Chapter 20
WASTED TIME
Mister V lets us stay outside far longer than fifteen minutes, only coaxing us back in once it’s too dark for him to work. We’re led back to the common room, given nothing but advice to “check the scheduling board” before he disappears down the hall.
Little does he know, Mister M hasn’t updated said board since we were first assigned to this room. We’ve collectively decided to finish our workbook reflections, since they just-so-happen to be endless and painful, and having to do them first thing in the morning is a drag.
Quite frankly, it’s a drag no matter the time of day.
Ivy has gone rogue. She’s standing at the one-way observation mirror with half of a soap bar clutched in one hand, drawing something I can’t quite make out from this angle, posture deadly serious.
The rest of us are pretending not to watch while absolutely watching.
She takes a step to the right, and the full picture of her masterpiece comes into view.
“Is that…?” I squint, tilting my head. “Wait. Is that Mister V?”
Juniper cackles, flopping down on the training mat. “Oh my god, it is.”
I’ve got to hand it to her. It’s uncanny. Thin face. Sharp cheekbones. Shadowed eyes from staring at a tablet all day. The picture of mentor angst. Ivy glances back at me and proceeds to add a crisp suit and a stack of papers the size of a small child.
“Oh no. No, no, no.” Brielle covers her eyes. “We are so dead if anyone sees that. Like extra-sedated, mind-looped, lab-scrubbed kind of dead.”
“I think it’s flattering,” I offer, stifling a giggle behind my hand. “She made the suit tailored.”
“He’s judging me through the drawing,” Brielle hisses. “Stop it, Ivy!”
Juniper leans closer. “Give him devil horns.”
“I’m not doing that.”
“Coward,” June teases.
“We’re going to be dissected,” Brielle groans, collapsing against the cushions like she’s accepting fate.
Ivy steps back to admire her work. “I made the folder bigger. It looked unrealistic.”
“Unrealistic?” I echo. “You drew the man in soap!”
“I’m practicing perspective.”
“You’re planning our demise,” Bri snaps back. I bite the inside of my cheek to hide another laugh. I should stop her.
I really, really should stop her.
But Ivy is alive in a way she hasn’t been for weeks. Her eyes shine. Her lines have genuine energy. Whether it’s enough to make up for the consequences we’ll face if someone sees it…is to be decided.
Juniper folds her arms like a pouty child, slipping into the most terrible impression of Mister V. “Elegance is a weapon. Unfortunately, you’re all unarmed.” I wheeze, pressing my head into my hands.
Brielle clutches a throw pillow in a final attempt to disappear. “We are so, so doomed.”
The door slams open, almost thrown off its hinges by the angriest man humanity has ever laid eyes on. Juniper flings herself into the chair. Brielle drops straight to the floor. Ivy steps back from the panel, admiring her handiwork with a grin. I flip my workbook open, feigning innocence.
As suspected, he doesn’t buy it.
Mister M strides into the room with a look that could bleach paint. His eyes catch on the soap V instantly.
“What,” he seethes, lethal. “Is that?”
Nobody breathes. He crosses the space in three long stomps and stops directly in front of the mirror. The sketch stares back at him with impeccable posture.
Brielle lets out a yelp as he gets close. “Please don’t kill us!”
Ivy shrugs. “It’s art.”
He scoffs. “You think this is a game?” There’s a long-drawn stretch of silence as Ivy holds his gaze, unwavering.
I’m so tempted to throw his words back in his face.
According to him, everything’s a game. Unfortunately, if I say anything of the sort, I’m fairly sure he’ll kill me… or explode. Maybe both.
With evaluations a week away, we don’t have time for him to do either.
“No, sir,” I finish for her. His eyes shift to meet mine, rage blooming in his irises.
“Then why the hell is Harrow’s face etched into my goddamn observation window like he’s the patron saint of wasted time?”
Juniper winces. “Well, when you say it like that.”
He turns, hands in his pockets, eyes darting between us as he decides how painful this is going to be.
“Who started this?”
“Group project?” June tries.
“My idea,” I add, not meeting his eyes.
“Liar.” His voice is so low it might as well be gravel. “I’ll ask again, who—”
“I drew it,” Ivy says, staring him down.
Mister M smirks, sharp and terrible. “Cute. Real Cute. You just bought yourselves a week of reconditioning.” Brielle’s face pales. Ivy’s finger twitches the tiniest bit.
My heart stutters. “Wait—”
“Save it.” He raises a hand in dismissal. “No common room access. Early sedation for a week. And Carr will see all of you, starting tomorrow.”
“What?” Brielle blurts before slapping her hands over her mouth. She’s near tears at the mere mention of Doctor Carr. He’s the head physician of the program, not to mention the man directly responsible for our resets. That makes him equal parts savior, executioner, and terrifying dictator.
“That’s not fair. We didn’t even do it!” June is on her feet in a second, brows furrowed at the fireball in a suit.
“Should’ve thought of that before you vandalized my pod. This space is a privilege. One you parasites clearly aren’t ready for.”
I hold my hands up in surrender. “It wasn’t vandalism! We—”
“Tell it to Carr.” Mister M flicks his wrist like he’s swatting a bug. He’s already halfway to the door, but I know exactly what sick face he’s making. He pauses at the threshold just long enough to let the weight settle.
“Clean it up. Or leave it as a warning, I don’t care,” he spits, flicking his fingers at us. “Bunks in ten. Some silent reflection will do you all some good.” The door slams, leaving us in stunned silence.
After an eternity, June’s slow exhale slices through the tension. “Well. That escalated.”
“We’re going to die.” Brielle groans into the throw pillow.
“I think it was worth it,” Ivy muses, splashing water on the panel and wiping it with her sleeve.
“Totally.” I turn, already stacking the workbooks in size order, the way he hates, because order is the only defiance I can afford tonight.
The moment the enforcers finish their sedation rounds, I dig the black-bound book out from under my mattress.
It falls open to the page I left off on last night.
The dim blue overheads illuminate little, but I manage.
Nothing here ever truly goes dark. Darkness is unguarded, dangerous, far too private for the organization to allow.
Since last week’s heist, this has become my little ritual.
I read the pages until my eyes blur, then challenge June with fun facts the next day during enrichment.
Not exactly a fair fight, but we’ve made quite the game out of it.
Bri pretends not to listen. She thinks our fascination has tipped too far into rebellion.
I think if the book were truly so bad, it wouldn’t be here at all. It even has a stamp, that has to count for something. Part of me does get a little freaked out if I think about it for too long, but I convince myself it’s fine.
Mostly because the alternative means admitting that it’s very much not.
Some pages are more intact than others. Many have ink too smudged to read, others have doodles in the margins. The last few are missing entirely. This page is one I normally skip, though I can’t say why.
Two towering figures frame either side, surrounded by endless halls that distort and overlap without reason.
The creatures are dressed in black, inked so deep you can hardly make out the masks that conceal their faces.
Between them, a girl kneels, drawn so faintly she’s almost a part of the background.
The corridors converge behind them at a vanishing point that looks just a little too much like a door.
The Wardens.
I run my thumb along the text, careful not to smudge it any further.
Guardians of the dark.
Said to protect the weak, yet few who live beneath their rule ever glimpse the daylight. They carve passageways without end, shielding themselves from what they cannot contain. When a Warden removes its mask, the face beneath is always different.
I hurry to turn the page, but my eyes catch on a note I’ve never noticed before. Barely there, written along the bottom margin in careful, flowing strokes:
Not all monsters live outside.
Huh. One page is enough for tonight. Maybe enough for a while.
My fingers tremble as I tuck it back under the mattress, trying to coax my mind toward something else—anything else.
The rush I feel when I play piano, Ivy’s weirdly accurate depiction of Mister V, the perfect stillness of the shady trees in the garden.
Things that are easy and safe and don’t make my pulse climb high enough to set off my cuff.
My mind finally settles on Mister M, replaying his smug face and his hopefully shallow threat.