through the mist and I stumble forward to see who’s there, but the persistent fog bars my way.
The voices fade. I stop in the middle of the intersection and look down at my chest. A silver key rests on my white shirt.
And then, a shadow.
Something behind me. Someone.
I start to cough as the mist pours down my throat. My legs feel numb, as if they haven’t been used in years. My head drops. Dead weight. Then the world becomes a blur and all I can see is green.
–
I wake with a start, lying in a pile of sand in the middle of the training field. My body feels like it’s just been stuck in an electric socket, but it’s my chest that’s the worst. A carefully aimed detonator will do that.
Mr. Wilson kneels at my side. I must’ve been out long enough for him to come down from the balcony. “Jeez, Fisher.” He shakes his head. “It was only a detonator. You’ve gotta toughen up a little.”
Skandar and Eva stand off to the side, staring down at me. The Year Sevens are nowhere to be seen, thank god. Suddenly, the humiliation of the whole situation dawns on me and I bury my face in my hands and fight back tears, which makes the whole thing even more embarrassing. If this had been a real combat mission, I’d probably have been left for dead.
Mr. Wilson pats my shoulder, the first sympathetic move he’s made today, and turns to the others. “I want you all in homeroom for debriefing in twenty minutes.” He strolls off, leaving the firing squad to assess their fallen comrade.
“Great job, mate.” Skandar barely contains his chuckle.
Paulina Sterner pushes him. “He lasted longer than you, didn’t he?”
Skandar grunts. “Dumb luck, that’s all.”
I fold into a fetal position.
Eva crosses her arms. “I gotta hand it to you, Fisher. Even though you missed Chan completely, which is pretty pathetic considering the amount of detonators you threw at him, at least you showed some fighting spirit.”
Skandar reaches down to help me up but I push him away. I just wanna lie here. That way I can pretend this never happened. The fact that it feels like a truck’s just been driven into my chest doesn’t really give me the opportunity.
“Whatever.” Skandar withdraws his hand. “I’m gonna go hit the showers.” He waves goodbye. Paulina and Manjeet leave too, now that the spectacle’s over.
Eva lingers. “You just gonna lie there?”
“Go away,” I mutter into the sand. It’s better to give up, chalk it up to fate. Even when I try not to make a fool of myself, the universe still finds some way to kick me in the butt. Other kids would have family to comfort them, to go on and on about how mass special they were. I’ve got Eva, standing over me like a disappointed bodyguard.
“You know, you can’t keep doing this, acting like a baby when things don’t go your way.” She waits for a response, but I don’t give her one. So with one final disapproving sigh, she walks away, leaving me alone in the middle of the empty battlefield.
9
Two a.m. Any sane person would be asleep by now. I am decidedly in sane.
I sit upright in my bed. I gave up on sleep twenty minutes ago. My body wants to droop into the mattress and shut down, but my mind’s going 300 miles per hour.
Every time I close my eyes I’m filled with images of that dead, mist-clogged city-the key around my neck, the figure behind me.
I glance around my darkened bedroom. Shadows cover the walls like toothed monsters. The floor’s dotted with piles of clothing and junk. It’s an obstacle course to get to the bed without stepping on something.
I toss the covers from my legs and throw on the first pair of shorts I can find. Time to roam the corridors until I’m too exhausted to move. Time to fool my body into submission.
Slipping out the doorway, I turn down the hall past dozens of closed doors and make my way to the outside corridor. Moonlight streams in through the wall of curved windows. The stars are impossibly bright.
I head up the stairway to the fifth level, in search of another night owl whiling away the early morning hours in one of the rec rooms. After clearing the first flight of stairs, I freeze.
Rumbling. Just beyond the entryway to the fourth level, echoing along the hallway. It sounds for a second longer-low, crackling-and stops. Footsteps.
I tiptoe to the entryway and peer around the side of the wall, staring down the empty hallway. Level Four’s mostly living quarters, but at its center sits the largest of the Academy’s three research laboratories.
Just as I’m about to move, the rumbling returns, softer this time. I step forward, inching down the hallway in pursuit of the sound. For a second I wonder if it’s coming from a bedroom. It sounds like snoring, but the dorm walls are much too thick. No one snores that loudly.
No, it’s coming from the end of the hallway.
The rumbling stops again. I pause and glance around the vacant hallway, expecting someone to jump out and grab me.
Silence.
I venture forward, turn a corner and head deeper into the center of the ship. A lighting tube crackles above my head, burnt out. I listen for the sound, but everything’s quiet. Quiet as the stars.
Then I see movement at the end of the corridor. A door opens. A person steps outside. I flatten against the wall, hoping I won’t be seen. But it’s too late. The figure takes a few nervous glances around and sneaks down the hallway, right toward me.
There’s nowhere to hide, so I step out from the shadows and shove my hands into my pockets, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. The figure freezes as soon as it notices me. It’s dark, and the person is too far away to make out facial features.
“Hey,” I mutter, hoping that it’s a student and not a faculty member. After Alkine’s little lecture last night I’m not dying to be alone with a teacher again.
“Jesse?”
I step forward and watch as the figure fumbles with something in her pocket. “Avery?”
Avery comes into view. Her hair’s pulled back in a ponytail. There’s a smear of black grease on her cheek. “Jesse, what are you doing out here?”
I shrug. “Couldn’t sleep. Did you hear that noise?”
“Noise?” She rubs her cheek.
“Yeah. Rumbling. Kinda loud for two in the morning.”
Her eyebrows raise. “Could’ve been the water reprocessor.”
“You can hear that all the way up here?”
She frowns. “If everyone’s quiet enough, I guess.”
I crane my neck around her outline and peer down the hallway. “Where were you? I thought your dorm was on Level Three.”
“It is.” She rests her hand on her hip. “Um… you know Phoebe, right? She was in my year, back when I was still training. We were friends. Well, kind of… but anyway, she needed to talk about, you know, girl stuff.” She glances at her watch. “I guess we got a little carried away.”
I look down the row of closed doors. “I didn’t know you hung out with Phoebe.”
“Uh huh.” She runs her hand through her hair. “I can have other friends, you know. They may not be as flaunt as you, but still… ”
I rub my eyes.
“I thought Year Nines had curfew,” she says. “Shouldn’t you be in your room?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
