Sacrifices (25 page)

She watched out of the corner of her eye as Loch made his way from the door toward the serving line. At a table Loch passed, Allen Tate swung around and stuck his feet out in Loch’s path. Loch leaned over and said something—it was impossible to make out—and Allen scrambled back, tucking his feet under the bench.

Loch caught her eye and smirked, and Spirit suppressed a sigh of relief. It was all relative (she remembered a day, years ago, teasing Phoenix to the point where Fee shrieked at the top of her lungs: “It’s all relatives!” and Mom—whose favorite saying was “It’s all relative”—had laughed until she had to dry her eyes, and then gave them both Popsicles). You didn’t worry about getting beaten up by your classmates when your teachers were trying to kill you. You didn’t worry about being outed when the world was going to end.

*   *   *

After spending the morning in
Systema
watching Ovcharenko try to kill Loch and Burke try to kill Ovcharenko (and oh god how she wished she was exaggerating), even lunch came as a relief (even if it put her one hour closer to today’s Dance Committee meeting). Spirit hardly noticed the fights and the quietly vicious arguments all around her. None of the fights were worse than shoving matches, anyway.

Muirin wasn’t there (having apparently solved the problem of the dress code by deciding to stop going to classes completely).

At least, Spirit hoped that was why she was missing.

“Hey, where’s our warden?” Kristi Fuller asked, setting down her tray and sliding into her seat. She gave Spirit a look of friendly sympathy: Kristi was one of the former Dance Committee members.

“Faculty Lunchroom. Doesn’t have to eat with us peasants anymore.” Taylor Parker was one of the three kids who’d come to Oakhurst after Spirit and Loch had. (Spirit was secretly amazed he was still here.) “They did Angie and Rick this morning, which is why they aren’t here. Zoey Young, too, and what’s up with that? I thought they were doing all the Proctors first.”

Kristi shrugged. “Maybe somebody bailed.”

“What’s he doing to them?” Brianna asked. “I know Rick. He’s about as sensitive as a brick.” She rolled her eyes.

“‘Testing,’” Kristi said. “In which we are ‘reevaluated’ in order to rank us for ‘advanced placement.’” The ironic quotes stood out in her tone. She made a face.

“What kind of advanced placement can there be?” Taylor asked in confusion. “It’s not like there’s another Oakhurst for them to send anyone to.”

Spirit had a sudden idea. “I don’t know. But … I was in Chat last night and somebody said they heard if you don’t pass, you get your magic burned out.” She kept her voice casual, as if she was just helpfully passing on gossip. Three months ago it wouldn’t have worked. Three months ago, there’d been a hundred kids here instead of sixty. Nobody said anything in response, but Spirit was pretty sure the rumor would be all over the school by midafternoon.

In fact, she was betting her life on it.

*   *   *

“Do you think they’ll show up?” Maddie asked, for possibly the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes. “What if they don’t show up?”

A table and chairs had been set up in one corner of the gym, and there was a cooler full of sodas and a couple of big plates of cookies. Not much by the standards of the goodie bags Breakthrough had been providing, but lavish in terms of Oakhurst fare. Spirit wasn’t even sure why the Dance Committee was meeting here instead of in one of the lounges, or one of the empty classrooms, or the School Library, or even the Teachers’ Lounge, but it wasn’t like any of them wanted to argue with Admin.

“We cancel the dance and close Oakhurst, what do you think?” Dylan answered.

Spirit had done her best to keep away from Dylan since the night they’d gathered to play back Loch’s recorder. She’d been afraid he’d blurt out what he knew. But today it was Zoey who was pinging her radar. Zoey looked
spooked.
More than that, she looked
sick.

“Should we have gone to the funerals? Would that have been right? Have they even had them yet?” Zoey asked. “We should have gone. I bet they asked us. Our email’s been down, is that why we didn’t find out?” Her eyes were fever-bright, and she chattered randomly in a high nervous voice. Nobody’d quite dared to ask her how her retest had gone.

“The funerals were last Friday,” Chris said. “It would’ve been awkward if we’d gone, since two of us were still supposed to be in the hospital.”

“I’m a quick healer,” Dylan said, and snickered.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” Kylee said. “You know they’re all going to go back and tell their families they saw all of us here today in the bloom of health.”

I wouldn’t,
Spirit thought. She still had no idea of what she was going to say to the Radial kids, but she knew whatever it was, she didn’t want to say it in the Oakhurst gym.

Just when Spirit was starting to wonder if they were coming at all, the doors at the far end of the gym opened and Ms. Corby walked in, followed by the Committee and four Breakthrough security guards. All seven of the Radial teens were wearing black armbands. Their escort stopped at the door and—once the Townies were halfway across the floor—turned and went out again.

Juliette, Brenda, Veronica, and Kennedy—the surviving members of the Radial committee—were there. Juliette had (as usual) brought her twin, Brett, and there were two other newcomers as well: Tom and Adam Phillips. Spirit remembered them from the field trip—Muirin had said once they’d been Seth’s partners in his smuggling business. Adam was eighteen and Tom was fourteen and it was obvious neither one gave a damn about the school dance.

I don’t know what possible use they can be,
Spirit thought in exasperation.
Bodyguards?
I
could take them both out, and I don’t even have magic!

“Welcome to Oakhurst,” Maddie said, standing up and holding out her hand. “I see we have two new recruits.”

Tom sniggered and Adam snorted. Neither came forward to shake Maddie’s hand.

“Nice place you have here,” Tom said, looking around. Spirit suddenly remembered what she’d thought the first time she’d seen the Oakhurst gym. It had looked like something out of a Hollywood fantasy of what an elite private school would be like. And she remembered how—for just a little while, back at the beginning—she’d been dazzled by the luxury Oakhurst had surrounded her with …

“If we could just get started?” Maddie said anxiously. “We have a lot of things to cover, and not much time. Now, I know we didn’t finalize the colors for the Spring Fling, but we’re really out of time, so I thought we could reuse some of the decorations we had here, which would make the dance colors—”

“Is that it?” Brenda said blankly. “Two of my friends are dead, the library’s a pile of kindling, and we’re just going to talk about the
dance
?”

“Yeah. A dance seems like a really stupid idea in the first place when we just buried Bella and Erika on Friday,” Kennedy said.

“Hey if we shut down Oakhurst every time somebody died we’d never have classes at all,” Dylan said.

“I just think we should—” Juliette said.

“Finish planning the dance,” Kylee said harshly. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

“We’re here because your friends bought the Town Council,” Brett said belligerently. “We were going to pull out and not have a dance at all.”

“Oh, Brett, you know we all talked about this and we agreed—” Juliette said.

“But didn’t Mr. Rider say we had to go through with it?” Veronica said. All the Radial kids glared at her, and she blushed furiously. “I just mean I thought…” she mumbled.

“If Breakthrough doesn’t see one hundred percent turnout from Radial at the Spring Fling, there’s going to be trouble,” Brenda said flatly. “But the thing that’s really bugging me right now is how none of you guys seemed surprised when those things showed up and tore the library apart.”

“We were,” Chris protested. “Uh—surprised. But you know everything happened so fast—the noise, the confusion—”

Over Brenda’s shoulder, Spirit saw the door leading from the school into the gym silently open. Teddy Rider and Anastus Ovcharenko walked in. The others were so agitated that nobody noticed them but her.

“I didn’t even want to come today!” Juliette said. “And Mom said I didn’t have to, but she’s on the Town Board, so I
know
about Breakthrough, and—is this some kind of cover-up?”

Teddy and Ovcharenko were wandering along the opposite side of the gym, apparently deep in conversation and oblivious to the meeting. Spirit poked Kylee under the table, and jerked her head in their direction. Kylee’s eyes went wide, and she turned to whisper into Chris’s ear.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Monster robots out of a video game?” He sounded more impressed than worried. Spirit’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t been there that day—and that meant the secret was out.

“People
died,
” Brenda repeated. “And if you know anything about—”

“If you guys keep running your mouths like this you’re going to end up mind-wiped just like everybody else who’s ever found out something Oakhurst doesn’t want them to know,” Dylan snarled.

“Oh come on—” Kennedy said.

“Look, will you guys all just
please
shut up?” Spirit hissed.
“Company.”

The Townies looked around the gym and finally spotted Teddy and Ovcharenko. Suddenly everyone stopped talking. The silence was more suspicious than what they’d been saying. In another moment, the two men would come over, and Teddy would be charming, and ten seconds after that he’d know everything.

Spirit held her breath.
They can’t just make the Radial kids vanish,
she told herself desperately.
And it won’t help to mind-wipe them, because if Adam knows what happened last Wednesday, everybody in Radial under the age of eighteen must know too.…

But to Spirit’s deep mistrust, Teddy simply waved and smiled from across the gym, and he and Ovcharenko walked down to the outside door and went through it.

“Boy, it really must suck to be you guys,” Brett said, when the door had crashed shut again.

“You have
no
idea,” Chris Terry said feelingly.

“So … who wants a Coke?” Maddie asked brightly.

Nobody really wanted to talk about the Spring Fling. Every point Maddie raised—from the Spring Fling colors (silver, pink, and blue) to the song list—was waved aside by Juliette. The Townies resented being forced to attend, and the Oakhurst kids knew there wasn’t much point in trying to make decisions about music or anything else: the Spring Fling would be Breakthrough’s show from first to last. Tomorrow, Madison Lane-Rider would be bringing several racks of prom gowns to Macalister High; Spirit suspected the Oakhurst girls would just be
assigned
prom gowns.

“I’m not wearing something pink and frilly,” Kennedy said through gritted teeth, when Maddie mentioned the gowns.

“Yeah, like anybody’s going to care what you show up wearing,” Brett said. “But hey, that means there’ll be two dresses for Couch, because it’ll take two to cover that fat butt.”

Veronica hung her head, and pretended she couldn’t hear him.

“Hey, do you think you guys could lay off a little?” Kylee snapped.

“Yeah, sure. It’s okay for you guys with your trust funds and your fancy school,” Tom said. “You don’t know what it’s like to be pushed around. All anybody hears is ‘Breakthrough this’ and ‘Breakthrough that.’ New library, new housing development, skate park—”

“New sewage and water treatment plant,” Brenda said softly. “Town’s needed one for years.”

Spirit wondered why Breakthrough was making all these long-term plans, given Mordred’s agenda. The only thing she could think of was maybe Mark Rider was buying Radial’s cooperation—but why bother? What did he need from Radial he couldn’t just take?

The more the Townies talked about Breakthrough’s development plans, the twitchier Spirit got. Dylan knew the truth, and if he came out with it, the news would be all over town by dinnertime.

I should probably be hoping for that,
Spirit thought.
Nobody will believe it, but everyone will talk about it. Wouldn’t that stop them?

She didn’t know. And what it
would
do would be to lead Breakthrough back to the only possible source of the leak: Muirin.

“But look,” Kennedy said urgently. “You gotta tell us. Those … things. You told Brenda you’d explain. I saw … What I saw…”

“Not here,” Spirit said quickly. “Not now. I will. I promise.”

“But you know, don’t you?” Brenda said. “And it’s got something to do with why we can’t cancel the dance. And why we all have to come.”

“You can’t!” Zoey spoke while Spirit was still trying to think of an answer. She’d been sitting so quietly for so long the others had almost forgotten she was here. “You can’t—that’s what they want—that’s their plan! But you can’t! Stay away! Stay away from Oakhurst—no matter what you have to do—no matter what you’re told—tell all your friends—tell everyone! Because if you don’t— If you don’t—”

“Now, Zoey, we don’t want to upset everyone.”

It was Mandy Poole, the Breakthrough technician who’d tried to recruit Spirit when Breakthrough had first showed up. She’d showed up at Zoey’s side practically out of nowhere—even though Spirit had been watching the doors to see if someone else was going to come in.
Her Gift must be Shadewalking—like Loch’s. Or invisibility,
Spirit thought inanely. Mandy took Zoey by the arm and lifted her to her feet.

“She’s just tired,” Mandy said fixing the others with a professional smile. “Aren’t you, Zoey?”

Zoey stared at Mandy, clearly terrified. The Radial kids were looking shocked and confused, obviously without any idea of how to react. The Oakhurst kids were sitting very still, trying not to attract Mandy’s attention. Spirit was as frozen as the rest. Her hands were clenched into fists, her nails digging into her palms. She hated herself for not doing something to help Zoey, even as she knew there wasn’t anything she could do. She could protest—and be taken to wherever Zoey was being taken.