I hadn’t brought much here with me, but I guessed I might as well make sure I had it all packed up. Maybe think about whether there was anything I could grab to take with me to use as proof when I went to the police or whoever. Of course, what could I get away with taking that the professors wouldn’t notice before they saw me off?
What would even convince a bunch of cops that the staff here were torturing their students? Was my word going to be enough?
As I trudged up the stairs, I could already see in the back of my mind how they’d look me over and laugh and tell me to stop wasting their time. When had anyone who’d been supposed to look out for people like us, the discards and the rejects, ever actually come through? Even when I’d been a kid, no teacher or counselor had seen the signs and intervened. They hadn’t wanted to believe anything was wrong, to bring that trouble into their lives.
I’d just—I’d figure it out. I would. Even if I had no idea how. It had to be easier once I’d gotten away from this place and the horrors that pressed in from every side, right?
Delta was curled up under the covers on her bed, as I’d expected. The slow rhythm of her ragged breaths suggested she’d at least managed to fall asleep despite whatever discomfort she was in.
I took one of the changes of clothes out of the chest under my bed and stuffed it back in my knapsack. The other outfit I’d wear tomorrow. I plugged in my phone so I’d have a full charge once I finally had service again.
As I glanced around for other odds and ends, my gaze caught on a small object nestled in the middle of my pillow. I sat down on the bed and picked the thing up with careful fingers.
It was a flower, but not a real one. A makeshift blossom formed out of scraps of metal and wire twisted together into something shockingly delicate. The whole thing could fit in the hollow of my palm.
While people downstairs had been cheering, while Jenson had all but spat in my face, someone had been leaving me a gift.
My fingers closed around it. The edges of the petals dug into my skin, but the pain sharpened my thoughts. Even as a lump filled my throat, a trickle of resolve rose up through the hopelessness that had overwhelmed me.
I’d been looking at this all wrong.
A sudden urgency propelled me to my feet and out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ryo
There was a moment some evenings, right as the sun was just finishing setting, when the clouds started to part before the last sheen of daylight had quite left the sky. Just a glimmer, rosy or gold, but seeing it shored up what strength I had inside me.
Tonight it was just a flicker of lilac-purple before the sky dulled with the falling dusk. I tucked it away in my memory as I sat on the edge of the abandoned pool, leaning back on my hands. The rough, cracked concrete bit into my fingers. I punctuated the moment with occasional kicks of my heels against the pool wall, as if those hollow thumps would prove something about my deserving to be here.
I didn’t want to think about anything beyond this moment. Especially not tomorrow morning and what I would lose, or the fact that I was a selfish jerk for hating that I was going to lose it. Whatever gods there were knew plenty of people existed beyond these walls who deserved her and could appreciate her more than I did.
We’d done it. I’d never thought I’d end up allying myself with Elias or Jenson, let alone both of them, but maybe I should have reached out to them sooner. I just hadn’t really wanted to give up this one thing. It’d been easier to believe the situation was hopeless.
At least I’d done the right thing this once before I’d dragged yet another person I cared about down with me.
Footsteps rustled through the grass. Figuring it was a random classmate wandering by, I didn’t bother to look around until they’d almost reached me. At the sight of Trix approaching, my heart skipped a beat.
She hunkered down next to me, letting her legs dangle into the empty pool like mine were. “I checked too many places before it occurred to me to look out here. I should have thought of it sooner.”
“I’ll admit I’m fairly predictable,” I said, mostly to say something other than all the questions and pleas I really ought to shove down inside.
She rested her hand in her lap, palm-up, holding the little flower I’d fashioned from bits I’d found in the carriage house. “Thank you. Was this supposed to be a good-bye gift?”
I swallowed hard. “No. I mean, you can see it as one, but I left it before I knew. I… I didn’t enjoy how our last conversations went, even if I needed to say the things I did. Making that was an admittedly somewhat pathetic attempt at showing I said them because you matter to me, not because you don’t.”
“I don’t think it’s pathetic.” Her fingers closed around the metal flower. She tucked it into her pocket and looked at me. “I’m not used to people trying to help me. I do have plenty of experience with assholes jerking me around, sometimes while pretending it’s really for my own good. So, strangely enough, I tend to assume the latter is happening rather than the former.”
“I don’t think that’s strange.” I let myself meet her eyes. “I’m glad you’re getting out of here, but I’m also not. More the first part, though. It’ll be fun imagining the havoc you’re going to wreak out there in the real world.”
She hummed to herself, the slightest smile curving the corners of her mouth. “Not to disappoint you or anything, but I’ve actually had some second thoughts about that.”
My pulse outright lurched. “Trix, you have to take this chance—”
She held up her hand to stop me. “I know why you’re saying that. And maybe I still will. But the decision isn’t just about me—what I want, or what’s ‘best’ for me, or any of that. You tried to help me, and I think Elias and Jenson did too, and you risked a lot doing that. Maybe more than I even understand. I don’t care what you did that brought you here or what the professors think they’re punishing you for. None of what they’re doing here is right.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with that, but whether I did or not was beside the point. “The difference is, we’re stuck. You can’t do anything to change that.”
“You can’t know that for sure. You didn’t think even I could get out to begin with, did you?” She turned to face the western sky, tucking back a strand of hair that the cool breeze had snatched. “There’s at least one more thing I haven’t tried yet. I’ve got until tomorrow morning at the very least. We’ll see where that gets me. If I find any reason to hope that I can push farther than I have already, I’m telling the dean I’ve changed my mind.”
There was no real competition between the sensations dueling in my chest. The potent pang of horror that she might give up her freedom in part for me easily overwhelmed the muffled joy of knowing that I mattered to her that much, despite everything. But I clung to the joy anyway, because the tone of her voice allowed for no argument.
“I’d never ask you to do that,” I started anyway.
“Of course not. That’s why I’m not asking your permission.”
“You know, if you do leave, you could still do something for me. I don’t know if they’re freaked out or glad to be rid of me, but my parents must have wondered why I’ve gone completely off the radar for so long.” For all I knew they’d even come looking for me like Trix had for Cade, but hadn’t managed to get past the school’s protections, as must have been the case for just about everyone. “If you could look them up and just let them know that I’m okay—enough—and I hope they can move on from—” I halted at the haunted look that had come over Trix’s face. “What?”