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That was it. I would find a way out of this place. When he’d talked me onto the plane, I’d thought I’d be in for some cool schooling, but this was brainwashed-cult crap, and I was not down with it.
It was only a matter of time before I annoyed someone as badly as Mimi had, and I refused to have my guts spilled in front of an audience of Barbies. My last stop would not be on some vampire’s dinner plate.
Once everyone settled, I leaned close to Ronan’s ear. “How do I get out?”
“Shush,” he hissed. “You can’t get out. ”
As the other girls loaded in, I considered my situation. I was more helpless and alone than I’d ever been in Florida, only now I was surrounded by things that wanted to eat me. The driver put the truck in gear and drove. I felt as desolate as the bleak, gray world outside my window.
I called my mom’s picture to mind, taking strength from the memory of her yellow hair, that bright yellow pantsuit. It seemed that, yet again, I’d be forced to make my own way, in a world bled dry of color.
Ronan was wrong—I would get out. I’d survived the most difficult and loveless of childhoods, and I’d survive this, too. I leaned close again, and felt him bristle. “So Watchers aren’t allowed to leave the island? Ever?”
“Of course,” he said, his voice tight with tension, “Watchers are allowed to leave. ”
“Then how do I become a Watcher?”
He cleared his throat to speak in a hoarse whisper, and I had to strain to hear him over the chatting and posturing of the girls. “First, you stay alive. And then you must prove yourself better than all the others. ”
We pulled onto a rough, cobbled drive, and the truck jostled Ronan’s body into mine. I inhaled sharply. I trusted this guy about as far as I could throw him. I would not be affected by the warm press of his thigh on mine. I would focus.
I’d focus and excel and stay alive. Long enough to escape.
“You’re here. ” Ronan nodded to a forbidding structure that made me nostalgic for the fortress we’d just left. It was a rambling old mansion of pale reddish stone. Each window was a narrow Gothic archway rising to a fine point. A colonnade of lanky towers, chimneys, columns, and turrets gave the impression of a spindly, ethereal thing, reaching skyward.
“That’s my dorm?” As I got out, my eyes went to the clusters of bad girls spilling from the other SUVs, cursing their fates. “It’s like Hogwarts in Gangland. ”
“This is the edge of the quad. ” Ronan pointed to the tops of some other buildings just beyond the dorm. “There’s the Acari dorm, Initiate housing, academic buildings, and a chapel. ”
“Chapel?” I was dying to walk alongside the building for a better view, but something told me that’d be frowned upon. “You’re shitting me. ”
He rolled his eyes. “Annelise, your language leaves something to be desired. And, no, I’m not exaggerating. There is a chapel, though it hasn’t seen a priest in my lifetime. ”
A tall black girl emerged from the building. Spotting Ronan, she approached us, a warm smile on her face.
“Here comes one of the Proctors now. ” He pointed her out, but he needn’t have.
She’d stood out the moment she glided from the dorm. Dramatically so. She was gorgeous—what else?—but in a fierce, self-possessed way. Though she looked only about nineteen or twenty, something about her seemed much older. She wore a sort of catsuit in an austere navy color, instead of the gray Acari tunic. I knew without asking that I was looking at the uniform of an Initiate.
“Amanda. ” The warmth in Ronan’s voice made me do a double take. A spurt of irrational jealousy made my belly lurch, and I swallowed it down.
“Ronan,” she replied with humor in her voice. She turned her attention to me, studying me with a speculative tilt to her head. “This one of yours, then?” She spoke in a thick Cockney accent.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Dreadlocks twined to her shoulders, but not in a Rasta way. It was more at tastefully bohemian, like a latter-day Lauryn Hill.
“Aye, one of mine,” Ronan said. “There are just two this time. I . . . lost one. During the
Induction. ”
“Let me guess. This would be Annelise. Though you prefer Drew, don’t you?”
I could only nod lamely, totally awed. Above and beyond her clothes and her hair, there was something in Amanda’s bearing that set her apart. Like she’d been tested and proven worthy. I saw it in her stature, in the steel of her dark eyes, and in the taut lines of her body visible beneath her clothing.
Lilac appeared from nowhere, shouldering past me. “Hope you survive the night, Charity. ”
Her pack knocked me and I stumbled. I heard her trilling laugh, feeling my cheeks burn deep crimson.
Amanda chuckled, a rich, throaty sound. “Don’t mind her, dolly. There’s a slag like that in every batch. ”
