Chapter Thirty
Age twelve
N o one knew about Apollo. I made sure of it.
I learned from my past mistakes. The woods weren’t far enough. If I wanted a companion, I needed to ensure it was away from school. Away from Andrin.
Which was how I started volunteering at a shelter.
I spent every Wednesday and Friday afternoon with dogs and cats and rabbits. I preferred them to humans. They were kind and grateful. Never judgmental. And considerably better conversationalists.
It all started with the new superintendent, Mrs. Dagmar.
She arrived during summer break, quickly understood that I was one of the only students living on the grounds, and decided to give me tasks to keep me busy.
She started bringing her puppy, Frankie, to work and asked that I take him on walks and keep him entertained.
I played fetch and cuddled with him for hours, secure in the knowledge Andrin wasn’t so deranged as to kill his superior’s pet.
Mrs. Dagmar brought me books to read. Fun books, not the stuff I could find in the school library.
When she found out how good I was with numbers, she put me in charge of doing all her bookkeeping for the school and, in return, gave me small presents.
Treats. Her son’s old Legos to build. Once, she brought a photographer to take pictures of me to put on an adoption site.
I laughed when the old woman insisted I wear a crisp white shirt and knee-high socks.
“No one’s coming for me,” I parroted Andrin’s words. “I’m damaged goods. Too old, too twisted.”
She cried, and then she did something even more disturbing—she hugged me.
I froze, not hugging her back. I froze, because she was the first grown-up who’d ever touched me in a way that wasn’t meant to punish me.
At the beginning of the school year, I’d asked Mrs. Dagmar if I could take the bus to and from the boarding school to the shelter, and she agreed on the condition I took her old phone and texted her each time I arrived at the shelter and back at the dorms. We were breaking a shit ton of protocols, but she didn’t seem to mind.
I sometimes thought she suspected Andrin was abusing me. I didn’t know if she spoke to him about it, but that year, he came to visit me less frequently at night.
Anyway, back to Apollo.
He was a Flemish giant rabbit. I immediately took a liking to him because he was very old and he limped. He reminded me of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’s White Rabbit.
They told me at the shelter he’d been attacked by hound dogs and barely made it.
I always had a soft spot for broken things.
I hung out with him twice a week and dreamed about adopting him. I knew I couldn’t. He was ginormous and nearly blind. Besides all that, I didn’t have a house. Only a teacher that liked killing animals.
But for a short while, life was better.
I had Mrs. Dagmar and I had Apollo and I had treats and Legos and fun books.
Then one day, everything changed.
Mrs. Dagmar called me into her office. She smiled big, and my heart accelerated, because for the first time in my life, I knew someone who smiled when they had positive news to tell me and not because they wanted to taunt me.
“You are being adopted,” she announced, her eyes bright with tears.
I said nothing at first. I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. I was scared.
Scared that she was pranking me.
Scared that she was not pranking me too. Because what if this was real, and my adoptive parents were worse than the boarding school? At least in the confines of this place, Andrin couldn’t kill me.
“He is American, like you. He is a very important man. I met him twice. You will like him. Very kind. Very excited to meet you.”
So many questions ran through my head. I didn’t know where to start.
“What do you mean, he? There’s only one parent?”
She laughed, shaking her head. “Yes. It’s just him. But one parent is more than enough if it’s the right one.”
“He wants to adopt me without meeting me first?”
She nodded. “He saw your grades. Your accomplishments in math. Your pictures. He loves math too.”
I forced my heart rate to slow down. I didn’t want to feel too hopeful.
“But…why me?” I frowned.
“He doesn’t want a small child. No nappies and bottles for him. He wants an heir he can teach the ropes of his business.”
“Did you tell him that I’m weird? That I don’t have any friends?” I demanded, almost angry at her now. I was sick with anxiety that once he met me, he’d return me like an expired can from the supermarket.
“I told him all about you.” Another tender smile. “Let’s just say this gentleman is…similar to you in that he doesn’t like crowds. Or people in general.”
I couldn’t help it anymore. I got excited. Just a little bit. I had no delusions about cozy Christmas days and family bingo nights. But having someone to understand me, to not be cruel to me…
“It is really happening.” Her hands moved across her desk, clutching my own. “He is coming to get you in two weeks. You’ll live in New York. He has a big apartment. You will have an Xbox and a PlayStation, with a pool in your building. Aunts and cousins too. This is the beginning of your new life.”
The next two weeks, I walked on clouds. Mrs. Dagmar offered me pieces of information about my adoptive father like morsels of chocolate, each of them bringing me to new heights.
He studied math in college.
His work took him all over the world.
He loved playing chess and planned to take me on vacation to Italy after he picked me up from the boarding school to sightsee before we went to America, so we could get to know each other.
For the first time, I didn’t think about death. I thought about life. And it was both exciting and frightening.
My last night at the dorms, I heard Andrin’s footsteps down the hall. It was five in the morning, and I wasn’t asleep. Too much adrenaline coursing through my body every time I glanced at the big suitcase that stood by my door.
Three months had passed since Andrin had last come to me. I was hoping he’d forgotten all about me.
My body turned to stone. I stopped breathing when I heard the door whining open.
I squinted my eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.
Though he made no noise, I felt his dark energy swirling around the room, gaining momentum, like a hurricane.
My bed creaked when his shins pressed against the wooden frame. He hovered over me.
“Oh, Boy, you’ll want to open your eyes for this one.” He sounded smug. So of course, I had to open my eyes. “I have a parting gift.”
Andrin’s face was clasped between the shadows.
“Look what I brought this time.”
I blinked my vision into focus, sitting up. Scraps of sunlight grazed my pupils. I squinted at Andrin’s hand. He was holding a gun.
I choked, coughing on my saliva.
He was going to kill me. I wasn’t even surprised. Somehow, I always knew I’d never live to see a good day. My mysterious adoptive dad was a standard deviation. An isolated error.
“Don’t worry, Boy. It’s not your brain I’m going to blow off. Get up.” He balled the collar of my shirt, wrenching me to my desk.
I landed on the edge of my wooden chair and got a good hit in the nuts but was too stunned to register the pain.
“Grab a pencil. I have an equation for you to solve.” Andrin rummaged through the front pocket of his slacks, his other hand digging the barrel of the gun into my right temple. My heart nearly tore out of my chest it beat so hard.
Guns were for pussies, I decided then and there. If I ever had the privilege of killing the bastard, I would do it with my bare hands.
“There we are.” He produced a small, folded note, unfurling and planting it in front of me on the desk.
Cold sweat dripped into my eyes. It was a not an equation, per se. It was…
“Fermat’s last theorem,” Andrin finished the thought for me. “There are three positive integers, a, b, c, that satisfy. Get going.”
I stared at the problem, pulse throbbing against my eyelids. My palms were slick with sweat. The metal mouth of the gun burrowed harder into my flesh.
“How long do I have?” I cleared my throat.
“Ten minutes.”
“And if I don’t find the solution?”
His hand that held the gun sailed from my head to the window. I craned my neck, and then I saw it.
Apollo.
He was tied to a tree not too far from my room, running in circles, yanking at the chain, staring at my window. He heard when Andrin tapped the gun on the window. He flinched and blinked to express his terror at being chained. Begged me to come help him. My heart dropped.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Picked him up last night. He thought he was being adopted.” Andrin laughed, like an old pet’s hope was amusing. “Rabbits are such stupid creatures.”
“He can have a heart attack and die.” My voice was so shaky and fragile I wanted to punch my own face.
“Hmm.” Andrin stroked his chin. “Better get on with your task before he does then.”
Anger swirled inside me. I was sick with it. It grew and festered within me like wildfire. I thought I might combust. But I bit my tongue. For Apollo.
“Your time starts now.” Andrin smacked the clock on my desk, and it started ticking down the seconds.
I grabbed the pencil and started working.
The clock ticked in an uneven rhythm, I noticed.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
It was broken. It was slightly late. That afforded me, I calculated, forty extra seconds. Almost an entire minute.
I threw everything into the problem. This was the last fucking time. That was why he came here. To get his pound of flesh before I was gone. To encourage myself, I tapped the side of my leg, reminding myself I had all the time in the world to get things right.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
And then I got it. I got the answer.