The Academy: Book 2 (66 page)

             
The closet door shot violently outward, knocking Allen over. Bruce ran into the classroom and was headed towards the door.

             
When Allen had fallen over, Rose had begun running beside him for backup. Now, she stood in between Bruce and the exit.

             
For how heavy he was, Bruce was fast. He faked left, but ran right.

             
Rose was faster, though.

             
She stood on the concrete, grinning with black gums, as Bruce ran towards her. Bruce ducked his shoulders and slammed into her. Usually, this would not have worked against a Multiplier, but because Rose was intoxicated, she stumbled and then fell over. Bruce’s face lightened up, and he took two more steps towards the door before he was brought down.

             
While Bruce was dodging Rose, Allen had crawled over within an arm’s reach of the doorjamb. He caught Bruce’s ankle, and tripped him up.

             
Bruce was screaming, kicking, and hitting.

             
The effort made Allen laugh, and he pulled Bruce’s body towards him, and pinned him down. Asa’s heart was fluttering in his chest like a trapped bird.

             
“
Look what I caught,
” Allen growled to no one in particular.

             
Rose was getting to her feet with a disgusted look on her face. “Little brat knocked me over.”

             
“That’s why you’re not supposed to do heroin while you’re on a mission,” Ned said.

             
Rose rolled her eyes at him.

             
Realizing that trying to physically force Allen off of him was useless, Bruce stopped thrashing, but continued to breath heavily through his nose.

             
Allen had an enormous smile on his face, and he stared down at Bruce with hungry eyes. “What are you?” he asked. “A student? A graduate?”

             
“Wh-what do you mean?” Bruce asked.

             
BANG

             
In a flash, Allen had drawn his gun and shot a bullet harmlessly into the empty foyer. “
Don’t play dumb with me, answer the damn question! Are you a student?
”

             
“Yes!”

             
“What’s your name?”

             
“Bruce!”

             
“What’s your last name?”

             
“Turner.”

             
BANG!

             
Bruce cried out. Allen had shot another bullet into the empty foyer, but this time, he placed the gun right beside Bruce’s face before shooting so that the bullet just missed Bruce’s ear.

             
“Don’t lie to me, Shark. Don’t lie to me. I’m going to ask you again—what is your last name?”

             
“Thurman.”

             
“Ahhhh, yes! That’s more like it. Bruce Thurman. This is your fourth semester in the Academy. You’re on the Winggame team the Sharks. Last year, you were on the Jets, the season champions. I think that you’ll find I know a lot more than you’d imagine. I am very intuitive, and I have very good resources that spy for me inside the Academy.”

             
Asa’s eyes widened as he realized—
Allen doesn’t know that Stan told us about them.

             
Allen pressed the gun against the bottom of Bruce’s chin. “I’ve heard, Bruce, that you’re renowned for your Winggame plays. You’re a man of strategy. Well, so am I. And if there’s something that I know, it’s that you never want to give a playmaker time to come up with plays. So, we’re going to play a game. It’ll be fun. Here’s how it goes: I ask a question, and then you have one second to answer. If you take longer than one second to answer, or if your answer is bullshit, I’m going to put a bullet in you. Do you understand?”

             
Bruce’s eyes rolled around. “I…but...what?”

             
BANG!

             
Allen shot Bruce in the left foot and Bruce screamed in agony—cords stood on his neck and his face turned red.

             
When the screaming subsided and turned into sobs of fear, Allen spoke: “That was more than one second. I thought that you were smart, Bruce. Was I wrong?”

             
“NO!” Bruce cried out.

             
“Good job. Far less than one second. Now, for some harder questions. Why are you here?”

             
“Winggame practice—we meet here.”

             
“Do you meet in the closet?”
              “No.”

             
“Where do you meet?”

             
“In this classroom.”

             
“Then why were you in the closet?”

             
“I don’t know.”

             
Allen pointed the gun at Bruce’s foot and smiled.

             
“Wait!” Bruce said. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. “DON’T SHOOT!”

             
“Answer the question.”

             
“I got into the closet when I saw that Multipliers were coming in.”

             
Allen considered for a moment. “And you were just in the classroom, waiting on the rest of your team to show up? One second to answer.”

             
“YES!”

             
BANG!

Allen put another bullet into the same foot.

              Bruce screamed in such a high octave that Asa would have thought it impossible. His face turned purple with the effort.

             
“WRONG!” Allen’s chin was now covered in black Salvaserum. “I said no bullshit answers!”

             
Rose giggled as she lit another cigarette. “You don’t have practice with the lights off, idiot!” she said, mocking Bruce. She took a drag. When she removed the cigarette from her mouth, the filter was coated in slick, black Salvaserum.

             
“She’s right, Bruce,” Allen said calmly. “Before I ask this—remember the one second rule. Where is the rest of your team?”

             
Bruce hesitated. Asa wondered if he was taking longer than one second to answer. He felt like everything was moving so slowly now. Jen took his hand and squeezed it.

             
“
I don’t know where they are!
” Bruce screamed.

             
Allen pointed the barrel at Bruce’s already mangled foot and hesitated.

             
Bruce elaborated: “We were supposed to meet here. I was taking a nap—I always do before practice. Then I heard you guys out there, and I got into the closet.”

             
Allen grunted. “I suppose that sounds plausible. What do you guys think? Rose? Ned?”

             
“He’s lying,” Rose said.

             
“You can’t prove it, though,” Ned whispered. More color was returning to his face, but he still appeared to be in acute pain. Asa was in awe at how quickly he was healing.

             
“Ned’s right,” Allen said to Bruce. “I can’t really prove it. Luckily, I don’t have to prove anything here, right?”

             
Bruce inhaled sharply.

             
BANG!

             
Bruce’s foot was mostly gone now—bloody bones protruded, and held up knots of muscle and spongy fat. He was screaming and crying.

             
“That was a question, Bruce. When I say ‘right?’ at the end of a sentence, it makes it a question. You understand that, right?”

             
Bruce continued to scream as though he hadn’t heard. Allen pointed the gun. At the last moment, Bruce understood what had just been said and cried: “RIGHT!
Right! You’re right!”

             
He broke out into sobs.

             
Allen used the barrel of the gun to push a strand of blond hair behind his ear. He smiled at the Bruce’s agony. Asa had never seen someone in so much pain; he had never watched someone be tortured before. Bruce’s foot was difficult to look at—
it’s hard to believe that the hunk of bloody meat I’m staring at is part of a human,
Asa thought.

             
A thought came to Asa’s mind that made his heart flutter:
He looks like he’ll do anything to make it stop.
So far, Bruce had been faithful to Asa and Jen—he had shown courage in not revealing their hideout.
But how long can he keep this up? How far will he go for us? Will he die to keep our whereabouts secret?

             
Asa believed that he was about to find out.

             
Rose took a hefty swig from her metal flask and then wiped her mouth with the back of her arm. She was covered in so much blood and Salvaserum that her dark hair was plastered wet to her scalp. “Will you let me bite him, Allen?” she said. She spoke in a whisper, and Salvaserum spilled out of her mouth when she spoke.

             
Bruce was sobbing gently now. He was losing a large amount of blood.

             
“If he gets bitten, I’ll let you do the honors,” Allen said. “But we may just want to kill him.”

             
Rose rubbed her hands together in lust; her eyes were almost as red as her bloody face. “Can I kill him, boss? You know I’ve wanted to get some action. If I can’t bite him, will you at least let me kill him?”

             
“We’ll see, Rose. I’m not making any promises.” He grabbed Bruce’s cheeks forcefully with his hand to get his attention. “
I may bet angry and accidentally slip up,”
he growled.

             
Bruce moaned in fear.

             
Underneath the desk, Jen picked up Asa’s hand and brought it to her cheek. It was wet with tears. Asa took Jen’s hand and brought it to his own cheek; he was crying also.

             
SMACK

             
For no apparent reason, Allen cocked his arm and backhanded Bruce across the face. Bruce’s lip broke and blood ran down his cheek into his hair.

             
“You remember the one second rule, don’t you Bruce?”