How to Lead a Life of Crime (15 page)

“Did you read—” I start to ask.

“No.” Lucas taps an ear with one finger to caution me. “It’s for you.”

I unfold the paper. It’s hardly a letter. Just three short sentences.

My aunt showed up when I was in rehab.

They wouldn’t let me see her. They told her I was dead.

“What does this mean?” I ask.

Lucas takes the note and reads it. Then he rips the paper into pieces and disappears into the bathroom. By the time I hear the toilet flush, I know the whole horrible truth. No one ever goes home. That’s why they told Aubrey’s aunt she was dead. They didn’t want anyone to know they were bringing her here. They had to make sure that no one would ever come looking for Aubrey because they knew there was a very good chance she might not make it out. At the Mandel Academy, you either graduate or you die.

When Lucas returns to the room, I take his arm and drag him back out to the balcony.

“They kill the Ghosts!” I whisper.

Lucas just nods. He knew.

“You figured it out? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was just a hunch. I didn’t know for sure,” he says. “But it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? You can’t expel students from a school like this. They all know way too much. Mandel could never take the risk. So he picks kids like Aubrey who can vanish without a trace. Is anyone going to start searching if you disappear?”

I never thought of it that way. “No.”

“Me neither. Most people I’ve met here are orphans. The rest don’t have anyone on the outside who cares if they live or die. So I bet a lot of the students have put two and two together. They’ve figured out that the Ghosts don’t go home. But no one would ever breathe a word about it. Because you never know who’s listening—and if one of Mandel’s people hears you say the wrong thing, you might be next to go.”

He’s right. “Then you’re taking a pretty big risk telling me,” I say.

“I’ve got nothing left to lose. They’ll be coming for me soon.”

“That’s not true,” I try to assure him.

“It is, Flick. And the truth could get a whole lot uglier before you get out of here. But you have to keep looking, no matter how bad it gets. The Mandels expect everyone to turn away. That’s how they’ve been getting away with murder for so many years. Nobody ever wants to look.”

• • •

I’m in a sleep so deep that I might as well be at the bottom of the ocean. And yet I’m out of my bed the instant I hear movement on the balcony outside my room. The door silently slides open as I approach. Two people pass by so quickly that I barely get a glimpse of them. Just a flash of green stockings and a quick wave of a single red feather. I race after the pair.

“Jude!” I call out. “Where are you going? I’m back here!”

He stops and turns, but he doesn’t release Aubrey’s hand. “I didn’t come for you,” he says. “I’m here on official business tonight. Aubrey can’t get to Never Land on her own.”

“But you said you couldn’t get in here. You said all the windows are sealed!”

“I made that up,” Peter Pan tells me. “So you wouldn’t have to say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you didn’t want me around.”

“Why wouldn’t I want you around?! You’re the only reason I’m here.”

“Then why did you try to forget me?” asks Peter Pan.

“I didn’t, Jude! I just couldn’t afford any distractions. I promised you that it wouldn’t be forever. I told you I’d see you again as soon as this was through.”

“You make a lot of promises,” Jude says, glancing over at Aubrey.

She’s beaming at me. Her hair is as limp and mousy as the day I first met her. The beautiful clothes and makeup are gone. She’s wearing a ratty T-shirt and jeans. She’s the girl she was before she made her first mistake. Before her parents died and Mandel found her. I have never envied or pitied anyone more.

“Will you take care of her?” I ask. “Will you help Aubrey forget all of this?”

“She already has,” Peter Pan says. Then his businesslike tone softens. “Would you like to come with us? It’s not too late.”

“Not yet, Jude. I have to get what I came for.”

“Revenge?” he asks with bitter laugh. “Don’t worry. You’ll get it. Anything, anything. You can have anything in life if you’ll sacrifice everything else for it. First it was Joi—then Felix and Aubrey. Before this is over, you’ll get rid of me too.”

“How can you say that? I’m doing this for you!”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Yes!”

“This isn’t what I want,” he says. “Goodbye.” He’s never said that before. The word scares me more than anything else.

“Will you be back? Please say you’ll be back, Jude!”

“Of course I’ll be back,” he says with a nod at Lucas’s door. “I don’t have a choice.”

• • •

My face is wet when I wake. I can hear myself shouting, “Don’t leave me!” Everyone else must have heard it too. I hold the pillow against my mouth and breathe through my nose until I can trust myself not to sob. There are footsteps outside my room. They’ve come to investigate. They want to find out who’s cracked. They linger at my door for a minute or so, then move on to the next.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE CULL

T
here’s someone standing over my bed.

“Get up and get dressed,” the man orders. “You’ve missed your first class.”

“I’m ill,” I groan.

“Then I’ll need to escort you to the infirmary.”

The top nine floors of this place are a prison. But the bottom three are a dungeon. “Forget it. I’d rather die in class,” I announce as I rise from my bed.

I make it to the Art of Persuasion on time. Gwendolyn isn’t there, but Julian is. And he shouldn’t be.

“Missed you in business class,” he trills as I pass.

“That’s so sweet. But I didn’t miss you,” I respond.

“Have trouble sleeping?” he calls out. The rest of the class goes silent.

“Yeah, some miserable asshole kept me awake half the night,” I return, and give Julian a pat on the shoulder. “You don’t have to cry, darling. I’m sure your little pecker will grow eventually.”

The tension breaks. Everyone laughs. Except for Julian. But he doesn’t look angry. He looks smug. Like a man with a plan.

“Good morning, class!” Mr. Martin has entered the room, pushing a cart. Whatever’s on top of it is concealed beneath a black plastic tarp. “We’re going to have some fun today. I’ve asked one of last semester’s best students to return to act as my assistant. Julian?” My fellow Wolf rises and whips off the tarp to reveal a lie detector. I think I know where this is going.

“Until now, we’ve been focusing on ways to uncover useful information,” Mr. Martin says. “And as we’ve discussed, human beings aren’t always the most reliable sources. So how can we be sure that an informant’s words can be trusted? Much of the time, we must rely on our instincts. But if you’re fortunate enough to have access to a polygraph, I recommend that you use it.

“It’s always tricky to offer my students a proper demonstration. After all, no one at the Mandel Academy has any secrets. There’s no reason for any of you to prevaricate, so I’ll just have to ask a few of you to—”

“Mr. Martin?”

“Yes, Julian?”

It’s such a cute little act. These two should have their own show.

“There may be a student who does have a secret. There was disturbance in the dorms last night. Someone who lives on the eighth floor was screaming and sobbing. He woke us all up.”

“Oh dear!” Mr. Martin gasps. “Noise is strictly forbidden after curfew! That’s a very serious violation of the rules. Are there any suspects?”

“Yes, in fact there are four of them in this very room. They all live on the eighth floor. Perhaps we can use the polygraph to identify the culprit?”

“Excellent suggestion, Julian!” Mr. Martin is looking directly at me. “Any volunteers?”

By the time class is over, I’ll be the school laughingstock. Everyone here will know what I am. An impostor. A weakling. A fraud and a fake. The Wolves will stop fearing me. They’ll eat me for lunch. My father will never be punished for what he did. I came here for the proof. And I’ve failed once again.

“Me.” I look back over my shoulder to see Lucas rising from his seat.

“Wonderful!” Mr. Martin exclaims. Julian doesn’t look nearly as thrilled.

There’s a pair of rubber straps across Lucas’s chest, two sensors attached to his fingers, and a blood pressure cuff just above his elbow. He’s sitting on an electric chair, and Mr. Martin is itching to throw the switch.

“I’m going to start by asking you a few simple questions so that we can get a baseline reading,” the executioner states. “What is your name?”

“Timothy Harper,” Lucas responds.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Martin looks up. The machine’s needle is twitching wildly.

“That’s my real name. I thought you wanted me to tell the truth. If I don’t, it might screw up your baseline. Sorry, I’m just a little bit nervous.”

“Fine,” the instructor snarls. “What school do you attend?”

“The charitable institution known as the Mandel Academy.”

“And what class is this?”

“My favorite class,” Lucas responds enthusiastically. “Taught by the finest instructor at this remarkable school.”

A chill courses through my body. I think I’ve just figured out what Lucas is doing. I’ve watched enough movies to know that the person administering a polygraph test always starts off with a few basic questions. What’s your name? Where do you live? Who is the president of the United States? They need to know how the machine will respond when the subject is telling the truth. But Lucas is lying. Timothy Harper isn’t his real name. This isn’t his favorite class. And we all know what he thinks about Mr. Martin.

When they start asking the real questions, Lucas can continue to lie—and the person reading the results will assume he’s telling the truth. It’s a pretty simple trick. I’m sure Mr. Martin would have caught on by now if he weren’t on the verge of an aneurysm.

“Childish behavior like that is the reason you’re number fifty-two,” the instructor sneers. “Julian? Maybe you should take over from here.”

“I’d be delighted.” Julian pulls a sheet of paper from the pocket of his jacket. He’s come with a list of prepared questions. I knew this was a setup. “Last night, everyone heard a male student bawling his little eyes out. The source of the commotion appeared to be one of the eighth-floor dorm rooms. Do you know who was responsible?”

“It was me,” Lucas says.

Julian’s smile withers as Mr. Martin’s blooms. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Lucas confirms. “I had a terrible dream. I was trapped here at school with a pack of rabid wolves. And the weird thing was—one of them had a pretty little pixie haircut like yours.”

“What does the polygraph say?” Julian demands, turning to Mr. Martin, who’s busy interpreting the machine’s readings.

“According to this, Lucas is telling the truth.”

“He can’t be!” Julian insists. “He’s a technology major. He’s taken electronics classes. He must have found some way to beat the machine!”

“A Ghost?” Mr. Martin scoffs. I’ve never heard an instructor use that word before. “Highly unlikely.”

“Are you two going to let me finish?” Lucas interjects. “I haven’t even gotten to the worst part of my dream yet. Students kept disappearing, and everyone thought the kids had gone home, but the truth was they’d all been—”

“Get up!” Mr. Martin bellows.

“Murdered,” Lucas finishes. He said the Wolves would come for me. He never told me he’d trade his life for mine.

“You think you’re funny, don’t you?” Julian snarls. “Get out of the chair. We need to test the other eighth-floor students.”

“I’ll go next,” I say as I stand.

“Sit down, Flick,” Mr. Martin orders. And I can see it. He knows Lucas was lying. He went fishing for me and caught a much bigger prize. And he’s not about to throw it back. “Julian, thank you for your assistance. I think this has been a very effective demonstration. So go ahead and run along. Now that we’ve identified our troublemaker, we’ll leave Lucas’s fate in Mr. Mandel’s capable hands.”

I catch Julian’s eye before he flees. The little shit knows he’s in trouble.

• • •

I take a seat across the table from Julian at lunch. I’m going to drown him in the soup he’s slurping. Caleb and Austin won’t get in the way. They know I’ve been saving the tale of their treachery for a day just like this. And the rest of the Wolves would probably sit there and watch. Gwendolyn is the only one who might try to stop me. But for the first time this semester, she’s decided to skip lunch.

I’m staring at Julian. He’s hunched over his soup, doing his best to avoid meeting my eyes. Everyone senses that something big is about to happen, and the cafeteria remains eerily silent.

Julian drains the bowl and stands up from the table with his tray in his hands. It’s a perfect opportunity to attack, but there’s still a chance that something might go wrong. I can’t risk ending up in the infirmary or locked away in my room. Maybe tomorrow. But not tonight.

• • •

I don’t see Gwendolyn until Hand-to-Hand Combat.

“Where have you been all day?” I demand.

“Hello to you too.” She rises up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on my cheek. “I’ve been helping Mr. Mandel. He’s choosing new students for next semester, and he wanted my advice.”

“Aubrey’s gone,” I say.

“I heard she was expelled.” Gwendolyn takes my hand and squeezes it. “I’m sorry. I really did try my best. But there’s only so much the Dux can do.” I can’t decide if she knows. I press my thumb against her wrist. The pulse I detect is slow and steady.

“Did Mandel tell you that Aubrey would be leaving the other night? Is that why you took me to the party?”

Gwendolyn sticks out her bottom lip. Have I hurt her feelings? I wish I knew. “What are you asking me? I thought we were a team, Flick.”

She didn’t say no. Why didn’t she just say no? “Tell Mandel I want to speak to him.”

“About what?”

“It’s personal,” I say.

The Gwendolyn I know would never accept that as an answer. But this Gwendolyn doesn’t seem curious at all. “Mr. Mandel left to meet with a candidate,” she informs me. “He said he’d be back in the morning. Do you think you can wait? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“If you got permission to leave the academy tonight, would they let you take a guest?” It’s a long shot, but she once helped Aubrey for me. Maybe she’ll agree to help Lucas too.

“Not without Mr. Mandel’s approval, and he’s already gone for the day. There’s no way that the two of us can leave tonight.” The instructor interrupts us. It’s time for Gwendolyn to take a turn on the mat. “How about tomorrow?” she asks. Before she faces her sparring partner, she blows me a kiss.

“If there is one,” I mutter.

• • •

I have no choice. I can’t live knowing that another person died trying to save me. After I left Joi behind, I thought I was willing to do anything. But I’m not. The proof of my dad’s crime isn’t worth Lucas’s life. They’ll be coming for him tonight. I saw it written on the face Mr. Martin hides beneath that backslapper mask of his. The triumph. The sadistic glee. He knew he’d just sentenced an enemy to death.

I should have come clean before they strapped Lucas to the lie detector. Then I should have taken my punishment. Mandel can’t show me any favors, but I don’t think he’d let anyone kill me. Not yet, anyway. But I wouldn’t risk finding out, and now a better person may die. Because Lucas is convinced that I’m not like the others. And he’s right. What he doesn’t know is that he just traded his life to spare a crackpot who cries in his sleep and talks to Peter Pan.

If I were Lucas, I don’t think I could eat. But I see him head down to dinner just after seven. It might be his last supper, so I hope it’s good. As soon as the eighth-floor balcony is student-free, I slip into Lucas’s room and hide myself in the closet. Two hours pass, but I never lose my nerve. I feel like the gods have finally granted my wish. It’s like I’ve traveled back in time to the moment I decided to leave for Georgia. Now I can fix my mistake. I can do the right thing. I can save Jude.

A minute before curfew, I emerge, just in time to see Lucas enter the room.

“What were you doing in there?” he yelps. “I looked for you at dinner, and I’ve been waiting on the balcony for over an hour. I wanted to say goodbye.”

“You’re not going anywhere without me,” I tell him.

Lucas catches on quickly. “Get the f— out of my room,” he orders.

“Make me.” He knows he can’t. I could snap his scrawny body in half.

“Come on, Flick,” he pleads. “Curfew is less than a minute away.”

“We’re going to have a little slumber party,” I tell him. “You said they came for Aubrey after curfew. I’m going to be here with you when they arrive.”

“I knew what I was doing! I don’t want your help!” I have to read his lips for the next part. You’re here for a reason.

“You don’t know what reason that is!” I shout. “Mandel needs me. I might be able to protect you.”

“No,” Lucas says. “You can’t help me. Please—go before it’s too late.”

“It’s already too late,” I say, pointing to the ceiling. “They heard everything we just said.”

Lucas grabs a notebook off his desk, rips out a page, and scribbles a message. His hand is shaking so badly that I can barely read what he’s written.

If you get out of here without becoming one of them, you can take the whole place down.

“You’re the only one who can do it,” he whispers.

I barely have time to absorb the thought. Every door on the seventh, eighth, and ninth floors slides shut. We can hear the rest lock. But Lucas’s door doesn’t bolt. It’s the most terrifying silence I’ve ever heard.

“No, we’re going to do it together,” I tell him. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

It’s pitch black on the balcony. We trace our hands along the wall until we reach the elevators. I press the call buttons, but nothing happens. The elevators have been shut down for the night. Our easiest escape route has been cut off. But it also means we’re safe for the moment. No one can reach the dorms until the power’s back on.

“We’ll make a rope out of your sheets and drop down through the atrium,” I whisper.

“How are we going to make a rope that’s eight stories long?!”

“I thought you were supposed to be smart. The rope doesn’t need to reach the whole way. We just have to make it two stories long. Then we can loop it over the railing, twist the two ends together, and go down one floor at a time.”

We slink back to Lucas’s room. It takes forever to rip up the sheets. But we work well together, the way Jude and I always did. Lucas and I can read each other’s gestures. We don’t need to speak.

The rope is finally done. When we see that it might actually work, I almost forget what it’s for. I’m suddenly overcome by a wave of happiness. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt anything like this. For a second, I even understand why Joi does what she does. Most of her urchins may disappear, but there’s always the hope that a few will survive. And hope is the drug that helps us forget that the odds are always against us.

The alarm clock says it’s 3:00 a.m. There’s no sign of anyone downstairs. I turn off the light in Lucas’s room and start tying our rope to the balcony railing. We might just make it out of here after all.