Chapter Four
Age seven
The last time I’d seen a calendar was three months ago, in the headmaster’s office.
He’d left me unattended for ten minutes, enough time for me to scan each of the twelve pages and memorize them by heart.
Then I went back to my room and scraped the date into the bottom of my bedframe so I could keep track of time without Andrin knowing.
Yeah. Today was definitely my birthday.
I wondered how boys with families celebrated. I imagined with cake, parents, and friends. Maybe balloons.
I wondered if I’d enjoy parents and presents. I’d never had either.
It seemed cool, having a birthday party. In the same way riding a dragon seemed cool. In a faraway, pathetically fictional way.
I put my pencil down on my writing table, next to my tenth-grade algebra homework. My pet cat, Ares, strutted along my worksheets, leaving mud-stained paw marks in his wake.
He thrust his head into my chin, purring like an engine and giving me a lopsided, tooth-baring smirk. I grinned toothlessly.
We weren’t allowed pets at the dormitory. Ares was my secret.
A few months ago, he’d emerged from the edge of the woods, missing his tail and one ear. It was no trouble at all, sharing some of my snacks with him. Every morning, I opened the window for him to go out and roam outside.
I liked the idea that at least one of us was free. And he always came back in the evenings.
“It’s my birthday, Ares.” I scratched his head with my index finger softly.
He pulled away, walked over to the edge of the table, and spun around slowly a couple times before curling into position. It looked like he was doing a little dance for me.
I laughed. “A present in the form of a dance. I like that.”
I glanced outside my window. It was pitch-black.
I traced the shape of the balustrade with my eyes, the silhouette of the thick woods beyond the Swiss boarding academy I lived in.
The forest stretched for miles on each side of the property. I knew Geneva was nearby. I studied the maps and burned them into memory in case I ever needed to escape.
What I didn’t know was how I got here. Or why.
I’d been told a distant relative dropped me off when I was just shy of two. Other than that, I didn’t know much about myself. I only knew I was an orphan and that I was American.
I was told I had no immediate family. I remembered some faces and events in a land faraway before I came to Switzerland, but I sometimes wondered if I made them all up.
A shadow passed along my window, the shape of a man.
My stomach bottomed out.
It was Andrin.
It was always Andrin.
The houseparents and tutors who supervised the dorms knew he came for me every night, and still, they let it happen.
They said it was good for me.
That Andrin was looking out for my future.
Maybe it was true, but if a bright future meant living in complete darkness, I didn’t want to live at all.
“You need to leave,” I whispered to Ares, pushing the window open and placing him on the sill. “He can’t see you here.”
Ares gave me the stink eye and slipped out of my room just as the door opened.
Andrin never knocked.
I buried my face in my homework, ignoring his frame as it loomed over me, casting a shadow along my body. He stood directly behind my shoulder, looking over my algebra answers.
“Boy,” he grumbled.
That was what he called me.
Boy . Never by my name.
My spine went rigid. I said nothing.
Andrin was easy to anger and quick to get violent.
He was Swiss, but his English was impeccable. He made it a point that I speak each language without a lingering foreign accent.
My English was American, my French, Parisian, my Italian was Tuscan, and my German was Hochdeutsch.
His long, pale finger reached over my shoulder, tapping at an equation. “You miscalculated this one. Do it again.”
I grabbed my pencil, flipping it and erasing my answer with a trembling hand. I felt his breath on the nape of my neck. I wanted him out of this room. Out of my life.
“You have thirty seconds,” he clipped.
Sweat dripped from my forehead to the page, burning my eyes. I forced myself to focus. Tuned out the world around me. It worked. I solved it.
Andrin made a dissatisfied sound behind me. He wanted to punish me. He came here every night under the guise of helping me become the number one child mathematician in the world.
He said it would help my chances of getting adopted. But he was never happy when I did well.
“Get up.” Andrin gripped the back of my neck, yanking me up.
I staggered to my feet silently.
“Turn around,” he instructed.
I did.
Andrin was slim, short, pale, and terrifying. He wore his age on his skin. His skull was peppered with liver spots, his wrinkles engraved on his flesh like roads and rivers on a busy map. He had a nasty hook of a nose, no lashes, and a grimace that seemed stitched across his face.
“Have you practiced your survival skills this week?” he inquired.
My heart screeched to a stop.
Please. Not this again.
“Yes,” I lied.
“Good. Then you won’t mind showing me.”
Reaching down to grab my sneakers, I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“No, Boy. You’ve been slacking on your math. This time, you’ll do it barefoot.”
Last time I did it barefoot, I limped for a whole month.
Andrin waltzed out to the hallway, knowing I’d follow him.
We walked into the woods for ten minutes. It was prohibited for students to go past the first line of trees, but we ignored it.
The icicles in the muddy ground prickled my feet, twigs slipping between my toes. I felt like a rabbit caught in a net, my pulse out of whack.
When we reached deep enough inside the woods, Andrin tugged a handkerchief from his sports jacket.
He wrapped it around my eyes, double knotting it so that I was completely blind.
“Ready?” he asked.
No , my mind screamed.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
I tapped my side. It was a way to reassure myself. To pretend I was in control.
My lucky numbers.
I nodded, then gulped.
An ear-piercing bang rang in the air. The scent of gunpowder filled my nostrils. Nocturnal animals screeched. Wings flapped.
I started running.
More bullets followed. They chased me like bad memories, always too close, no matter how fast I went.
Boots shook the ground behind me.
Andrin trained me to survive without my sight by playing a hunting game.
He chased. I ran.
I’d become an expert at living in darkness. Andrin said people like us, people who were screwed up in the head, they need to perfect the art of living like monsters, in the pitch black.
Instead of my eyesight, I relied on my hearing. I listened to his footsteps, to their pace, to the low but deadly whisper of a cocking gun, to the heavy breathing of the forest animals lurking around us.
My skin tingled at the heat of another living, breathing body in my proximity, even if I didn’t see it. I’d memorized the position of every tree, every trunk, every obstacle in the forest. Mapped out my surroundings in my head.
I managed to escape him, weaving between trees, jumping over obstacles, dodging low branches.
“Boy!” Andrin barked behind me. By the sound of it, he was half a pace away from me. He was getting tired. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”
My mind went blank. I gasped and tripped over a tree trunk.
Something soft but firm, probably rotten wood, scraped my shins. The hot, unmistakable sensation of blood coated my legs.
I fell face down into the mud. I heard Andrin walking leisurely behind me.
Everything hurt. Most of all my heart.
A boot pressed against my palm, digging in pointedly to break the little bones. “Yes, it is your birthday. I remember. Seven is old age for an adoption candidate. Your window of opportunity is closing in.”
I pinched my lips together. I wasn’t going to sob.
“You lost.” Andrin grabbed the back of my hair, wrenching me up. “On your feet, Boy.”
I scrambled to stand up, ripping the handkerchief from my eyes. Blinking, I handed him back the piece of cloth. It was soaked with tears. I was nauseous with shame.
“Boy.” Andrin crouched to meet my gaze, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Losing has consequences. You do realize that, right?”
I nodded, bracing myself for his fist.
Andrin always hit me under the collarbone to avoid bruises in exposed areas and questions from his superiors.
“And you couldn’t escape me. What kind of mentor would I be if I don’t punish you for not practicing your survivor skills?” His eyes crinkled in fake sympathy.
I didn’t answer.
“You will get your punishment, but not tonight. Tonight is your birthday. Go to bed.”
I hesitated. Andrin never postponed a punishment. He always took great pleasure in delivering it.
But…he just stood there, waiting for me to leave.
So eventually, I did.
I ran the length of the woods back to the boarding school. Into my room.
I closed the door, fell to my bed, and cried myself to sleep like a little pussy.
The tears were fast and hot, and I went down like a brick.
The next morning, when I woke up, Ares wasn’t there.
Shit . I forgot to open the window for him.
I stood up quickly, pacing toward the window, yanking it open.
My whole body was sore, my shins and knees caked with dried blood.
“Ares!” I called out. “Come in. I’m sorry I—”
The rest died in my throat.
Ares was splayed across my windowsill.
Limp and dead.
A small note was tucked under his lifeless body.
Happy Birthday, Boy.