The boys shook their heads. “He might still be in bed,” Clay said. “I don’t think he’s been feeling good.”
Brother Francis frowned, his lips pursing. “Oh? Did he go to the infirmary?”
Clay shrugged. “It wasn’t like he was sick with the flu or anything. He’s just been acting kind of strange for a while.”
“Strange how?” Brother Francis asked, though he was fairly sure that whatever answer he got wouldn’t be particularly enlightening. Sure enough, Clay only shrugged again. “Okay,” Brother Francis sighed. “I’ll check around. Meanwhile, if you see him, have him come to my office.”
Leaving the dining hall, Brother Francis began making his way through the maze of hallways and short flights of steps that connected all the various buildings into which the school had spread over the century it had been on Beacon Hill. Even after eight months, Brother Francis was still finding areas he couldn’t remember ever seeing before. There were offices and classrooms spread through dozens of buildings, not to mention the dormitories for the students and the residences of the staff. The students all seemed to know the sprawling old buildings better than he did, and had found shortcuts he knew nothing about. Still, now he was at least able to find his way from the dining room to the boys’ dorm without getting lost.
At least not too lost.
He knocked on the door of room 231, but there was no answer. “Kip?” he asked, then knocked again before turning the knob and entering.
The room was kept as neatly as the school demanded, with both beds made. The items on the desks were orderly, the closet doors were closed, and the dresser top clear.
But no sign of Kip; no clue at all as to his whereabouts.
Brother Francis used his cell phone to call the infirmary, rather than walking all the way over to the other side of the school, but the nun on duty told him that Kip hadn’t been there, either.
As he pocketed the phone, worry began to gnaw at his gut.
He moved to the window, looking down over Beacon Hill. From where he stood the view was unobstructed all the way to the Charles River, and Cambridge beyond. Idly, he wondered what the Puritan founders of the city would think about a Catholic school sitting atop their finest hill, the gothic architecture and spires of the school’s original building towering over the lower structures that some of those Puritans had built themselves.
Turning away from the view beyond the school, Brother Francis glanced once more around the room, but nothing had changed.
Kip had not miraculously reappeared.
Not that Brother Francis had really expected him to, given that the student population of the school had a disproportionate number of high-risk kids, one of whom was none other than Kip Adamson.
The odds were that Kip had just taken off. Brother Francis had been warned that it happened; indeed it had happened once before this very school year.
But it still bothered him. Silently he offered up a prayer to Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, on the chance the patron saint of teenagers might have a spare moment for Kip Adamson, wherever he was. The prayer sent heavenward, Brother Francis started back through the narrow, winding hallways. His heavy crucifix swung from the belt on his cassock, and despite the constant chill that the cold stone walls seemed to cast over the school, perspiration began to bead on his forehead.
Wherever he was, Brother Francis’s intuition was telling him, Kip Adamson wasn’t anywhere within the complex of buildings that made up the school.
But worse, Brother Francis’s intuition was also telling him that there was going to be an ugly outcome to this whole situation.
A very ugly outcome.
CHAPTER 3
RYAN MCINTYRE CHECKED OVER his test one last time, put his pen away, and glanced up at the clock above Mr. Thomas’s desk: two minutes to four. He’d finished the test with time to spare, and he was all but certain he’d aced it. Slinging his backpack over his shoulders, he picked up the finished test and laid it in front of the teacher. “Thanks for letting me do this,” he said. “I know I should have been able to—”
“Forget it,” Mr. Thomas cut in, picking up a red pencil as he began scanning Ryan’s test. “Nobody needs a knife poking them in the back while they’re taking a test.” He glanced up from the pages in front of him. “How’re you getting home?”
“Same way as always,” Ryan sighed. “The bus.” He saw a flicker of uncertainty in the teacher’s eyes, and knew exactly what he was thinking about. The same thing Ryan had been thinking about all day, or at least since lunch time.
Frankie Alito coming after him as soon as he left school.
It had started at noon, when a hush had fallen over the cafeteria the moment he’d walked in. It had taken him a minute or so to realize that nearly every eye in the room was on him, but he’d done his best to ignore it while he filled his tray with food and found a seat next to Josh Singer. “What’s going on?” he asked. “How come everyone’s staring at me?”
“Frankie Alito got expelled, just like Mr. Thomas said he would,” Josh told him. “And everybody thinks you’re either a hero or the dumbest guy on the planet.”
Ryan had kept his eyes focused on his food, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to eat.
“I’ll be okay,” he now said to Mr. Thomas. “See you Monday.” Turning away, he left the room before the teacher could say anything else.
The halls were quiet and empty of students and the only sound other than his own footsteps echoing down the long corridor was the shouting coming from the gym, where the cheerleading team was practicing.
Maybe he should just stay here, where at least he was safe. After all, they’d probably grab him when he got off the bus near his house.
But then, as he realized it was an hour later than the usual time he left school, he had an idea. Maybe there was a way not to get beaten up, at least not today.
Ryan stopped at his locker on the second floor long enough to leave his history book and pick up his jacket, then pulled out his cell phone as he started once more down the corridor. He pressed the speed dial key to ask his mother to pick him up.
But all he got was her voice mail.
“Hi, Mom,” he said to the machine. “I stayed after school to make up a test. I was hoping you could pick me up, but I guess you’re doing something. See you when I get there.”
He snapped the phone shut and was about to drop it back in his pack when the boys’ restroom door suddenly slammed open and two of Frankie Alito’s best buddies — Bennie Locke and Stan Wojniak — burst out and grabbed him, jerking him off balance and shoving him through the restroom door before he even had time to react. His cell phone flew out of his hand and shattered on the hard tile floor, then the door slammed shut and Ryan himself followed the ruined cell phone, his elbow smashing on the filthy floor beneath the sinks.
As pain from his elbow shot through Ryan’s body, Bennie Locke grabbed him by the leg and jerked him out from under the sinks. Ryan grabbed onto one of the drainpipes and lashed out at him with his left foot, but the kick went wild as Wojniak’s own shoe crashed into Ryan’s jaw.
Ryan felt his hands go slack and blackness swirled around him.
“Maybe this’ll teach you to do what you’re told,” Wojniak snarled, drawing his boot back to kick Ryan in the side.
Ryan felt his ribs crack — thought he could hear them pop. White-hot pain erupted on his left side, and for a second he thought he might pass out. “Don’t,” he whispered, instinctively curling up to protect himself from whatever might come next.
“Listen to him,” Bennie mocked. “Beggin’ like a little girl.” His lips twisted into a vicious sneer. “Freakin’ loser!”
Another kick landed squarely, this time on Ryan’s hamstring, and another kind of agony shot through his
