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The chill, as always, startled me. It was yet another thing that set this school apart from the others. It was always abnormally frigid, even in the supposed summer months. I tugged my jacket closed and raced down the narrow, grassy pathway.
It was easy to believe that no one suspected what we were up to. Because if they did…
No, I had to remain firm in my conviction that none of the professors had caught wind of our activities. I was still alive, still breathing, still left with more questions than answers at this shit school.
Unlike Josie.
Her name felt like lead in my stomach, tangling with the jumble of nerves. There was no escaping the pain of her absence. She was my little sister, one of the few people I loved.
Until the day I died, I would grieve her.
Her disappearance—kidnapping—was only one of many mysteries. Why her?
Was it because she had uncovered something important? She had been the one to discover the drugs in the food and the antidote to stop the illusions. How had she even discovered something so…outlandish?
My selfless little sister. Risking her life to save all of ours. Stupidly. I didn’t deserve her sacrifice.
And then there were the dreams…
With Bianaca.
I touched my lips with the tip of my tongue.
“You’re late,” Tanner said lazily, but he sounded like he couldn’t give two shits either way. He leaned against the shed wall smoking a cigarette. How he got a surplus of that shit remained a mystery. It just randomly kept appearing in his room. “Where’s Kace?”
I shook my head once, and that eloquent gesture was answer enough.
Tanner allowed me to lead the way into the dilapidated shed with the rickety doorway and hole-ridden roof. Under the yellow “caution - keep out” tape. Into the door and down the staircase.
I could tell why Bianaca had freaked out. I, too, would believe that I was being sent to my death. There was something uncanny about a darkness that clung to you like a second skin. The phantom tendrils of monsters clawing at your wrists. The disembodied sensation where you weren’t aware of where your hands were.
Darkness.
Utter and complete darkness.
Only when we were at the bottom did we dare switch on a light.
That superstition was silly, if it could even be classified as one. Ever since we had first discovered the diminutive shack and staircase, we had been terrified to even breathe let alone shine a light. That fear had ebbed after we had gotten an idea of where the guards were going to be and when, but the cautious gestures—like keeping the lights off—did not.
The light illuminated a damp, dusky corridor. Gray, slate walls surrounded the perimeter and only a single table sat in the very center. Behind the table, a large tunnel branched out.
It was wide enough to fit two of me side by side and smelled vaguely of mildew and mold. The walls were entirely made of rock, clunkily chipped away. The slates of rock haphazardly sat on one another.
The tunnel was obviously manmade.
The creator or creators—the structure looked as if it’d been years in the making—had come to the same conclusion we had after discovering the horrors of this school. If you couldn’t go over the gate and you couldn’t go through it, then you had to go under it.
“She didn’t believe you?” Tanner asked, removing his shirt. I removed mine as well, but unlike him, I carefully folded it and set it on the table.
“She didn’t come down the staircase.”
We stepped into the tunnel, relying on the thin beam of the flashlight. We had to get new batteries soon. Maybe I could fuck one of the student workers from res-life.
Even as I thought that, a shudder went through me. An option that would’ve once sounded immensely appealing now held the same appeal as stabbing myself in the eye with a rusty spoon.
“That’s because you’re a psychopathic monster,” Tanner pointed out helpfully, and I snorted.
“We’ve been over this. Psychopaths mimic emotions.” And I just felt everything too much.
