Chapter 19
APTITUDES
The world keeps turning. Breakfast. Lectures. Diagnostics. Lunch. More lectures. Man, do these people love to lecture.
Monotonous or not, today’s been a breeze. Turns out, without Mister M around to bark orders, things are actually pretty peaceful.
Mister V is different. He doesn’t glare when we whisper or snap when we misstep. Better yet, his feedback is genuinely helpful. Even Colt and Ralston seem calmer with his presence.
So yeah. That part has been great. Mentally, on the other hand, I think I’m seconds away from exploding. I shouldn’t still be thinking about Avery. If Mister V says she’s fine, she’s fine. But it doesn’t sit right with me.
“You have art?” Mister V cuts through my spiral. His eyebrows raise, already reaching for his tablet again as if to double check. “Again?”
“We have art every day,” I tell him, confusion prickling the edges of my words.
He shakes his head. “That’s not how it works.” He glances back at the screen, brows furrowed. “Wow.”
“What?” June asks, trying to peek at the tablet.
He pulls it back. “Nothing. Just—no art today. We’re taking a trip to the practice suites.”
I’m equal parts intrigued and perplexed at that.
“The practice suites?” Bri asks, like it’s a foreign country. “We’re allowed to go there?”
“You should already be going,” he corrects, gesturing for us to follow. “This way.”
A maze of halls later, we arrive in a wing that smells like lemons, with furniture that gleams like it’s been polished within an inch of its life.
Like everything else here, it’s a long corridor of doors labeled with gold plaques. “Movement,” “Flute,” “Voice,” “Piano.”
Piano.
The tug I feel toward it is visceral.
Each door is equipped with a slim glass viewing window; most of the rooms beyond are vacant. The only noise is a mentor yelling sequences at the end of the hall. Oh—and someone who’s definitely never played the flute before. I’ll be choosing to tune out both.
I keep my focus on Mister V, resisting the urge to touch anything. The tablet on his hip pings. He casts a quick glance at it, then sighs.
“Get to work. Start within your aptitudes, rotate if needed.” Mister V waves us off, unclipping his tablet and swiping it open. No one moves.
Bri gives me a nervous nod, as if to say, “Your turn, do something.”
“Mister V?” I ask, unassuming.
He doesn’t look up. “Hm?”
“We don’t know what they are.”
He pauses. Surveys me with a blank look. It makes me feel a little stupid for asking, but his expression only twists further into confusion. “You weren’t informed?”
I look at Brielle. Bri looks at June. June looks at Ivy…who ignores all of us. Four variations of “no” chorus through the room.
Mister V looks genuinely baffled for a moment, then sighs, rubbing his temple like the thought physically hurts.
“This pod is a disaster.” He waves us forward just as his tablet chirps again, twice this time.
Irritation bleeds through his composure.
“I have to handle this. Pick something. Rotate. Don’t break anything. ”
June huffs as Mister V hurries away. “How are we supposed to know what to pick?”
“Pick what looks fun?” I offer, already grabbing the golden handle to the nearest piano room.
She groans again, but I’m already past the threshold.
The room is simple. Four gray walls with nothing but a well-loved walnut piano and a set of gray chairs.
A screen is mounted where the music stand should be.
I raise my wrist and press my cuff to the scanner on the lid.
The screen chirps, then stutters, flashing a deep blue.
USER— VH-6
The screen cuts out, then flashes again.
USER CLEARED—SELECT MODE
I hit the top option without reading it, initiating a ten second countdown.
My skirt swishes as I settle on the bench. The screen blinks again and a series of keys light up, pulsing red.
I place my fingers where the light tells me. A soft voice guides.
“Left Hand. Play C - E - G”
I do. The system hums its approval. A new sequence flashes.
“Right Hand. Play C - D - E - G - C”
I hesitate but follow. The rhythm comes easier than I expected. My fingers stumble once, then find their place. The screen pauses, stutters, then skips ahead. The voice returns:
“Module three unlocked: Intermediate chords. Begin”
I blink. That was fast. Maybe too fast?
The system doesn’t wait for me. More lights. New patterns. My hands fly to keep up. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t feel foreign, either.
The door creaks, but I can’t bring myself to turn around. Thankfully I’m not in suspense long. Bri leans over until her hair brushes my shoulder. “Woah! I didn’t know you could play.” She plops beside me on the bench, taking in the screen with amazement.
I give her a nervous chuckle, fingers twitching. “Neither did I.”
Ten minutes later, Mister V is ghosting the doorway like he never left, watching us intently. Ivy’s beside him, dissociating with her eyes on the wall. June traipses behind, bumping Mister V out of the way with her hip and whispering something into Brielle’s ear.
Bri taps my leg with a pleading look, then presses her lips to my ear and whispers that it never hurts to ask. I swallow my nerves and give him the most honest look I can muster. “Could we go to the garden?”
He considers it a long moment. “Five minutes.”
June gasps like he just offered us a pony. “Twenty?”
“Fifteen. Final offer.”
“You’re an angel.” June beams, mock bowing to him.
“Incorrect,” he says, gesturing for the door.
The garden is quaint. Too quiet for the chaos we bring.
It’s more like a courtyard, walled in by high stone borders entangled with ivy and lined with hedges trimmed to perfection.
A narrow path winds between flower beds and low benches, curving around an oversized fountain that frames the center.
The trees are tall and even, with lush leaves trailing each branch.
Above us, the sky is hazy, swirling with all the colors of the sunset.
The faintest gold bleeds through near the horizon.
Mister V beelines for a bench under a shady tree, popping a file open and brandishing a pen like this is the highlight of his day.
June immediately plops down on the nearest patch of grass.
The enforcers take posts by the door. Colt slips off his jacket, pressing his back into the stone wall and smiling faintly at the sky.
“Why did you bring us here?” Ivy asks, kicking a rock down the path.
“Because you asked,” Mister V says, not looking at her as he turns a page.
June props up on her elbows. “We ask lots of things.”
“You asked nicely,” he says, so dry it might be funny if it weren’t also true.
She grins. “Don’t get used to it.”
The other girls disperse, but I find myself drawn to Mister V, who’s still scribbling away, eyes scanning each page with fervor. I want to admire his work ethic, but all I can think is that there’s absolutely no way whatever he’s studying necessitates this kind of interest.
“Why do you take so many notes?” I lean over, trying to peek at the file. He pulls it away, the corner of his lip twitching faintly.
“I’m afraid that’s above your clearance,” Mister V says, not looking at me.
I click my tongue. He doesn’t seem to care one way or the other about my presence, so I lie back, sinking into the cool, trimmed grass.
The sun has mostly set; blurs of brilliant pink disappear over the walls with each passing moment.
I frown. Even as the sky darkens, it remains vacant.
No clouds, no stars. A barren void of listless night.
It’s pretty, but something about it stings.
I wrap my arms around my chest, whispering words only meant for me. “Are stars real?”
Mister V startles. He blinks a few times, casting his eyes to the sky. Something like hurt crosses his features.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, but the pressure in my chest tells me it may not be enough.
Gray flecks fester like storm clouds around his irises. “It’s fine.” He shakes his head, turning back to his notes. “It’s just…not the first time I’ve been asked that.”
He offers nothing else.
“I think they’re real,” Bri says, sliding down next to me and stretching her arms wide like she can hug the whole sky. “Just hiding.”
Juniper hums from somewhere in the grass. “Maybe they’re scared of us.”
I smile, plucking a blade of grass and twisting it between my fingers. “Wouldn’t blame them.”
No one speaks after that. The garden crawls back to its equilibrium of calm, allowing me plenty of breathing room for reflection. Avery’s probably fine, everyone else is fine, and we’re still on track for graduation.
Beneath my attempted reassurances, my fingers ache with a need so strong it makes my heart skitter. I can’t explain it, but something about playing just felt right. More than right, it felt like the answer to a puzzle I didn’t know I was solving.
If that’s the case, I need to find a way to play again.