Qualify (19 page)

Dinner is at 6:00 PM, so there’s time to kind of collapse onto the cot for fifteen minutes, or maybe take a shower, because yeah, I am pouring sweat. Okay, so are most of the other Candidates in my class. (I saw them crawling up the stairs like roadkill all around me, so, yeah.)

I consider the situation, and shower wins out. And so I get in line in the bathroom, and fifteen minutes later I am decent, and wearing my only other change of clothing. Hope there’s a laundry room on premises.

As I’m rummaging through my bag next to my cot, looking for a spare hair rubber band for dealing with my wet hair, I see Claudia Grito and next to her Olivia and another one of the bully girls, and they are just a few cots away, and heading toward me. . . .

I quickly look back down at my stuff, and pretend very hard I don’t see them, as if that might steer them away. But, no such luck.

“Hey, what’s this I see, a little drowned rat?” Olivia says with a smirk, stopping right in front of me and taking hold of my hairbrush that’s lying on top of my blanket.

I look up. Olivia’s looking all perfect and cleaned up after our Combat class, down to the freshly applied makeup and blow-dried auburn hair.

Meanwhile Claudia comes up on the other side of me and she is a little sweaty, but negligibly so, in a sexy bitch kind of way, with a few strands of her black hair loosened. She should be reeking, but instead there’s a deep musky perfume scent coming from her, which I bet guys just go crazy for. She leans in on me and says, “So, Gwen Lark. . . . What are we gonna do about you? You’ve been a bad girl. You know that, don’t you? A very bad girl.”

“They have cameras here . . .” I say, and my voice sounds wimpy and pathetic.

“Of course.” Olivia moves in closer, and she then sits down right next to me on the cot, still holding my hairbrush. “But all they can see is how we’re all just friends, and hey, we’re smiling, right?”

“That’s right.” Claudia starts to smile too, and then she’s running her hand through my hair. I feel a slow steady tug that becomes intense then painful.

“And hey, look, we’re such good friends that we’re gonna brush your hair for you,” Olivia says. She picks up the hairbrush and presses it hard against my scalp, then starts pulling it down, so that the pins dig into me, hard, and at the same time they snag on the kinks in my wet unbrushed hair. . . .

I freeze, in agony. Mostly, because I am used to freezing in such situations, and because I am terrified.

Small clumps of my hair are torn out, as Olivia brings the brush down again, even harder.

“Hey now, you better start smiling, girlfriend,” Claudia says through her teeth.

The third girl with them meanwhile opens my bag, and starts taking things out. I stare helplessly as she takes out a book, one of my Dad’s precious rare editions.

“No!” I say.

“What’s she got there, Ashley?” Claudia lets go of my hair and looks closer at Ashley, a skinny blonde, who’s holding up a leather-bound precious copy of
Consuelo
by George Sand—possibly my favorite book in the whole world—by its front hardcover cardboard plate.

“Put that down, please,” I say.

“Oh, yeah? Or what?” Ashley holds the book carelessly and gives it a shake, so that a fragile, age-yellowed page falls out from the middle, and the cover itself starts to rip and come apart at the binding. . . .

I feel a fierce burning at the back of my throat, and the stifling thickness that comes just before tears. I am about to bawl, like a pathetic loser coward, both from the pain and the humiliation, as I’ve done before countless times, when cornered at school. . . .

So many times before. . . .
Always
.

But something different happens this time.
This is my favorite book in the world.
My Dad’s beloved edition. I am probably not going to Qualify. So, in a few months from now, it’s going to burn in asteroid flames as the world ends. Together with me, and probably most other people I love.

What does anything matter?

A weird new sense of calm comes over me. For some reason in that instant, I also remember, of all things, Aeson Kass. I see his steady blue eyes, strangely intense and unblinking. He is speaking to me, in a low soft voice of power, and his words fill my head.
As you learn to fight, you learn to defend yourself
. . . .

The hairbrush that Olivia’s holding tangled up in a clump of my hair is ripping my hair out. I lift my hand and take hold of her wrist.

And suddenly I
press hard
—I press with all I’ve got, feeling the bones in her wrist, so that Olivia exclaims in surprise and lets go of my hairbrush that clatters on the floor. At the same time I use my other hand, balled up in a fist, to slam into Claudia’s midriff area.

In the next second, I stand up. I reach out quickly and grab the precious book from Ashley. “Get away from me! Get out!” I say, and my voice, it’s different now, as if it’s not my own. It’s low and hard, and coming through my teeth.

“
Get out.”

I am standing straight, and my eyes are burning with intensity, tears transformed into fury.

I can see something has clicked, because Claudia’s expression is transformed also, and she is frowning, but at the same time she’s no longer so sure of herself.

“Did you hear me?” I say, looking at each one of them. “The cameras are on us right now. What are you going to do, if you still want to Qualify?”

“We’re not done, chica,” Claudia mutters, holding her abdomen. “Don’t think we’re done. You
touched
me, you’re gonna
pay
.” But she is up, and she is backing away from my cot casually, and she throws a smile at Olivia, who glares at me. Ashley steps back also, then kicks my bag, hard, as she walks by.

“See you next time, Gwen-baby,” Olivia says. “Meanwhile, you’d better watch your back.”

I don’t answer. I am breathing hard, watching them leave. No one else is in the surrounding area, the nearest cots are vacant and the girls’ dormitory floor is nearly empty. The closest girl is more than a dozen cots away, and she has her back turned, straightening her things, likely pretending she heard nothing. I don’t blame her.

I stand, holding
Consuelo
in one hand. It occurs to me,
I just defended a book.

What have I done? I am absolutely insane. They are going to come after me even harder now. They always do. And cameras don’t matter—they will find a way.

I
go downstairs to grab dinner. In the cafeteria, no one I know is around, not even Laronda. And there’s no sign of Blayne’s wheelchair. So I eat alone, at a table near the wall, as quickly as possible. I am keeping my head down, and thinking grim thoughts, as I move my fork around some kind of bland, greasy macaroni casserole.

After dinner, I decide, I’m finally getting out of this building. Time to go look for my brothers, for Gracie.

Ten minutes later, as I unload the remnants on my tray into the trash, I turn to see the big scary guy with the neck tattoo walking past me. As he passes, he pinches my rear and then slams his elbow into my side painfully, and keeps walking, without a glance at me.

I wince in pain and almost double over, but hide it, pretending to be checking something at the seam of my jeans near my thigh.

Quickly I head out of the cafeteria, out through the lobby, and outside. The place where the jerk pinched me really smarts, and so does the side where he slammed into me. I wonder how much if anything those supposed surveillance cameras picked up.

The chill evening air strikes me, and I remember I left my sweater upstairs, and I’m only wearing a T-shirt. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I continue outside, after getting a printed page with the map of the campus buildings, up at the info desk.

According to the map, Dorm Five, Red Quadrant, where Gracie’s at, is only three buildings away.

The compound grounds are filled with Candidates walking in the twilight. I see small groups of teens whispering nervously, hear occasional bursts of laughter. But mostly, it’s just quiet solitary individuals hurrying somewhere.

Dorm Five looms before me, with its red square logo up on top. As I enter the front doors, I am in a Common Area lobby that’s an exact copy of my own dorm, down to the layout of the info desk, the stairs, cafeteria doors in the back, and even the lounge furniture. I see teens everywhere, and the only difference is, their tokens are all shining red. A few of them give me and my yellow token hard looks.

I pause, considering what to do next, where to even begin looking for Gracie, when I see a bunch of people gathered on the sofas and chairs. As I scan the company, there’s Gracie herself. She is sitting on the sofa, chatting with people on both sides of her, and I can even hear her familiar giggle laughter, all the way to the door. Okay, wow. Gracie hasn’t been so cheerful and relaxed in days. What on Earth has happened to my little sis, overnight?

I make a beeline directly for her. Gracie says something to a boy on one side of her, tosses her hair back, slaps her hands together, and then her gaze falls on me.

“Gwen! Oh my gosh, Gwen! Over here!” Gracie jumps up from her seat, and as I approach she throws herself at me. I am hugging my sister, smelling the familiar scent of her hair, soggy from a recent shower. Then we pull apart, and I see her face with its slightly smudged, newly applied eyeliner and globby mascara, and she is glowing with high-energy excitement.

“So, you survived today! How was everything?” I say with a grin. And then, as Gracie opens her mouth and begins to talk, I happen to glance sideways and see . . .

Logan Sangre.

He is sitting on the sofa near the empty spot where Gracie has been.

I feel like someone had just body-slammed me in the gut, and I freeze, while my cheeks are suddenly on fire. Gracie is saying something, and honestly I have no idea what’s coming out of her mouth. Could be anything, blah, blah, blah.

“. . . and so we had Agility Training first thing after lunch, and it was kinda awful at first, then not so bad!” Gracie is chattering. “I got a demerit because I fell off the monkey bars, and oh, the hoverboards were okay, maybe even fun in a weird way! And our Red Quadrant weapon is the bestest
evar
, a sword!”

“How are your Instructors?” I say, trying to take in a deep calming breath so that I can speak evenly and keep my face from twitching or my teeth from chattering.

“Oh, they were mean and awful! Two of them were these hotshot Atlanteans with a real hard attitude,” Gracie exclaims, plopping back down in her seat on the sofa.

As she does so, Logan Sangre, who’s been talking to some guy on the other side of him, turns his head to look at me.

“Everyone, this is my sister Gwen!” Gracie looks around and then focuses on Logan, of all people. “Oh hey, Gwen, this is Logan, he’s a senior from our school, can you believe that?” Gracie has
no idea
about my crush obsession, naturally, no one does. No one, that is, except my friend Ann Finnbar, the only person I’ve ever told, back at school. And oh yeah, now there’s Laronda who knows too. . . .

“Hi,” Logan says to me, with a light smile on his sexy chiseled lips, a smile that makes his already amazing face beautiful beyond belief. “It’s a small world. Go, Mapleroad Jackson High Wolf Cubs!”

“Hey,” I say, while I drown in his warm hazel-brown eyes with their mile-long lashes. Somehow I manage to make my own lips shape the necessary words, as though I am a wooden puppet. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen you around. Go, Wolf Cubs!”

“Yeah. . . .” He leans back, and his hair falls in an attractive way over his forehead as he leans his head sideways, looking me over. “I’m sure I’ve seen you too. Are you a junior?” His eyes, warm, rich, are looking at me directly, and it’s
smoking-hot
, and I am just going to stop breathing now. This. Very. Moment.

My temples are pounding.
He knows what year I am!

“Wanna sit down?” Gracie says, as I nod and mumble some half-baked reply. She then moves off to the side a little, making space for me right between her and Logan.

“Sure,” I say, while the whole world is pretty much spinning around me in a crazy carousel.

And then I sit down next to Logan Sangre.

I mean,
flush next to him
. So that we’re touching. The entire side of my body, my left hip is pressing against his. I feel the muscular hardness of his body.

And he
doesn’t
move away. Instead, he puts his arm around the back, so that if I close my eyes and imagine it, in some alternate dimension or something it could count like he’s got his arm around
me!

It took the end of the world to bring this about.

I am squeezed between my sister and Logan Sangre.

If the asteroid hits us now, I can go out with a smile.

W
e talk about stuff for the next five minutes, and if you ask me, I wouldn’t be able to say what we’ve been talking about, or for that matter if we’ve been talking human or dog. This is what the presence of Logan Sangre does to my pathetic brain. I was going to ask Gracie about our brothers, if she’d seen them, but of course now that’s all gone out of my mind, together with any semblance of rational thought, motor function, or long term memory.