46 Students Remaining
My knees slam into concrete. Pain sears through my ankle and radiates up my shin. Light explodes in my eyes.
For several long moments, there’s nothing outside of that brightness, that pain.
He said we wouldn’t get hurt, I think. I know better than to trust something a teacher tells me just because they’re in charge, but it’s still a shock to realize he was so wrong. This is a school. Schools are supposed to be safe.
For a moment I can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t do anything but think about the pain. Then someone crouches beside me, the scent of cigarette smoke and lilies radiating off them like a pheromone. “Lia? Hey, are you okay?”
I blink, and the rest of the world snaps into place: Rani’s hovering over me, dark hair falling over his forehead, eyes narrowed in concern. I feel breathless again. But for a different reason this time.
“Let’s get you off the floor,” Rani says, hooking a hand beneath my elbow. I can’t help but notice the firm press of muscles beneath his shirt as he helps me to my feet.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
“You said no one would get hurt!” Scarlett shouts from the crowd behind us. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard her speak out against a teacher, and I feel a warm dart of pride, despite the pain still pounding through my ankle.
“I said the course is perfectly within your capabilities,” Tomo assures us. “There’s no reason anyone should get hurt as long as you trust your bodies. Lia, why don’t you tell us why you jumped off that last platform?”
Jumped?
Despite my brain screaming at me to think of Blackwood, to keep my cool, I feel my expression fall into a scowl. “I didn’t jump. I fell.”
“We all know that’s not true.” Tomo’s smile doesn’t falter. “You knew how much you would need to accelerate to land on the platform. We all saw you make the previous jumps. But you used too much acceleration on the last platform and ran off the end.”
“I lost my balance,” I insist. “I fell.”
“Are you okay?” Rani asks.
I ease my weight onto both feet, murmuring, “Yeah, I think so.”
The pain in my ankle has already started to subside. I think I just landed on it wrong, but still. If I’d hit the ground at a slightly different angle, I could’ve broken my leg.
Tomo turns to Rani. “Would you mind escorting Ms. Michaels to the nurse?”
“No problem,” Rani says. He’s pushed the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, and I find my gaze drawn to his forearms, which are so covered in tattoos it’s hard to see the skin beneath.
“Can you walk?” he asks, a crease forming between his eyebrows. His eyes, I notice, aren’t brown, like I’d originally thought. They’re the deep charcoal gray of campfire ash.
It’s an inappropriate time for flirting. We’re in the middle of class, and a bunch of students and a teacher are staring at us, but I can’t help it, I’m completely undone by those eyes. I say, without really considering whether or not it’s a good idea, “What would you do if I said no?”
Behind me, Scarlett groans and mutters something that sounds like incorrigible. But Rani just raises an eyebrow, and before I can say or do anything, he lifts me off the ground.
“I was joking!” I laugh and slap his shoulder. “Put me down! I can walk!”
“Better safe than sorry,” Rani says, carrying me toward the door.
We’re about to step out into the hallway when, behind us, I hear Tomo say, “Ian St. Clair, go right ahead.”
I doubt I’d have watched anyone else attempt the gauntlet, but I automatically turn my head at the sound of Ian’s name.
His whole vibe as he approaches the first obstacle pisses me off more than it should. He examines the ramp with a tilted head, eyes narrowed, like it’s a playground jungle gym. He shrugs, cracks his knuckles, gallows smile crossing his lips.
Please fall, I think.
And then he’s off. Everyone else in our class had to run the ramp at a dead sprint, but Ian takes it at a jog, so tall he easily catches the lip at the top.
He pulls himself onto the platform with maddening grace, and launches himself onto the bar with the exact right amount of momentum to send it sliding all the way to the end of the track.
Each movement he makes is fluid, calculated.
It’s like he wants to prove that what Tomo’s been saying is true, that getting through the course is perfectly within our abilities.
I feel a twinge of jealousy, watching him. As he leaps off the final obstacle—the one that nearly broke my damn leg—with barely a hair out of place, applause breaks out around us.
Ian catches my eye as he lands, and winks, as though to say That’s how you do it. My teeth grit together as I watch him strut off, anger flaring inside me.
Now I have two goals for the year: One, make it to the final five.
And two, wipe that cocky smile off Ian’s face.
The school nurse tests my ankle to make sure it’s not sprained or broken, then hands me an ice pack and tells me I should be fine to head back to class.
“You need to be more careful,” she murmurs, eyes narrowed as she looks over something on her tablet. “I have a note from your professor that you jumped from a platform in the barns?”
Irritation prickles through me. “I didn’t jump, I fell,” I tell her. “I was worried my ankle was broken.”
The nurse looks politely bewildered. “I doubt your professor would say you jumped if it was an accident. All the lessons and assignments in Luminary are perfectly calibrated to keep students from getting injured.” She flashes me a banal smile. I feel like I’m being dismissed.
A flicker of pain moves through my ankle as I make my way toward the door.
According to the list on my tablet, another student has left Luminary before the day is over.
“What happened to Jonathan Samuels?” one of the twins—Adam—asks during Computer Science. “He was here this morning.”
I’m trying to remember who Jonathan Samuels is when our instructor—a wiry, enthusiastic man who told us all we can call him Tom—says, “Jonathan’s been evaluated, and it was determined that he wasn’t a good fit for the Luminary curriculum.
” From the murmur of voices around me, it’s obvious that I’m not the only one dissatisfied with that answer.
Not that we’re given a lot of time to talk about it.
It turns out that all our classes are as action-packed as Physics.
Calculus had us racing to prevent a simulated flood using derivatives, integrals, and optimization.
In English, we were assigned A Tale of Two Cities and asked to choose a character.
Fiction allows you to step into another person’s life, our instructor explained, to feel as if their trials are your trials.
By the end of the semester, we’ll have to defend our character’s actions as if they were our own. Whatever that means.
But the weirdest thing, the thing I absolutely wasn’t expecting, is this: I like it. For the first time in my life, I actually find myself leaning forward in my seat, interested in every word my professors have to say.
I’m not the only one whose lessons are strange.
Scar’s Environmental Science class is tending to an organic garden in the school’s greenhouse.
By the end of the first module, they’re expected to provide produce for the entire school.
Seven’s History and Politics class is contacting our local representatives to stop a bill from being passed.
And all of our instructors repeat Tomo’s statement about Luminary’s curriculum, practically word for word:
“At Luminary, we believe that students reach a deeper level of comprehension through practical application. There’s a difference between grasping a concept through logic and gaining knowledge through personal involvement.” Like they’re reading a script.
Finally, I have a guidance meeting with a TA back at my dorm, which I assume must be something like a meeting with a guidance counselor. I take the trolley back to Innovator and quickly locate the correct room on the first floor.
Ashlyn motions me inside and invites me to take a seat in one of the chairs. I move a pillow that reads Keep Calm and Crochet to the side and plop down, letting my bag drop to the floor.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Ashlyn says once I’m settled.
“Yeah,” I say, glancing around. I didn’t realize we had a TA living in the same dormitory as us, but I guess it makes sense. It’s not like they’re going to let a bunch of seventeen-year-olds live on their own. I clear my throat. “So.”
“I know this isn’t the usual way things run at public schools,” Ashlyn says.
“We’ve put this time in all of our students’ schedules as a regular check-in so we can answer any questions you might have and make sure that you’re feeling comfortable with your schedule.
It’s our way of making sure no one falls through the cracks. ”
“Yeah, actually. I saw that a few students have already been taken off the class roster. Do you know why?”
Ashlyn’s smile remains fixed as she repeats, verbatim, what my Computer Science teacher said: “Those students have been evaluated, and it was determined that they weren’t a good fit for the Luminary curriculum.”
Interesting.
“But why weren’t they a good fit?” I press her. “What criteria—”
“All students are evaluated individually,” Ashlyn says.
“It’s important for you to focus on your own curriculum.
” She says this with finality, clearly expecting me to move on.
For a school that’s so proud of how cutting-edge and innovative they are, you’d think they’d be a little more forthcoming about their methodology.
“Okay…well, I did have one other question.” I describe the gauntlet and my fall while Ashlyn listens with an expression of polite interest on her face, like I’m telling her about a weird dream I had.
“I just thought it was…strange,” I finish. “Tomo kept trying to get me to admit that I jumped on purpose, but I know I fell.”