Academic Assassins (21 page)

I can't take that ticking anymore.

I stood up and stared the antique down, its serpentine black hands imperceptibly spinning around the clock face. I opened the beveled glass door and clutched the swaying pendulum, like seizing
the spine of a wriggling skeleton.

The ticking halted. “Gotta kill the time somehow,” I said.

“We're next if she catches you.” She muttered this under her breath as she slumped in her chair, arms crossed at her chest. “You want to go to the Black Hole?”

“As a matter of fact….”

“You really have a death wish, don't you?”

“Merridew's got no choice. She's tried to make an example out of me. Show the others she can break me. But guess what? Not happening in this lifetime. If she doesn't send
me to the Black Hole soon, everybody's going to start fighting back.”

“How's a one-way ticket to solitary a good thing?”

“Because if she can't break me down for everyone to see—she loses.”

Sully shook her head. “You can't win. Not here. Not against Merridew.”

“Wanna bet?”

I scanned the room. My eyes settled on the wall of picture frames.

Lightbulb moment.

Sully turned around in her seat. “What are you doing?”

“Just a second,” I said as I proceeded to take down each and every last picture frame—Merridew training her Men in White, Merridew standing before her prized poinsettias,
Merridew riding a horse—and hang them back up again. Sort of.

High heels
click-clacked
across the hallway floor.

“She's coming,” Sully whispered. “She's coming!”

I raced back to my seat just as Merridew entered, her face as placid as a pond.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I hope I have not kept you waiting long.” She sat behind her desk, her reflection cast across its immaculately polished oak surface. Her features
barely betrayed a shred of anger, her face stretched into a smile, as if she were wearing a Halloween mask of her own grinning self.

Nobody spoke. Merridew simply stared back at us, waiting patiently. “And how are my most prized residents doing today?”

“Just peachy,” I said.

“Mr. Pendleton,” Merridew said. “Within your first month here at Kesey, you and your friends have ushered quite a bit of
disorder
into our daily mix.”

“Has it really only been a month?” I asked. “I thought I'd been cooped up here for years….”

Merridew's smile remained rigid, her lips held up like a sharpened sickle. “There has been an uptick in graffiti throughout Kesey since you have arrived.”

“Horrible,” I said, shaking my head.

“Mr. Grayson discovered a new bit of vandalism in the hallway this very afternoon, which the two of you just so happened to be standing in front of.”

“And what an eyesore it was, Miss Merridew!”

Merridew leaned back into her chair. The leather squealed beneath her. “You are a pioneer of my patience, Mr. Pendleton. Always exploring. Always foraging to see how far you can push my
fortitude. But if you think that I will break before—”

Merridew hesitated. Her body started to rise up from her seat. Her eyes locked onto a spot directly behind us. “What have you done?”

Sully and I turned around in our seats to face the wall of rearranged picture frames, now all hanging upside down.

Merridew finally noticed.

“
Mr. Pendleton
.” A fleck of spit shot out from her mouth and landed on the polished surface of her desk. I waited for the saliva to eat through the oak like acid. Even
underneath the foundation of face powder spackling Merridew's face, I could see the blood rise up into her cheeks. This was it. Merridew was going to lose it—I knew it. Her head was on
the verge of exploding all over the walls.

Come on come on come on, I thought. Go ahead. I want to see you break.

Time for that porcelain face of yours to break into a million shards.

Break, Merridew!

Break!

Just as quickly as it came, the blood flooding her skull dispersed, shrinking back from her skin.

The smile returned.

Merridew craned her neck toward Sully. “Congratulations, Miss Tulliver,” she said, her voice as sweet and acrid as cough syrup. “You have secured yourself a visit to solitary
housing.”

Sully's eyes widened.

“You can thank Mr. Pendleton for your time away.”

“But—” I started. “That's not fair!”

“Of course it is
not fair
,” Merridew seethed through her gritted teeth, jaw clamped tight. “This has nothing to do with
being fair! Life is not fair!
”

“If you don't send me to the Black Hole,” I insisted, “then I'm going to keep wreaking havoc! I'll turn this place upside down!”

“And I will keep sending your associates to solitary until there is no one left!”

“What good is your plan if there's nobody around to see it? You need to make an example of me—right? Show the others that you broke me? Send me!
Send me!
”

Grayson stepped inside the office.

“Take her to solitary,” Merridew instructed.

Sully leapt up from her seat. “No—don't!”

Grayson grabbed Sully by the shoulders and started pulling her away. She yanked free and tried to run, forcing Grayson to wrap his arm around her waist and lift her off the ground. Sully kicked
at the air as he carried her out of the office.

“Let me go,” she yelled. “Let go let go let go!”

I raced for Grayson and pounced on his back. He swatted his free hand through the air, attempting to pull me off, but I clung tightly to his shoulders in hopes of prying Sully away. My fingers
wriggled over his face, slipping into his nose, his mouth, even his ears, as if his head were a bowling ball and I was ready to play.

“Let go!” I shouted—only to feel the
cold blue jolt of electricity at my throat it won't let go of me it's going to choke me to death I can't breathe I
can't breathe
I LOVE YOU SULLY I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
and I can't seem to focus on anything anymore I'm trapped inside an iceberg of cold blue ice
and the electricity
finally released me and I fall to the floor gasping for air. I could've sworn I heard a bell ring. Maybe it was the flicker of residual electricity coursing through my brain. They rang so
many bells at Kesey, even when they weren't rattling off, I swore the clang of metal was still hammering in my ears.

Rolling onto my back, I looked up to see Sully slip out the door. She was reaching for me, her eyes filled with panic. She was calling out my name, but the wattage of electricity still pulsed
through my ears, drowning out all other sound.

And then Sully was gone.

T
he halls now felt empty even when they were crowded. The amber luster of the Yellow Brick Road had faded beneath my feet.

Voices were muffled, as if my ears were stuffed with cotton. I barely heard what anyone said to me anymore.

Words meant nothing now. It was just white noise coming out of people's mouths. All I saw were moving lips, flapping open and shut. I could barely focus on their faces anymore. Everybody
was a blur.

Phantom faces.

A piece of me was missing. Not like a bone or an organ or a limb—but something elemental. Something that made me…

Me
.

Our bodies are comprised of a dozen different systems—the circulatory system, skeletal system, nervous system.

So what about the Sully system?

As soon as Grayson had taken her away, it felt as if an entire cellular thread had been ripped out from my body. I couldn't function without her. No single organ can work alone on its own.
It needs the support of other organs to fulfill its obligation to the body. I needed Sully to survive. I needed Sully so that I could be me. Even when she was mad at me, even when she acted as if
she wanted to throttle me—she was still a part of me. She was the part of me that mattered the most.

Now I was hollow.

You know who's the real Black Hole here? You are, Spence. You constantly drag your pals into the vacuum of your own selfishness. First Babyface, now Sully….

This was what it meant to be my friend.

Who's next?

More like—
Who's left?

I didn't have any friends. I didn't have any family. I had my mouth and that was about it. My big, fat, sarcastic mouth.

My very own black hole.

Like everybody knows, nothing—not even light—can escape from it.

Maybe it was time I dove in, myself.

Once every few months, the Yellow Brick Road needed a little touch-up. The line's golden hue was under constant attack from hundreds of scuffling
heels—so somebody had to pull out the paintbrush now and then and bring its vibrancy back.

Guess who volunteered for painting duty?

“Looks like somebody's turning over a new leaf,” Grayson said when I showed up in the basement. His scarred lips lifted up into an uneven smirk.

“I always wanted to explore my artistic side,” I muttered. “Might as well try painting landscapes.”

Grayson handed me my own roller brush. It was attached to the end of an adjustable extension pole for long-distance painting.

Peering over Grayson's shoulder, I counted at least fifty cans of egg yolk yellow stacked inside the supply closet. I'd never seen so much paint before.

Suddenly, I had the urge for a little
Farts and Crafts
.

“You got a mile's worth of painting to do,” he instructed. “That line better be beaming by the end of the day.”

A team of twenty ants assembled for the job. Table Scrap tagged along with a couple Orphans and Screaming Mimis. “You really ticked off the wrong tribe,” he whispered to me.
“Better watch your back. Lotta She-Wolves wandering the halls.”

The She-Wolves blamed me for their leader getting sent to solitary. Now the pack wanted revenge. Not that I blamed them. The Wolves didn't have to punish me for what had happened. Felt
like I was doing a pretty good job at it myself.

Take a number, guys….

I spotted Buttercup amongst our crew. She hefted a can down the fading Yellow Brick Road with one hand as if it were as light as a lunchbox.

“Here,” she said and swung the gallon can straight into my stomach. She let go and the full weight of the paint yanked on my arms, sending me buckling.

“Thanks,” I strained.

“Heard your girlfriend's locked in the Black Hole,” she said. “If you need anybody to talk about it, you know where to find me….”

“That's a sweet offer, Buttercup.”

“As a friend,” she insisted. “Completely buddy-buddy, I swear. Everybody needs a pal now and then. Even you.”

She was right. The supply of pals was running drastically low at the moment.

“Thanks.”

Our crew was assigned to the corridor connecting the cafeteria to the Hive. I popped the lid on our can and filled up a plastic paint tray with enough golden goo to last Table Scrap and myself a
few feet each.

We got rolling right away, spacing ourselves by ten feet and painting in the gaps. When our brushes touched fresh paint, we ambled down to the next section.

Most ants kept their heads low as the Men in White sauntered along the hallway, C.R.U.s in hand, ready to shock anyone who misbehaved.

“
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
,” Table Scrap sang in a low baritone.
“Nobody knows my sorroooow….”

“Pipe it down.” Grayson pushed Table Scrap's shoulder as he ambled by. “Missed a spot.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Table Scrap tightened his grip on the adjustable pole. I could only imagine what he was thinking of doing with it.

A hush hung over the hall. The only sound for the next few minutes was the tacky rotation of our brushes rolling over the floor. I lost myself in the yellow line for a while, my thoughts
drifting off into that endless stretch of paint at my feet.

Squeee-squeee-squeak…

At first, I figured it was a mouse. Maybe Minnie was paying us a visit.

Squee-squee-squeak…

But there was a rusty rhythm to this squealing.

Squee-squee-squeak…

Like a wheel.

I spotted a She-Wolf pushing a laundry cart full of dirty linens down the hall. She wouldn't look my way, her head kept low. Eyes on the ground. But I noticed how tight her jaw
was—almost like she was biting her own tongue.

“Aren't Napoleons usually the ones on laundry duty?” I asked.

“Yup,” Scrap answered back.

The Wolf was about to pass us, that rusted wheel on her cart continuing its shrill
squee-squee-
squeaking.

“So why's this Wolf pushing—”

Before the synapses in my brain could connect one and one together, a blast of soiled sheets burst out from the hamper.