition for the concept of time. You have thirty seconds. Please begin.”
Scarlett doesn’t say anything for what feels like an entire minute, but must only be a few seconds. I glance at her and see that she’s staring directly into the spotlight, a sort of dazed, hopeless look on her face. She needs to say something. Anything.
“Scarlett!” I hiss.
“No speaking,” Wyatt says calmly. “Ms. Randall, you have twenty seconds left.”
“I…” Scarlett starts. She licks her lips, and starts again. “Time is a…concept that’s…uh, surprisingly complex.”
My shoulders unclench, just a little. But Scar freezes after that.
“Complex how, Ms. Randall?” Wyatt urges.
“It’s…in physics, it’s a dimension,” Scarlett practically whispers.
“You have ten seconds left, Ms. Randall.”
“I…” Scarlett looks at me, and I can see the exact moment when she gives up. She blinks twice, fast, and says, “I don’t know.”
“Scarlett!” I say, louder.
“Ms. Michaels, you have already been warned not to speak with the other students. Ms. Randall, is that your final answer? You have three more seconds. Three…two…”
Scarlett shakes her head slightly, and when she speaks, I know she’s not talking to Wyatt. She’s talking to me. “I’m sorry.”
“One,” Wyatt says.
The trapdoor below her feet springs open, and she disappears, her scream so loud that I can feel it inside my head, inside my skull.
It’s a few seconds before I realize that’s because I’m screaming, too.