The Executioner at the Institute for Contaminated Children (15 page)

“I slept with Todd.”

If my blood had been sucked and boiled, now it completely evaporated from my body.

“The hell did you…when?” My jaw turned to stone, my chest a barbed wire fence.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I…I don’t know why I just said that. I…I didn’t.”

I shook my head and said quietly, “Yes, you did. I’ll ask again…when and how?”

Her breath shook and tears spilled from her eyes. She fell to the floor, her hands covering her mouth, and sat like a folded fan. “Th…The night we argued. T-Todd went back to m-my dorm room and w-we took something.”

My eyebrows folded. “You got high? How? Where’d you get it?”

She sniveled. “Lauraline C-Cunning had it. She’s selling it for store items.”

I hissed a curse. Dammit, I warned her. It’s no wonder she’d stand trial. Easy to accuse, hard to vindicate.

My eyes then shot open. Wait a minute, if they had a stash, that meant…

I crouched down on the floor and took Hailie by the shoulders, gently. “Hailie, that means they have a supplier. They have a supplier!” My mouth spread into a grin and I laughed out in victory. “Listen to me, I need to find out who their supplier is. Before the trial. Please.”

“Wh-Why?” she croaked, her face like a shriveled sponge.

I repositioned my legs so they wouldn’t fall asleep. “Because if they were able to smuggle drugs into the school, that means they can get around the parcel inspectors. They can communicate with the outside.”

“Oh,” she said, her eyes puffy, and then shook her head. “Why do you want to do that?”

I sighed. It’d be too much to explain, no matter how obvious. Hailie hadn’t batted an eyelash at the thought of the Executioner. Maybe she believed someone would always be there protect her. Someone like me. “Doesn’t matter. I just need your help. Can you do that for me?”

She thought about it, but her face only grew disgruntled. “N-No!” She pulled her arms out of my grip. “I’m not gonna help you! You’re still keeping secrets from me! Why should I—!?”

My hands cupped her face and forced her to look at me. My gut contorted. Everything about me was worthless. Our relationship had already broken, but this would shatter it completely. “Hailie, you are going to do this for me. You will not tell anyone about what happened between us. And you will not speak to any of the teachers, administrators, or staff about what I asked you to do. After you give me the name of the supplier, you will forget what I asked you to do.”

She shook her head like an android. “Off with you.” My eyes fell on the floor as Hailie rose mechanically, got her clothes, and left the room.

My fist dug into my forehead and I grit my teeth. Damn…

Just then, a note slipped under the door. My eyes grew wide as I watched the shadow of footsteps vanish in my peripheral vision. Bottom lip trembling, I rose to grab the letter addressed to the Executioner.

CHAPTER THIRTY—Floor Fifteen

R
eady to crumple the letter in my hand after I’d read it, I hesitated and breathed sharply through my nose. I slapped it down on my bed stand instead, got dressed, and left the dorm. I nearly ran into Evalin Surrontez.

“Woa, there.” I had to swerve around her, her head kept down. She looked up at me with shallow eyes. They almost mirrored my own.

“Oh. Sorry.” After a somber look at me, she kept walking forward. Depressed much? I scowled. Better have a talk with Donna. Not like she wouldn’t notice, but just in case. Then again, it really wasn’t my place. She’d deal with it.

My eyes shot to her dorm room as I walked past it, yet I went onward, all the way to the end of the hall. Once I reached a door that read “Faculty Only,” I checked to make sure no one was looking, used my key, and disappeared behind the door to a staircase up to the fifteenth floor.

After I climbed the gray staircase, a contrast to the polished staircase to the bottom floors, I came into what looked like the floor of a company’s administration. Trimmed and vacuumed carpet, wide windows, white walls with photos of anachronisms. My father always said he liked the clash of old and new. It gave the feel of accelerated advancement and pride at how far we’ve come. I huffed. None of that had any meaning after death.

I walked three rooms down the hall and turned right into the next.

The door slammed behind me and my back fell against it.

Lenora sat behind her desk in a vast leather chair and stared out into the lake, her hands intertwined. I sighed, pulled away from the door, and stalked towards her. I slammed the letter down on it.

“The hell is this?” She didn’t turn around. “A few days ago you tell me I’m being trained to be a killer, and now you want me to fake deaths?”

Her chair twirled around. “There is always the first sacrifice.”

My brow folded. “The first?”

Lenora shook her head. “Someone always has to die to make it believable.”

My palm came down on the desk. “No one. Ever.
Has
. To die. No one who doesn’t deserve it.”

She scoffed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

I leaned away. “How am I supposed to do this?”

She shrugged. “You’ve been trained, Daniel. How do you think I did it?”

My tongue rested in the crook of my teeth and I laughed. “So this is it. You faked the deaths. And they took the bodies away. Where do they take them?”

Lenora rose from the desk soundlessly, walked over to a wooden cabinet, turned an antiquated key, and opened a lock box that contained some kind of serum. I tried to peek over her shoulder and turned my head slightly in suspicion.

“What is…what is that?”

She pulled it out a syringe and took off one of her gloves to reveal jade-toned nails, their hue dispersed into each of her fingers in a light shade of green dye. The syringe taken in her other hand, she pierced one of her fingers and I winced as Lenora extracted a green liquid.

“That’s disgusting,” I said.

“It’s paralyzing serum,” she said once finished, and put her glove back on. “It’s concentrated, so you will have to dilute it with water, one part to thirty. At this concentration, a milliliter is enough to paralyze the entire body. Five could kill a man.”

She put out her second palm, which held a red vial. “This is blood.” Lenora glanced at me meaningfully. “Your job is to make their deaths look real. Whatever it takes.”

“Meaning, I’m supposed to use my abilities.”

She sneered. “Why else did you think you were chosen?”

I shrugged, hands in my pockets, and approached her slowly. I whipped up some of my thickest sarcasm. “I dunno, I kinda thought it had to do with my ability to fly. Or was it heat vision? Oh, that’s right! I’m
not
Superman.”

Her sneer faded. “This isn’t funny, Daniel.”

“No, actually, it kind of is.” I breathed in her face now. With her heels on, she was a little over my height. I always thought her model physique would result in a more high-end job than a teacher. “Because while you sit here in your cozy little office, or do laps in your heated pool, I have to go through the same exact thing you went through. Except, unlike you, I’m not okay with it.”

I huffed, grabbed the blood and serum, and slammed the door on my way out. Everything about my life was too messed up. And the one person who could help set it straight wouldn’t lift a single poisonous finger.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE—Student Court

I
tapped my foot as my eyes shot around the gym for any sign of Hailie. Students piled in for the first trial the student court room would ever hold at LeJeune. Todd had been assigned as one of the judges. Other students were picked at random from each of the classrooms to serve on the jury. The rest would observe along with the faculty.

She sat on the bleachers, her strawberry blonde hair a beacon. I walked over and slid next to her.

“Hey!” she said with a scowl.

“Did you find out what I asked?” I didn’t look at her.

“Verity.”

“
He’s
the smuggler? Verity’s a nerd.”

Hailie looked at me strangely. “What did I just say? And why are you sitting next to me? Didn’t we have a fight? Urgh.” She got up and sat a few rows over. Hailie tossed her hair and sent me a glare. I winced. I felt sorry for using her. We drifted apart over the years. The only thing we had in common was our desire to stand out from the crowd. We couldn’t even share that now. She wouldn’t remember that I’d controlled her since I commanded her not to, but I’d never forget.

I turned in surprise to who sat next to me instead. Donna and Eva.

Donna didn’t seem to recognize me, and when she turned and did, turned cold.

“Hi, Dan.” She sat down, skirt tucked under.

“Hi.” I leaned forward on my elbows and licked my lips, observing the setup at the center of the gym. Lauraline and her two accomplices sat with heads hung, but I bet anything they had come up with an alibi. Too bad they had to defend themselves. If they had a story, it better be a damn good one.

“I never thanked you,” said Donna.

My head snapped at her with a scrunched brow.

“For jumping in my stead. Well…I know I jumped after you, but still. And…you were right. It didn’t change anything.”

I breathed out. “You don’t know that.”

Her fingers contorted into nervous shapes on her lap. “He was dead.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice dead itself. I glimpsed at her and nodded in Eva’s direction, who sat quietly, her eyes mute. “How’s your friend?”

Donna bit her lip, a twinge in her face. “How do you think?”

“I dunno, that’s why I asked.”

“Get a clue, Dan.” She shot me a pained look and the trial began. We didn’t exchange another word. But I had a feeling either that particular death or this whole thing unnerved Eva. Great. Now I could be sure just about every person I knew would hate me. Exactly what I was going for. Still, it stung pretty bad.

My eyes shifted sideways again and I caught Donna staring at me. Only she didn’t look away. She studied me, until her eyes fell. I swallowed. Had she guessed? Did she already know?

One thing was for sure. The only way I could turn to Donna is if I told her everything. And I wasn’t that stupid. With her sense of justice, she’d judge me in the blink of an eye.

Todd fidgeted at the head of the gym, where they set up five podiums for the student judges. Served him right. Either he had been so high he didn’t remember sleeping with Hailie, or so conscious he was too afraid to confront me. I guess I couldn’t entirely blame him. I pushed them both away on purpose. Now I had to reap what I sowed. I chewed on my lip. There was just no way to win this game, was there?

“Silence…uh…please,” said Todd, and the murmurs died down. “The trial will begin…now.” He looked around uncertainly. He had no idea what he was doing.

Another of the judges, a girl whose name I didn’t know, said, “Aaron, you have been accused of smoking in your dorm room. How do you plead?”

Aaron swallowed and lowered his head down to the mike before him. “N-Not guilty…unless you have evidence.” Tasia groaned beside him and mumbled, “Idiot.” A soft laugh came from the crowd. My eyes widened. Were they…not taking this seriously?

“So…uh…right,” said Todd. “Next is Tasia. You guilty?”

My hand massaged my mouth. Behind me, a student chuckled. They weren’t.

“Not that I recall, man,” said Tasia, a broad grin flashed on her face.

The trial continued in a similar mocking fashion. I looked to where Lenora sat next to Von. She smirked. Of course she did. She must be reliving some kind of sick pleasure-filled moment.

When they got to Lauraline, however, the atmosphere changed. She lowered her head to speak and said, “Actually, I was there. Aaron and Tasia were smoking, I wasn’t. They tried to coerce me, but I wouldn’t give in. I’m completely innocent.”

The room went silent. A few out of place laughs emerged, only to be shut up by the lingering hush.

Aaron and Tasia looked at her lividly. Tasia leaned over to Lauraline to whisper something through taut lips, but Lauraline’s scheming expression didn’t change. My eyes narrowed. What the hell was going on?

Brow folded, for some reason I turned and looked to Donna. She looked absolutely paralyzed.

“Hey,” I whispered, tense, “what’s wrong?”

Her mouth was completely dry, her palms drained white. I nudged her elbow and she stirred, a bit scared.

Donna breathed in and moistened her throat. What she asked sent chills down my back, because I didn’t know the answer.

“They’re going to die, aren’t they?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO—Tears

M
y nose brushed the side of my hands, prayer-like, chin rested on my thumbs, while we all waited for the jury to return and give their verdict. I rubbed my eyes with one hand. There’s no way they could pass a completely innocent verdict, not after the stunt Lauraline pulled. Why had she done that? Did Lenora bribe her? Then again, I knew Lauraline pretty well. Her surname was Cunning for a reason. She’d definitely sabotage her best friend in exchange for the next high. My worst fear is that it would come back to bite her in the ass.

For once, my instinct was as sharp as Donna’s.

We all jerked awake when the jury returned and sat back in their seats. One student stood up. “We have reached a unanimous consensus. I will now read our…our verdict. Aaron Dart…guilty. Tasia Glass…guilty. Lauraline Cunning… innocent.”

Aaron and Tasia burst out in indignation, but the sound that emerged from every single monitor watch in the room, equating a chorus of one robotic voice, silenced them. It was him. I winced.

“Your trial was convincing,”
said the Executioner.
“But I’m even more convinced you can do better. I rule that all three of these students are guilty—”

“WHAT?!” Lauraline burst out loudly, but there was no arguing with a pre-recorded message. It was already over. We could only sit and listen to the words burning our ears.

“—therefore all three will receive the same punishment. You should do better to investigate their innocence next time if you plan to claim it. From now on, you are to hold your own trials and make the call as to who should be judged. Be warned, if anyone witnesses a break of the rules and does not report it, I will make a judgment all of my own, just as I did now. This is the last time I hope to interfere, since I trust we have a mutual understanding.”