CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We had a few lessons like that, and Crispin’s Cove began to feel like our place, safe and familiar. I liked the fresh air and found I preferred the briny taste of the sea to the superchlorinated indoor pool. The black water didn’t freak me out as much as it had in our first lesson, and I’d even graduated from floating to a solid crawl stroke.
Ronan and I toweled off, quickly peeling off our wet suits and changing in the dark, with me hidden behind one of the larger boulders for privacy.
I was tousling my hair, encouraging it to dry, and chatting some nonsense as we walked up the dorm stairs. They were waiting for us in the foyer.
I knew at once something had happened. Most everyone was there. The Initiates, the Proctors.
Had someone died? But then I thought No, girls have been dying, and there is never any ceremony around it. I studied the crowd, my panic growing. Everyone was staring at me.
All the girls from my floor were there, glaring like I’d just drowned their pet kitten. Except for Lilac, who had a sort of gleeful malice dancing in her eyes.
I stood as still and expressionless as marble. My Proctor Amanda stepped forward. Her frosty greeting bothered me more than any evil stare Lilac could shoot my way. “Drew, why’d you do it? I can understand the photo, but did you seriously think you could keep an iPod?”
Slowly, I registered her words. My mom’s picture. Confiscated. I stood there stunned, feeling gutted.
And the iPod? Now that I was entrenched in my new world, it seemed so stupid that I’d once valued something so ridiculous. But then a little bit of the old Drew flared to life. “It was just an iPod,” I muttered to nobody but myself.
Unfortunately, Guidon Masha heard me. She cracked her whip, and though I was fully clad in my winter gear, her aim was lethal. The leather kissed my face, so precise that I hadn’t known she’d broken the skin until I felt the warm ooze of blood down my cheek. “You will keep silent, Acari.”
Cold nausea washed through me. I was in deep trouble. And who knew what punishments this freak show doled out to girls in trouble?
I glanced to Ronan, but he looked stricken, his expression one of such profound disappointment, I had to turn away. Before coming here, when I messed up, I messed up only for myself. But now, seeing how troubled he was, and Amanda, too, I couldn’t help the sickening feeling that I’d let them down. That I’d failed them.
Lilac was biting back a grin now, and I glared openly at her. It was her fault. She had to be the one who’d narced on me. She’d rifled through my stuff, found the iPod and picture, and waited for just the right moment.
I’d never receive the award. Never get a chance at off-island. I doubted I even had a chance to live through the night.
If I survived my punishment, I’d take her down. I’d vowed it before, after my nearly naked midnight run. But this time it’d be more than an armful of snow I’d dish out.
“Sadly, when one Acari errs, all suffer.” Guidon Trinity, the redheaded Initiate, was speaking. Her accent was crisp, like a well-bred Northeasterner, and it snapped me to attention. She’d struck me as a Lilac type, though a little classier, and I wondered what Swiss boarding school they’d plucked her from. “You will all go out, dressed as you are. You will be blindfolded, separated into groups, and driven to a point far from here. You will make your way back to the dorm. On your own.”
I looked around. Everyone had donned their coats—perhaps anticipating just this sort of sadistic hazing—but some were missing their gloves or hats. I was missing my hat, and my hair was wet. Though the glares pointed in my direction were probably smoldering enough to keep me warm.
“We have rules for a reason,” Trinity continued in that snippy voice. “They civilize us. Sometimes they teach you your place, and other times they simply keep you safe. You must follow the rules. And now we will teach you what happens when you don’t.”
She strolled around the group, eyeing each of us with disdain. “Rule one: no personal items. Acari Drew broke this rule, and now you all suffer the consequences. Rule two: Never go out after curfew. Rule three: Never stray from the path. Tonight you will be dropped far from here, after curfew, off the path, and you will see what happens to Acari who disregard rules.”
“Out.” Masha used her whip to herd us to the door. She looked to the Initiates and ordered, “Blindfold them. Acari, you’ve not eaten, and we won’t feed you. Instead, you will be taken in four groups and dropped at different points on the island. Try to make it back alive.”
Dread snaked through me, making me feel sluggish and heavy. Someone grabbed me roughly from behind, and a coarse strip of cloth was tied tightly around my head, covering my eyes. I felt a few shoves from behind, sensed the other girls moving around me, and I stepped forward with them, out the door.
As Ronan predicted, the wind was up, and a bitter chill slammed into me. My hair was long and would take forever to dry, and already my scalp prickled as body heat escaped from the top of my head. Moisture stung at my cheeks. Snow. I began to shiver.
Not only was I cold, but I hadn’t eaten a real meal since breakfast. Even then I’d had only a yogurt. I drank at lunch, but I’d stayed after class to work with Judge, and hadn’t had the time to consume any actual food. Just the thought of it made my belly ache with hunger.
I was a wreck already. How would I make it through the night?
They separated us into groups, shuffling us into what I assumed were those extralarge SUVs. Though I couldn’t tell for sure how many of us were in the car, it felt like more than five and less than ten.
We drove. And drove. I hadn’t realized the place was that large. Short of circumnavigating the whole island, I had no idea how we were supposed to find our way back again.
We drove into darkness as black as my thoughts. I didn’t care about the iPod, but the picture was gone. The only photo I had of my mother, lost forever. It added a poignant twist to my despair.
The car was silent but for the sounds of shifting gears, rustling coats, and the heavy breath of frightened girls. The driver slammed on the brakes, and we were flung forward. There was a sickening thump as we hit some animal on the road.
I shivered. Definitely not a good omen.
The car slowed, bouncing over an uneven road. We stopped.
“Blindfolds off, Acari.” It was Masha who’d spoken. I wondered who else was in the car.
I tugged the strip of fabric free, scrubbing my eyes where it’d itched my skin. I saw that Amanda had driven, with Masha seated next to her in the front. There were six other Acari, and my stomach lurched to see Lilac. But heart-faced Emma was there, too, and it gave me hope.
“Bitch,” someone whispered, climbing past me to get out of the car. It was a black-haired girl I recognized from phenom class.
There were other whispers, too, and one stomp on my foot. The comments were all along the lines of “Thanks, bitch” or “What makes you so special?”
The group I’d found myself in was, apparently, both understanding and creative.
Girding myself, I was the last out of the car. I looked at Amanda, still in the driver’s seat. Her eyes went to my bare head, her expression tight.
“Well,” Masha said, leaning out the window. “What are you waiting for, Acari? Find your way home. And beware of the monsters.”
Monsters? My thoughts drifted to Master Alcántara, as they often did lately. A reluctant, scared fascination rippled through me, remembering how his eyes had glowed on the night of my run. I wondered what other sorts of monsters might be waiting for us out there.
The wheels spun, crunching gravel, and darkness enveloped the SUV as it drove away. Taillights blinked out as it rounded a corner and disappeared.
It was dark. Really dark. Clouds concealed most of the stars. The barest hint of northern lights flickered low on the horizon.
Despite the darkness, I felt all eyes on me.
The wind whipped around us, and Lilac adjusted her hat. She pinned the other girls with a challenging stare. “Let’s go, ladies. Except for you.” She stepped up to me. I stood straight to face her down, but she still towered over me. “Let me break it down for you, Charity. I’m sure there’s all kinds of shit waiting out there to eat us. And there’s strength in numbers, right? But you got us into this mess. And we’re not going to help you out of it.”
“Actually, you got us into it when you tattled on me.”
Lilac stared at me, that euphoric hatred putting a mad smile on her face. “A minor detail.”
The other girls turned to leave. It was surreal to watch them tromp away into the night. As the reality of my situation hit me, I began to tremble, nervous and cold.
I could prove geometry theorems or translate High German, but ultimately I was just a suburban rat from Florida. I could die out here, alone and frozen.
But I’d learned to float in the sea. Surely I could find my way across the snow back home.
Emma came to stand by me. “I’ll go with you,” she said, quiet as the wind.
Lilac laughed then, a shrill, heartless sound. “Freaks.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You follow us, and you’re dead.”
She spun and jogged to join the others, leaving us in the darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I plopped onto a rock. Wracked with shivers now, I folded into myself, rocking back and forth, rubbing my arms and legs. “I’m freezing. What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to walk back,” Emma said. She looked at me on the rock. “Don’t sit. Move around.”
I took her advice and hopped up, shaking out my arms and legs, desperately trying to generate a little heat. The movement made me light-headed. “Oh, my God, I’m starving, too. I haven’t eaten since this morning. I mean, I drank—fortunately—but no food. How can I walk all that way with no energy? How long does it take to pass out from hunger? You’d think I’d know that kind of thing.” My panic had me chattering and chatty.
Emma studied the sky, calmly taking it all in. “You think you’re hungry, but you’re not. That won’t be the thing to kill you, anyway.”