19 Students Remaining
The flames are everywhere. They’re violet and green and orange and red, and they spread through the air faster than I ever would have imagined, unfurling like wings, roaring like a beast from a fairy tale.
I throw my hands up over my face by instinct, breathing hard in my panic. My mouth and lungs fill with smoke, and then I’m doubled over, coughing. My head feels light as dandelion fluff.
I stumble for the door, knocking over chairs and slamming into tables as I go.
The heat is like nothing I’ve experienced before.
It’s a tangible thing, a solid wall of hot.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead and in my armpits.
Something with a hard wooden corner catches me in the hip and pain explodes through my side, but I don’t stop moving.
I can’t see anything through the fire and the smoke.
Someone—at least one person—is screaming.
In a matter of seconds, my throat and nose are burning. I pull my shirt up over the bottom half of my face, but it doesn’t do much good. Every inhale sends fresh pain through my chest. It feels like I’m being cooked from the inside.
I can’t tell how close I am to the lab door when my knees start to shake.
I won’t be able to stay standing for much longer.
I grope through the black air and my fingers come into contact with something hard and heavy.
A chair, maybe? I grab for it in my attempt to stay standing, but end up knocking it down and go crashing to the ground along with it.
I slam into the floor, gasping. Tears fill my eyes, but there’s nothing I can do. There’s so much smoke.
Out of nowhere, a cool breeze reaches for me. I feel it on my cheek and look up, blinking. The door to the hall is open. I can see smoke and fire billowing out.
“This way!” Ian shouts into the burning room. “Lia!”
I know I need to get myself to that door, but I’m lightheaded and I still can’t breathe. It takes all of my remaining strength to push myself to my hands and knees and crawl—slowly, slowly—toward the door.
And then Ian’s there, by my side, grabbing me around the waist. His hands feel impossibly large as he hauls me off my feet, carrying me into the hallway. We’ve only just made it out when Pete appears and slams the door shut behind us.
It’s a long time before my eyesight clears. I gingerly lift my head, still shaking too hard to move.
“Are you okay?” Ian asks. His eyes are narrowed in concern.
I nod, motioning for him to put me down. My throat feels singed, but I force myself to choke out, “I can stand.”
Ian looks skeptical. “You’re sure?”
I nod. In fact, aside from the smoke in my lungs, I don’t seem to be injured. Ian carefully sets me on my feet, and I check my hands and arms for blisters, but find none. My clothes are sooty, but not singed. I was so lucky. Coughing again, I peer around the narrow hallway.
The only other person out here with us is Sofia Diaz. She’s curled in a ball right next to the door, crying softly. Her face is black with soot.
I push away from Ian, suddenly horrified. “Seven—”
Using the wall for support, I limp toward the chem lab. There’s a little glass window in the door. Through it, I can see the brightly colored fire, still flickering, and smoke, and nothing else. It’s suicide to go back into that room, but I don’t care. I reach for the doorknob—
Pete presses a hand to the door, stopping me. “I’m afraid I can’t permit you to do that,” he says.
“Why not?” I demand. “There are still students in there!”
When Pete doesn’t move, I snarl at him, “Why would you leave them in there? They could die!”
“Work your curriculum, Miss—”
“What does letting my friend die have to do with a curriculum!” I push past him. “Seven!” I shout, pulling at the door. It’s locked, but I keep pulling. “Seven! Seven!”
The room beyond the little glass window is an ocean of fire.
There’s no way anyone could survive in there.
I don’t care. I can’t give up. The muscles in my arms burn, but I keep pulling.
I don’t care that it hurts, or that screaming Seven’s name makes my throat burn.
My cheeks feel wet. I pull until my legs give out, and I have to sink back to the floor.
No one comes.
I don’t remember leaving the chem lab. I don’t remember anything after they pulled me—screaming—away from the door.
I seem to recall Ian telling our teacher that he’ll make sure I get back to the dorm.
And then we’re here, at Innovator. The two moments seem to exist back-to-back, with nothing in between.
“Are you going to be okay?” Ian asks, once we’re on the porch outside.
I shake my head. I try to speak, but to my horror, whatever I’d been about to say morphs into a sob.
Seven.
Ian wraps around me, holding me tightly to his chest while I cry like a baby, completely soaking his dumb polo shirt. After a few minutes of this, he peeks into the dorm and says, “I don’t think Ashlyn’s here. Let me take you up to your room.”
I nod into his chest, and a few minutes later, I’m in my room. I walk right over to my bed and curl into a fetal position in the middle of my mattress.
Ian hovers at the door. “Do you want me to find someone? Scarlett or Zo or…”
I shake my head. “Can you just…stay? For a little while longer. Please?”
Ian nods and cautiously steps into the room. He pulls my chair out from my desk.
I swallow. “No,” I say. “I meant can you stay here?”
I hold my hand out for him. Ian hesitates a moment, then comes over and climbs onto the bed beside me. He sits stiffly at the edge until I grab his arm again and pull him closer. I need to feel the weight of him behind me—otherwise I’m sure I’ll fall apart.
We both reek of smoke. I know that the smell’s going to get into my bed, that I’m probably shedding more black soot all over my sheets every second I lie here, but I can’t bring myself to haul my body into the shower.
I can’t bring myself to move at all. I burrow into Ian, tears leaking onto my cheeks.
I can’t believe Seven’s gone. I can’t believe I didn’t save them. My chest hurts with the pain of it. I want to scream. I want to throw things. I want to pound and pound at the walls of this room until they let me out.
“I think they’re dead,” I whisper finally. “Lauren and Seven…I think they’re dead.”
Ian doesn’t answer right away, but I can feel his chest rising and falling. I can hear his heart beating against my cheek. Eventually he says, “Me too.”
“You’re sure Mando is still alive?” I ask.
I hold my breath until I feel him nod, and then I lean back to look at him.
“How do you know that? How do you know so much about this place? I know you’re not telling me the whole truth.
” I sniff and wipe the tears away from my cheeks with the back of my hands. “Is it your benefactor?”
Ian blinks. “What do you mean?”
“Tammy didn’t tell Scarlett and me anything about this place before she sent us here. She let us believe it was a school. Did your benefactor tell you it was something different?”
Something in Ian’s eyes shifts. It’s like a curtain falling back in place. He says calmly, “No one told me anything, Lia.”
“I don’t believe you.” I glare at him through my tears. “You know something you’re not saying. Why won’t you tell me what it is? Why won’t you help?”
“Lia, I swear—” Ian starts. But I groan before he can finish. I can’t listen to him lie to me one more time. I push away from him—hard—and climb out of bed.
I want out of here. I’m done waiting. I want to leave now.
I start to pace. We still don’t have a getaway car, and I haven’t figured out the answer to the riddle, but I’m not waiting any longer.
I glance over at Ian. He’s sitting at the edge of my bed, and he seems to be trying to compose himself: straightening the collar of his polo, carefully brushing the hair off his forehead.
“I have a riddle for you,” I say. “I have cities but no houses. I have forests but no trees. I have water but no fish. What am I?”
“You’re a map,” Ian says immediately.
I close my eyes and groan. It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out before.
“I should probably go before Ashlyn catches me in here,” Ian says, standing. He considers me for a moment before adding, “Are you going to be okay?”
No, I want to say. I want to beg him to stay. I want him to keep holding me.
But I can’t shake this feeling that he’s lying to me. And if there’s something he’s not telling me about this place, it means I can’t actually trust him.
I shift back a few feet, crossing my arms over my chest. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”
Ian stares at me a moment longer, and I get the feeling he’s working up the courage to tell me something. But he just shakes his head and murmurs, “See you,” before slipping out the door.
After he’s been gone a few minutes, there’s a tap at my window. I flinch, thinking he’s come back, but it’s just Luna knocking on the glass with her beak. I go over to let her in and find a note from Zo attached to her ankle:
I just checked the rankings and Seven’s not there. What happened??
I crumple the note in my hand, fresh tears gathering in my eyes. “Can you take a note back to Zo for me?” I ask Luna.
I seriously doubt a crow can understand what I’m saying, but Luna stops cleaning her wings and cocks her head. I figure that’s as close as I’m going to get to a yes. I find a pen in my messenger bag and scrawl a response onto the back of Zo’s note.
Seven’s gone. We have to take out the cameras tonight. We can convince Scar and whoever else wants to come to break out with us tomorrow. Can you set the cameras to disable in 24 hours?
Come to my room after everyone’s asleep.
By a little after 10:00 p.m., the voices in the halls have ceased. By eleven, everything’s gone still.
At a quarter past eleven, I hear a slow creak of a door’s hinges. Soft footsteps creep across the hall, and there’s a faint rap on my door. I’m already out of my bed when I hear Zo’s voice whispering: “Lia?”