23 Students Remaining #2
Every nerve in my body is screaming at me to leave, to run back to my dorm, to safety. But I force myself to stay where I am. To watch and learn.
The first thing I notice is the gate itself.
It’s not locked with an electronic keypad, like the rest of the buildings on campus, but with a padlock and chain.
I can’t see the exact make and model of the padlock from where I’m hiding, but it’s a perfect round circle, which means it’s probably an Abus.
They had locks like that at juvie. Abuses have a four-pin core and a pretty below-average keyway, with no security pins.
I could handle that with my lockpick set in about five minutes.
The next thing I notice is that the guards don’t just stand at the gate. Instead, they seem to be walking the full perimeter of the wall.
A kid I knew back at juvie used to be part of a team that would rob convenience stores.
Her job was to case places for break-ins, and she once told me that patrolling is a rookie move.
While it’s possible that someone might try to scale the eleven-foot brick wall, the easiest way out is always the gate, and they’re leaving it unguarded for minutes at a time.
I stay hidden beneath my tree and count the seconds under my breath until the guards return. One Mississippi, two Mississippi…
I make it to three hundred and twelve before I see them again. Which means the gate is left unguarded for approximately five minutes.
Last time I got through an Abus lock, it took me exactly five minutes to break. I chew my lip, annoyed. That doesn’t leave any time to make a run for it, and if the guards saw me on the other side of the gate, they could shoot me.
I’d need to have someone waiting. A getaway car.
I take a few minutes to turn this problem over in my head.
It’s not even the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge is the cameras aimed at the school gate.
Arlo Pros. Which that same kid at juvie once told me were the hardest to tamper with, because the only way to turn them off is to log in to the system and disable them.
I know locks, but security systems are beyond me.
The getaway car would be nice to have, but as long as those cameras are functioning, I’m screwed. Someone would see me attempting to break out before I even managed to pull my lockpick set out of my pocket.
Ian’s sprawled beneath the old oak tree when I get back to the dorm, his legs stretched long in front of him. The oak casts a gnarly shadow over the patchy lawn, its branches like thick flexing arms. The shifting moonlight makes the shadows look like they’re growing.
“Out for another walk?” I ask.
“Playing soccer, actually,” Ian says without looking up. There’s a book in his lap, but I can tell he isn’t really reading.
“By yourself?”
“I’m very talented.” He pushes himself to his feet, book held loosely in one hand. I was right that he wasn’t reading it. He doesn’t even bother marking his place. He was waiting for me.
I stare at the line of his jaw, trying not to think about how it felt beneath my fingers.
The leathery roughness of his skin. The heat of him.
I feel just like I did that night, after watching Keira and Diego fall down the elevator shaft: restless and unmoored, like I want to hit someone.
Or push him up against a tree and have my way with him, apparently. Totally inappropriate.
I shiver and fold my arms over my chest. “What are you really doing here, Ian?”
He must hear the exhaustion in my voice, because something in his eyes softens. “There’s an infirmary on campus,” he says. “Last I heard, that’s where Mando was. But no one’s allowed to see him.”
I feel a strange flutter in my chest, and for a moment, I think I might cry. Mando’s alive. He’s in the infirmary. He’s getting help. I’m so relieved I could hug Ian.
Instead, I clear my throat and say, “You came all this way just to tell me that?”
“He was your friend, right?” Ian frowns. “And your sister—”
“What about Scarlett?” I say, a little sharper than I mean to.
Ian gives me a look. “C’mon…she clearly has a thing for him.”
“How could you possibly—”
“I’m observant,” Ian says, cutting me off. “It doesn’t matter. I just figured she’d want to know he’s okay.”
“Oh,” I say. It’s somehow weirder to me that he did this for Scarlett.
If he’d come by to let me know about Mando, I could convince myself he was just looking for a repeat of the other night, but I’m not prepared for this version of Ian St. Clair, the oddly sweet guy looking after my sister.
It doesn’t feel right. I mean, yes, we recklessly made out the other night, and that was hot and all, but it doesn’t completely change our relationship.
I’ve spent the last year of my life blindly hating this guy.
Some of my most cherished memories are when Scar and I were giggling over something horrible I did to him, plotting our next attack, or talking about how stupid his tie looked.
I mean, c’mon, his ties. I really cannot adequately describe how awful they are.
They’re all striped, and sometimes he matches the color of the stripes to his socks.
I push my palms into my eyes. Making out with a guy once doesn’t completely change his personality. The Ian I hate is still in there somewhere.
And then there’s the fact that he seems to know something about this place, something he’s not telling me. I drop my hands and blink into the darkness, studying his profile in the moonlight. “Did you know what was going to happen in the cafeteria? With Mando?”
Ian blinks at me. “How would I have known—”
“That’s not an answer,” I say, cutting him off. “That’s another question. I’m not asking how you knew, I’m asking if you knew.”
The wind picks up around us, rustling the leaves. It carries the same improbable smell I noticed on our first day: leather and oak and pipe smoke and old books. I take a step closer to him. Our faces are about an inch apart. “I want a straight answer, Ian. Did you know? Yes or no.”
His eyes are cold now. “No,” he says, after a beat. “I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
Liar, I think. I can’t explain it, but I can tell he’s lying. I can read it on his face. “Bullshit. You know things about this place. More than any of the rest of us do.”
Ian’s gaze flicks around, like he expects someone else to step out of the shadows around us. There’s no one. Leaning closer to me, he asks, “Did you get your letter?” I nod. And he says, “Well? What did it say?”
“My foster mom thinks I’m going to shoot up a school. Apparently, I’m here to be scared straight.”
To my surprise, the corner of Ian’s mouth twitches upward.
“Why is that funny?” I demand.
“It’s not,” he rushes to say. “Believe me. It’s just…telling parents their kid is at risk of committing school violence seems to be one of their favorite tactics. They’ve used it on half the kids here.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” I snap. “How do you know that? How do you know these things?”
“How do you think? I ask.” Now it’s Ian’s turn to look irritated. “Mark and Adam, the twins in Visionary? Their parents were worried because they were skipping school. Apparently, they were driving their pickup out to the edge of town and throwing homemade pipe bombs at rats.”
I scowl. “Nice.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t give either of them a humanitarian of the year award, but they weren’t actually hurting anyone.
They never even hit the rats; they just liked watching them run.
But this freaked out their parents enough to send them here.
Their letter said the same thing, Wyatt is worried about school violence.
Et cetera. A girl in Connector was sent here because her mom found out she’d had sex with her boyfriend last year and lost the plot. ”
I stare at him for a moment. “Weird how forthcoming people are around you.”
“Is it my fault that people talk too loudly in the cafeteria?” Ian asks, all innocence. “I’m just curious about this place. Like you.”
“Okay. Did you learn anything else? Go through anyone’s trash, maybe?”
“I know the faculty’s not telling our families what’s really going on,” Ian says.
“That’s why there’s not a line of angry parents at the doors right now.
Wyatt and the rest of the teachers all tell them this is some behavioral modification program, that they’re helping us.
And if anyone says anything bad about the school, the faculty just tells our parents we’re lying or exaggerating about what’s going on.
And yeah, before you ask, I learned all that by eavesdropping on other people’s calls with their parents. ”
“And the parents believe what the faculty tells them because Wyatt has already called them to go over our morality tests,” I say, thinking about what Tammy wrote in my letter. It’s all starting to make sense now. “He told them we’re all liars who can’t be believed.”
“Basically, yeah.” Ian turns to the side, staring at something in the distance. The moonlight skims his neck, highlighting all the muscles and tendons beneath his skin. I stare for a moment, then blink and pull my eyes away.
“Why?” I blurt. “What are they getting out of torturing us like this?”
“Money?” Ian guesses. He shrugs. “Or…I don’t know, maybe they actually think it works, they could be trying to help. Or…” He trails off, chewing his lip.
“Or what?” I prod.
“There’s a line in the code of conduct,” Ian says after a moment. “ ‘Luminary Preparatory Institute is more than just a school. It is a test of moral fiber, strength of will, and most importantly, human resilience.’ ”
“Whoa,” I say, impressed despite myself. “You really do have a photographic memory.”
“It just makes me wonder…what if that’s the whole point of this place? What if it isn’t a school at all? What if it’s some kind of…test?”
“A test,” I repeat. I’m not sure I’m following. “What would they be testing?”
Ian shrugs. “That’s the real question, isn’t it?”