Some questions don’t ever get answered. Some questions haunt you forever.
But at eighteen, still a little bit drunk somehow, those questions hadn’t occurred to me yet. My mind had space for one thought and only one thought, repeated again and again and again until the echoes sounded like thunder.
My father needed to die.
CHAPTER 60
You might think patricide’s the sort of thing that seems less attractive sober, but by the end of Christmas break, I was more committed than ever. I was never going to be a Cape and whatever Amos might say, I was never going to be a well-adjusted, salary-earning member of his postal service either. The Academy was free to members of the Cape program, but it was a long way from free for normal students, and I had fuck-all in the way of money or ways to generate it. After almost a year of school, I was right back where I’d been before Mr. Grey found me; no prospects and no future beyond the still looming and unavoidable descent into madness.
About the only thing I could do was make sure my father got what was coming to him.
Father kills mother so son kills father.
Now there’s a post-Break fairy tale for you.
•—•—•
By the time students started trickling back onto campus, bright-eyed and eager for the last two months of school, I had a plan. Funnily enough, it was the government that made the whole thing possible. The Hole was as much a fortress as it was a prison, buried deep below the earth and entirely impregnable… but President Weatherly’s recent announcement changed that. On Remembrance Day, I would be able to meet with my dad, ask why he’d wanted to kill me, and send his homicidal ass to hell where it belonged.
Assuming I could get to the Hole, anyway. That was my first problem. I wasn’t concerned with Bard’s rules about leaving campus anymore—when it was all over, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be allowed back as a student, even if I survived killing my dad—but the Hole was way the hell out in the desert, and I didn’t have any transportation other than my own two feet and badly worn sneakers.
My second problem was even bigger. A day of quick research had told me that the prisoner meetings would take place in the Hole itself, in a subterranean space set aside for the event. Given the nature of the inmates, it was a sure bet that dampeners would be in place and running at full strength, preventing me from calling on my power. Worse, the whole place would be teeming with guards ready to put down anyone—inmate or visitor—who got out of line… and I was pretty sure trying to murder my dad qualified.
I needed a weapon, and it needed to be a guaranteed kill-shot, because I’d only get the one opportunity.
Planning a murder in one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the Free States would’ve been a challenge for anyone, let alone an eighteen-year-old who’d slept through a good portion of his first year at college, but like I said, I had a plan.
More importantly, I had someone I could ask for help.
•—•—•
The one positive about not having much shit is that what shit you do have is always easy to find. I waited for Jeremiah to head out for a New Year’s party at The Liquid Hero, and retrieved what I needed from my underwear drawer. The card Her Majesty had given me was as glossy as ever, the seventeen digits on its surface glittering silver. Those numbers took me to a net page with a single text box on my Glass’ browser. I tapped in my request and watched the whole page go dark.
There was no telling when Her Majesty would get my message or how she’d respond, once she did. I needed to stay put at the Academy and wait for a reply.
Less than two months to Remembrance Day.
I found myself counting the hours.
•—•—•
One thing nobody tells you about life-changing decisions is how little the rest of the world seems to care. There is no personal epiphany that can stop the world from spinning, not unless you’re Dr. Nowhere in disguise. Toss in the fact that I couldn’t tell anyone my plan—given the likelihood that they’d not only object to pre-meditated murder, but tell someone who could do something about it—and I found myself having to pretend interest in stuff that no longer mattered in the slightest.
Like the Remembrance Day dance, for example.
“Oh that one’s cute!”
“I don’t know.” Vibe frowned down at the Glass in Wormhole’s hands. “I knew a girl who wore a dress just like that back at high school Prom. She was a major jerk.” She tapped the screen and her face lit up. “Now that’s more my speed.”
“It’s just so… blue.”
Kayleigh arched an eyebrow and tucked a strand of dyed hair behind her ear. “What’s wrong with blue?”
On the far side of the bench, Silt sighed loudly and looked across the clearing to me. “Be glad you live in the guys’ wing, Skeletor. This is the twentieth variation on this topic I’ve heard since we got back from break.”
“It’s the only dance we get this year, Sofia,” Evelyn reminded her roommate. “And it won’t just be us, but also second and third-years.”
“And faculty and representatives from some of the premier Cape teams in the country,” Silt finished. “I know. I’m just saying it’s a lot of effort and energy to spend on an outfit you’ll wear once.”
“We could all be dead in two years.” Vibe rolled her eyes and tapped Wormhole’s Glass a second time. “I say we enjoy ourselves in the
