“How’s that? You like that, Connelly?”
A rush of woozy inertia overcame me. I stumbled forward like a drunk. The jagged, pink weapon fell from my hand. I knew I was done in just a few more seconds, so I lurched over to lie with my brother. Unable to walk in a straight line, I teetered sideways and fell . . . right into the waiting arms of the cadet who shot me.
He brought me up to his chest to stare into my bleary eyes. “Welcome to The Academy, Katherine Connelly,” he said, not in an unkind voice before slinging me over his shoulder like a fallen soldier. Then he reached down and hooked a limp Mikey up and hoisted him over his other shoulder, marching us from my busted-up bedroom, through the hallway of family pictures, past our shabby kitchen and living room, out the front door, and down the rickety steps.
I had a very strong feeling this would be the last time I ever saw our trailer so I tried focusing, but it was getting harder by the second. The deep rumble of Ranger’s voice roused me round once more.
“Slater, stay here and clean up this mess. Cut the guy a check for two-hundred thou to keep his mouth shut, and convey to him the importance of keeping it shut if he wants to hang on to his last kid.”
“Yessir.”
“Oh, and thanks for your help, man. . . . This got a whole lot hairier than I anticipated.”
“It always does. You outta here then?”
“Yep,” Ranger confirmed, windmilling us back around. “I’ll see you back at the fort.”
I guess as far as endings go it wasn’t so bad. For most parties involved. Only the Connelly kids continued to get screwed. Everybody else more or less getting what they wanted in the end: Daddy got to keep his pride and joy. Ranger—the biggest winner in all of this—got two acquisitions for the price of one, and two more notches on his belt. The International Elite Academy would be the beneficiary of more gifteds to mold, manipulate, and use . . . for God-only-knew-what purpose. And Pete . . . well, Cadet Davenport finally got his lifelong wish fulfilled—a life free of the organization he’d always loathed .
I could still hear the mechanized buzzing of the motorcycle fading into the distance as we tromped steadily forward. I hoped Pete was going far. Far away from this God-forsaken place to start a new life, as something he wanted to be.
Ranger stopped tromping to open the back of a black SUV. He laid us inside, side-by-side. I was almost gone. Not quite . . . hanging on out of sheer stubbornness. I could feel Ranger’s hands on my body, carefully rearranging me to his satisfaction. And then the relief of hair being brushed off my face. My eyes fluttered back open. I expected more mouthing off liberally sprinkled by insults, but he didn’t say anything at all. He just stared intently at me while I watched glacier eyes warm to ocean blue. Then he made a move I couldn’t flinch for and didn’t need to: He rubbed a thumb from my mouth to my hairline, right over the tender spot where he’d slapped me.
This was my final undoing. I closed my eyes at last, surrendering to the blank darkness coming for me. A light blanket was thrown over me. The door slammed shut. A moment later, the engine’s vibration We drove back down the winding dirt road toward our destination . . . The organization simply known as The Academy.