Six Months Later
My tights itch, probably because they’re so far up my crotch they’re basically inside me.
I slide down in my seat, trying to subtly shift the material, but it’s no use.
The only way I’m getting them out is by sticking my hands down my skirt and yanking them out, and I’m pretty sure that kind of thing is frowned upon in a place like Blackwood University.
So, I just sit on my cold wooden chair in misery. Dealing with it.
I’m here for my admissions interview. For a while, I wasn’t sure I still wanted to go here. After learning my mother wasn’t really who I thought she was, it kind of felt pointless.
But then I started looking into my real mother, Marsha Cooper. She taught a freshman English lit class here, at Blackwood. That’s where my T-shirt came from. And after I’ve spent so long dreaming about this place, studying the website, poring over photographs, I figured I should at least apply.
I even let Scarlett dress me, which means I’m wearing a gray pencil skirt and a white button-up blouse—she actually said the word blouse, like we’re forty-year-old women about to go on shopping trips to Eileen Fisher—the aforementioned tights in a very respectable nude color, and a pair of loafers that are half a size too small because Scar has dainty little doll feet.
I even let her put my hair up in a fancy bun that she called a chignon, which mostly hides my blue streaks.
I look respectable as shit. I’m hoping it’ll be enough to get my interviewer to overlook some of the more…
let’s call them fun aspects of my admissions packet.
Like my month at Luminary Academy, for instance.
After our jailbreak, the scandal at Luminary was all over the local news.
The place shut down, authorities investigated, reporters swarmed the school grounds and camped out in front of former students’ houses, hoping for an interview.
A few of my old classmates even went on TV to talk about what happened, but that didn’t last long.
People had a hard time buying stories of deadly escape rooms and literary trials with real consequences, pop quizzes that ended by falling through secret trapdoors.
I can’t blame them. None of it sounds real.
Wyatt Sullivan was taken into custody for a little while, but last I heard, he was released pending trial.
I’m pretty sure that’s the real reason Lynn installed him as Luminary’s dean.
She set up the school in a way that shielded her from any liability.
She released a public statement shortly after Luminary closed, claiming that she had nothing to do with the curriculum, that Wyatt had overstepped, and that her other schools were perfectly safe and respectable.
I know the truth, of course. But who’s going to listen to anything a juvenile delinquent like me has to say?
What’s important is this: Seven didn’t burn alive in the chem lab.
Turns out, they were ushered out of a side door as soon as the flames caught.
And Zo wasn’t captured by gun-toting guards; she actually figured out the game before they found her and walked right up to a guard to let them know they’d been made.
She told me later that she left her earring behind for me to find, as a clue.
It was a clue I didn’t remotely get, but still, I appreciate the thought.
The games were designed to test us, just like Lynn told me they were.
And when it became clear that we’d reached our limit, we were taken away, held back or passed—or terminated.
Like Mando and Rani, and who knows how many others.
My phone buzzes. I pull it out of my skirt and check my messages: Zo.
We’ve been trying to hunt down the missing students ever since we left Luminary, but so far, we haven’t had much luck.
There are over twenty students who are still unaccounted for, including Rani and Mando.
There’s no way to know if any of them are still alive, let alone if they’re safe.
Seven survived the chem lab explosion, but Alex and Keira weren’t in the underground cells with the others.
Were they killed when the elevator plummeted down the shaft?
Or are they being held in some other basement room?
And what about Rani? He betrayed us to Luminary. They wouldn’t punish him for that. Would they?
Hank has assured me there are people looking for all of them. But he also told me not to get my hopes up, that it’s possible the missing kids are perfectly fine and just don’t want to be found.
“According to his file, Mando ran away from home three times last year,” Hank explained.
“His mom’s convinced that’s what happened this time, too.
And Rani’s aunt has admitted that it’s not unusual for Rani to disappear for weeks at a time.
Just because you don’t know where they are doesn’t mean something horrible has happened. ”
I’ve argued with him, of course. I told him all about the class roster—the word terminated written after so many kids’ names—but without tangible proof, there’s not much he can do.
I turn back to my phone. Check this out, Zo’s text reads, and there’s a link. I’m about to click when the interviewer’s door creaks open. I quickly put the phone away.
“It’ll just be a few more minutes now,” says the admin assistant, an older woman with puffy dandelion-fuzz hair and kind eyes. “Thank you so much for your patience.”
“Of course, thank you,” I tell her, smiling nervously.
Adams High’s guidance counselor scored me this interview.
She’s actually pretty nice. After Adams agreed to take me back so I could finish my senior year, the counselor’s been helping me get my application into shape and encouraging me to expand my college search.
According to her, Blackwood’s a major long shot, so I’m checking out some local community colleges, too.
I wasn’t too into the idea at first, but one of the schools, Springfield Community College, helps students transfer to bigger universities like Blackwood after they complete the initial two-year program.
Seven and Zo are both thinking of going there, and even I have to admit it’s an intriguing option.
The Springfield Community College campus is smaller than Blackwood’s, and it doesn’t have the same stunning Gothic architecture and winding stone pathways, but it’s still really cool, and apparently a lot of the Blackwood professors teach there, too, so you get the same classes for a fraction of the price.
It would be nice to avoid paying that hefty tuition for my first few years.
And I could always transfer to Blackwood as a junior—if I even still wanted to go.
I’m about to pull my phone out of my pocket again when I hear footsteps approaching from down the hall. Someone says, “Lia?”
I recognize that voice. I look up.
For a moment, I can’t catch my breath. Ian’s wearing a charcoal-gray suit that makes him look like a European prince from the 1980s, with his windswept hair and cleft chin and eyes like two chips of ice. He pauses for a moment. Then, seeming to steel himself, he walks stiffly up to me.
I jerk to my feet, anxiously straightening my skirt. “Hey,” I say. I’m surprised at my perfectly calm voice. You’d never guess how my heart was racing, or that my palms have started sweating. “Do you have an interview, too? I didn’t even know you were applying here.”
“I’m applying to all the universities in the area. I want to stay in-state if possible,” Ian says. We haven’t seen each other since the night of the jailbreak. He called once, right after, but I wasn’t ready to talk to him. I still hated him back then. I mean, I still hate him, period.
Right?
Ian’s eyes move over my “respectable” outfit. I think they linger on my hips for a moment longer than the rest of my body, but probably that’s just my imagination. He clears his throat and shifts his gaze back up to my face. “You look…different.”
“Yeah, well, I let Scarlett dress me. I figured this place wouldn’t appreciate shredded band T-shirts and fishnets.”
“There’s no accounting for taste.”
“Right.” I try to subtly wipe my palms on my skirt. I have no idea what to say to him. How’s your crazy benefactor doing lately? Or maybe, Have you made peace with the fact that your bio dad is a murderer who killed your mom?
Or I could ask him what I’m really wondering, which is, Do you ever think about me? Do you miss me? If I were ready to forgive you, would you maybe want to sneak out behind the building and rip each other’s clothes off?
Deep breaths, Lia.
“Listen,” Ian says after a very long, very awkward pause. He rubs the back of his neck, and that’s when I realize he’s nervous. At least as nervous as me. Maybe more. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while now. I…I wanted to apologize.”
I drop my eyes to his shoes, which seem like a safer place to look than his face. Loafers, I notice. And he’s matched his socks to his tie again, which should give me the ick, but which, instead, I find sort of weirdly hot. I need my head examined.
I swallow, trying to dislodge the lump that’s formed in my throat. “You do?”
“I never should have lied to you. I should’ve told you the truth about everything, but Lynn made it seem like things would be a lot worse for you if I did.”
“Evelyn Greer,” I say her name slowly. “I still can’t believe she adopted you. You’re nothing like her.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Ian explains. “She wasn’t like a mother. She was more like…a drill sergeant. Before I came to Luminary, the last few years of my life have been about preparing for that school.”
“But she told you about Luminary, right? You knew how horrible it was.”