2 Students Remaining #3
I turn away, blinking back tears. I can’t stand to look at him right now. I can’t believe that he knew and he didn’t tell me, that he waited for me to find out on my own.
All this time I knew he was holding back. I felt it, but I told myself I was being paranoid. Serves me right for not trusting my instincts. For falling for Ian fucking St. Clair.
I stare at Lynn. “Who am I? I know you know.”
“Your birth mother was a woman named Marsha Cooper,” she explains.
“She was a teacher in Springfield, killed in a hit-and-run when you were an infant. You were in the car with her, but you survived. Marsha claimed that your father was a decorated naval officer, but as his name wasn’t on your birth certificate and Marsha didn’t have any family, you were placed in foster care.
We don’t believe your father knew about you. ”
I blink, surprised to feel something wet gathering at the corners of my eyes. I don’t cry. I never cry. But I’ve wanted to know my mother my whole life. I’ve dreamed about her.
“Were you the one who doctored my paperwork?” I want to know. “Made me believe I was Eli Michaels’s daughter?”
“I switched your paperwork with Ian’s when you were both less than two months old,” Lynn continues.
For how much emotion there is in her voice, she could be talking about why she chose to homeschool or why she doesn’t think teens need their own cell phones.
“Ian grew up believing that Marsha was his mother, and you grew up believing Ian’s parents were yours. ”
“Why?”
“It’s part of the next phase of my testing.
There’s concern that there’s a biological component to violence.
We’ve long wondered whether violent people will produce violent offspring, or if violence is a result of upbringing.
Lia, you were raised to believe that your father was a monster when, in fact, your father was a good man.
Ian, on the other hand, grew up believing his father was a good man when, in fact, he was a monster.
I was curious how this would affect your behavior through the years, particularly since you, Lia, were raised in a series of foster and group homes, not to mention that stint in juvenile detention, whereas Ian was transferred into my care at the age of fourteen and given access to the very best education and tutoring.
Obviously, we’ll need to continue testing this; two students are hardly enough to constitute a full sample.
But I felt it was important that the two of you were in the initial phase of the experiment. ”
“You’re crazy.” I tighten my grip on my bomb, and the water bottle cracks beneath my fingers. This woman has spent my entire life manipulating and controlling me. I can’t even imagine what Ian’s life with her must’ve been like.
“Am I?” Lynn blinks, her eyes moving to the water bottle in my hands. “As you can see, only one of us is standing here holding a bomb. So it seems that my theories have thus far been proven correct.”
“What about all that crap about sending us to the college of our dreams, tuition-free. Were those just more lies?”
“Absolutely not,” Lynn says calmly. “Throughout my tenure working in education, I’ve met deans at some of the most prestigious colleges in the world.
When I explained what I was doing here, they were more than happy to partner with me.
Everything Wyatt told you at the beginning of the year is true.
Any student who makes it to graduation will be granted acceptance to the college of their choice. ”
“So, some students get to go on and live their dream lives while the others are tortured and killed. Sounds like a great system.” I stare hard at Lynn’s face, but her mouth is still shrouded in shadow. “Where’s my sister?”
“I told you, Scarlett is safe.”
It’s impossible to know if she’s telling the truth or if this is just another part of her twisted simulation. Has Scarlett already been deemed one of these “problem kids” and terminated? Is she just telling me my sister’s okay so I’ll put my bomb down?
I’m still clutching the water bottle. The smoke spiraling from the top is a slim tendril curling into the air, but it shouldn’t explode until it’s shaken. With a few flicks of my wrist, I can make this entire stage explode. “I’m done playing your game. Take me to my sister.”
“I’m sorry, Lia, I’m afraid I can’t do that. But you’ll see her again very soon.”
She’s just admitted that every single thing she’s said to me has been a lie. Every facet of this school has been carefully constructed to control me, so she can study what I’ll do, how I’ll respond. Her words mean less than nothing.
I swallow, remembering the first time I saw Luminary’s campus, how I’d actually believed I’d found a way to escape the dreary future that was laid out for me, the endless cycle of foster home to group home to juvie.
For the first time, I’d thought I might have the future I’d always dreamed of. But it was just another lie.
These people…they want me to believe I’m the problem. But they’re the ones putting me in impossible situations; they’re the ones forcing me to make impossible choices.
I tighten my grip on the water bottle. I want to throw it at this woman’s face. A muscle in my arm twitches.
And then Lynn says, “Have you heard the phrase chaotic evil?”
I freeze, every nerve in my body pricking. “What did you say?”
“Chaotic evil,” Lynn repeats.
“That’s a D&D term,” I murmur, only half aware that I’m speaking out loud.
I swallow, thinking of Hank’s basset hound face, the disappointed frown he always gets when he picks me up after I’ve made another dumb mistake.
Hank has always believed I was better than I behaved, better than my past. He might’ve been the only person in my life who ever had any faith in me.
What would he say if he saw me here, holding a bomb?
Lynn looks politely confused. “Is it? I didn’t realize. In any case, it means you do bad things for the wrong reasons. Those are the kinds of students we’re trying to weed out here, Lia. The bad students.”
“Is that what you think of me?” I ask.
The guards that have been standing by until now have started to look twitchy. Lynn glances at them, seeming to communicate something with a slight raise of her eyebrow. They settle, and she turns back to me. “You’re the one holding the bomb. You tell me.”
I stare at her face. Do I really think that this woman—that anyone—could know who I am because of something I wrote on a test?
Because of how I responded to a chemical fire or an escape room or a dangerous obstacle course?
It’s ludicrous. All a test can tell you is how a person will answer a test. It doesn’t show how smart you are, how moral, how strong.
Tests can’t give anyone insight into who a person really is.
“You’re wrong about me,” I tell her. I hold the bomb out in front of me, my hands shaking. “I might do bad things, but I do them for good reasons.”
I watch the corners of her eyes narrow. Her mouth begins to form a question, but I never learn what it is. Because—at that moment—I let the bomb drop.
And then I grab Ian’s arm and drag him through the trapdoor while the world explodes behind us.