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Actually, I feared that was exactly what they wanted to do. And what would I do then? I’d felt so strong after my last feeding with Carden, but the effects were wearing off.
Where was he? I couldn’t get much more anxious than I was now. If he didn’t appear any second, I had a problem…actually, several problems, on many gut-wrenching levels, none of which I could spare a moment to contemplate just then.
Guidon Kenzie had helped me before, but there’d be no Proctor to save me now—she was in the dining hall, probably fork deep in beige slop. We’d given each other a nod in greeting as I walked out of the building and she’d walked in.
“Jump you. Right here. ” Yasuo smiled a disturbingly vicious little smile. “Maybe that’s exactly what we’re going to do. ”
I held my breath and waited, opening my senses to the universe, but I sensed only my complete solitude. Nope, no Carden. Despair wended its way a little deeper into my heart, and I blew out that breath. No knights in shining armor for me. No deus ex machina. It was just me. And I’d need to face this head-on. By myself.
But then a voice of reason spoke up, declaring a definitive “Chill out. ”
I found the sp
eaker easily enough—giant, blond, freckled farm boys tended to stand out from a crowd. It was Toby Engel. My Toby Engel.
“Take a chill,” Toby repeated. It wasn’t exactly sticking up for me, but it was close. This was his way of trying to get them to leave me alone. “Let’s just go, man. I want to eat. ”
It appeared I wasn’t exactly completely by myself. I had Trainee Toby on my side. The Trainee Toby I’d been assigned to kill.
Alcántara really was an evil son of a bitch.
Common sense told me I needed to use this situation, to find my opening and finish my “assignment” for Alcántara.
Here was Toby, after all. His guard was down. Maybe I could come up with a way to take him. I could announce I’d go to the dining hall with him, and instead I’d find a way to hit him with one of the stars tucked in my boot and then run like hell out of there, hoping the other guys didn’t catch me. I’d be done with my assassination. Forget poetic. I could make something up after the fact. Something about how the stars come out at night, maybe. I could come up with some fancy explanation that’d satisfy Alcántara.
But I couldn’t do it. I caught Toby’s eye. Dim as a post, this one. Why was he even here? Ronan had said the word tractable, and that must’ve been it—the kid was dumb, easily swayed, and yet unnaturally brawny. But despite all that, Trainee Toby lacked the gleeful taste for violence that Yas and the others had discovered. This could’ve been my moment to take him unawares, and I couldn’t.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The guys made the decision for me.
“Fuck dinner,” Danny said, and they closed in.
They leapt for me, and it was an explosion of chaos, of arms and legs. Of my arms and legs, kicking and flailing, trying to wrestle free, all the while trying not to topple. I didn’t want to consider what would happen if I fell to the ground.
Where was everyone else? But I knew—Yasuo’s gang had chosen their timing perfectly. Everyone else was in the dining hall eating cream-of-beige casserole.
I was fast and tough and good at flailing, but I was going to lose this battle. There were too many of them crowding all around me, too big while I was too small. Gradually, hands found purchase on my body and I was less able to wriggle free. Soon fingers clamped around both arms. I felt someone’s grip at my waist. I was in a vise of many hands.
So much for me having strength or power. Cunning, smarts, grit…All those things I’d thought I had meant nothing when it was me versus a half-dozen guys. I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. Trapped—it was the worst feeling ever.
Danny leaned close, studying my face. “How should we do this, lads?” Then he hauled back and sucker punched me in the gut.
It was a shocker, and I hadn’t had a chance to flex my ab muscles to prepare. My body tried to double over in protest, but hands held me tight from behind. My stomach churned and spasmed, and I retched up and convulsively swallowed back down a bit of dinner. I vowed I’d never eat cream-of-mushroom anything again.
“That’s no fun. ” Colin shouldered Danny out of the way. “The fun is in making marks. ”
Oh shit. I clenched, flexing every muscle, from cheeks to toes.
Toes, I realized. I inched my leg forward along the path, and the feet that’d initially hooked around my ankles were gone.
The guys might’ve had me in a vise, but that meant they were holding me up, too, and I used it, bracing my elbows against them. I swung up my legs, curled my knees to my belly, and then kicked. Both feet shot out like a bucking donkey. Aimed straight for Colin’s groin.
He doubled over, arm curled over his boy parts, and then he just hung there, his body gone rigid, looking like a freeze-frame from a movie.
Meanwhile, the other guys exploded all around him, shouting, “Oh!” and, “Right in the nuts!”
Apparently, getting kicked in the testicles was a spectator sport with boys, because they’d let go of me and were springing around like they were on pogo sticks, hopping, clapping their chests, smacking one another’s shoulders, shouting their sympathy or amusement, and words of advice, like, “Breathe, dude. ” Or “Jump up and down!” But Colin ignored them, focused only on gasping for air. It looked like he was trying to speak, but when his mouth moved, nothing came out.
I began to back away, slowly sneaking my way out of the cluster, but a hand wrapped around me, feeling more like talons in my flesh than the other grips had. “We’re not nearly done with you,” Yasuo snarled. There was something dark in his expression, something that told me he wasn’t just toying with me. He was playing for keeps.
