The Academy: Book 2 (65 page)

Rose laughed again. “Look at you! Ha! You’re pissed! Look at him, Allen, the baby Multiplier can’t hold his temper!”

Allen gave no indication that he heard. He still seemed to be examining the blackboard.

Asa saw that drops of Salvaserum were leaking out of Ned’s mouth now, showing that he could either smell the humans nearby or was indeed becoming dangerously angry.

Rose kept on trying to annoy him, though, despite Ned weighing three times as much as her. She moved closer so that her red lips were inches from his face and continued to taunt him. “Baby Multipliers have a hard time controlling their temper, Ned.”

“You smell like booze,” he growled.

“And you’d be in a better mood if you smelled like booze! Something about being a Multiplier that you’ve got to get used to is the anger.” She cocked a thumb behind her, pointing at Allen. “Allen, he can control his temper. You know he’s got a bad one, because all Multipliers do, but you don’t see it too much. Multipliers like you and me, we have a hard time. If we’re not medicated, we can lose control. Get medicated, otherwise, your going to find that you’ll black out, and you’ll wake up with blood on your hands. And a big guy like you, you could pound a lot of blood out of someone’s face.”

Ned’s chest was rising and falling with furious breaths that were coming in and out of his dilated nostrils. He looked like a bull about to charge.

“Sssooo, brother,” Rose said, slurring and stumbling a step. “Take my advice, and join the party!” Though she was under the influence of several substances, she could still move incredibly fast, being a Multiplier. She grabbed the bag of heroin and flung it, covering Ned’s face with the white-yellow powder.

Ned screamed in rage and then let go of all restraint. He charged Rose, grabbed her by the neck, flung her up into the air, and then threw her down with all the force he had onto the concrete floor. There was a sick WHAP sound as her head struck the concrete that made Asa fe
el even sicker than he had before. Rose’s eyes glossed over, and she seemed to lose consciousness for a moment. Ned got on top of her and began to choke her slender neck with his big hands, using all the force he could get. His neck strained with the effort, and his heroin-covered face was contorted into an ugly grimace as he grunted. Salvaserum ran from his open mouth and fell in gobs onto Rose’s unconscious face. Ned’s teeth were coated black.

Allen didn’t seem to care. When Ned threw Rose down, he didn’t even flinch, but just continued to stare at the board.

Rose’s eyes twitched, and Asa saw them widen as she woke up. Her hands groped at Ned’s chest, trying to pull him off her, but he was too strong. He choked her even harder and her eyes widened. The back of her head was bleeding where she had struck the concrete.

“Let’s see how hard you really are to kill,
you bitch!
” Ned screamed.

He’s completely lost it,
Asa thought.

Allen turned from the board as though he had just heard the fight. “Stop, Ned,” he said calmly. He looked mildly perturbed with the situation, but no indication of alarm could be seen on his face.

Ned appeared to have not heard Allen’s words. He was smiling now, his face red with effort as he squeezed down even harder on Rose’s neck. He was up off his knees and on his toes; it looked like he was trying to press his thumbs through Rose’s neck and into the floor.

“I said, stop,” Allen repeated calmly.

Still, Ned continued on. Rose was turning a sick shade of purple.

BANG!

Ned’s chest exploded with a spray of blood and Salvaserum and he rolled off Rose.

Asa hadn’t seen Allen draw the
gun, but when he looked over, the Multiplier was holding a large, silver handgun. The weapon was polished to perfection, just like Allen’s shoes.

“I told you to stop,” Allen said simply.

Rose rolled over and began to cough up mucus and Salvaserum onto the floor. Her face slowly returned from purple to her usual pale color.

Ned was on his back, holding the large bullet hole in the side of his chest. His breath was coming in and out of his mouth in harsh wheezes, and he was bleeding heavily onto the concrete.

“I’m sorry that I had to ruin your shirt,” Allen said, “but you wouldn’t stop.”

Ned responded in an incredulous tone; he could only say about one word in between his harsh
, gasping breaths. “
My,”
gasp,
“shirt? I’m,”
gasp,
“dying
!”

Rose’s coughing fit turned into giggles, and she spat more mucus onto the floor. Her face was covered in slick blood and Salvaserum from being under Ned when he was shot. “You’re not dying, you idiot!”

Ned continued to lie on his back and his breathing grew shallower. Asa watched as his face paled.

Allen scratched the side of his head with the barrel of the handgun, and his eyebrows drew together. “Actually, don’t hold me to my word. You might die. You look pretty bad.”

Ned began to cry softly in between his harsh wheezes, and Rose broke out into another fit of cackles. She took a flask out from her bloody jacket and drank heavily. Her hair was slicked to her skull with blood.

“Just be still for a bit, Ned. Try to keep breathing. You’ll be alright.” With the handgun dangling by his side, Allen turned away from the blackboard and his blue eyes locked onto the desk that Jen and Asa
were crouched under.

Asa thought,
Jen and Bruce said that they wouldn’t notice us, if they didn’t look carefully. He’s going to look carefully! He can see us!

Allen’s blue eyes went over the legs of the desk, onto the top, and over the back of the desk where the holes for the electric wiring were. Asa held his breath. Allen licked his lips. Something about the desk must have interested him, because he began to walk towards it, with his handgun at his side.

The hole that Asa was watching through was about two centimeters in diameter; Asa was sure that Allen could see both his and Jen’s eyes shining through the holes. He wanted to back away into the darkness and hide behind the more solid regions of the desk, but was scared that the movement would be even more noticeable than the eyeballs.

In those moments, Asa thought of his father, and the contract he had made. He wondered if Charlotte had gotten back safe.
If Multipliers got her this evening out in the woods, and they bite me or kill me tonight, it’s all over.

Allen stood close enough to the desk that Asa could have
reached his finger through the small hole and touched Allen’s black pants. There was a heavy sound up above Asa as Allen’s gun touched the top of the desk. Asa closed his eyes, bracing himself, believing that Allen would shoot them down through the top of the desk.

But the blast didn’t come. Instead, Asa heard rustling papers as Allen turned the pages on the notebook.

“What’s that?” Rose asked. Asa couldn’t see her anymore, but he heard the FLICK of her lighter and thought that she was smoking another cigarette. Ned was still wheezing.

“Some kind of grade book,” Allen responded. “I don’t think it’s from the Sharks, though. I think it’s from before them.”

Asa could smell Rose’s cigarette. “Are you ready to go, boss?” she asked.

Asa rubbed his sweaty palms on his suit. He couldn’t believe the words he had just heard Rose say—he never thought he would get out of this situation alive.

“Do you hear something?” Allen said.

Asa stiffened and saw Jen glance over at him in the dark.

“No,” Rose said.

Allen shut the notebook on the top of the desk and took a few steps towards the center of the room. “Everyone be quiet,” he said. He stood there, head cocked, for what felt like an eternity. Asa held his breath.

Rose was seated atop one of the school desks, her legs crossed, with blue haze drifting around her as she inhaled cigarette smoke into her lungs. Ned was still on the ground, wheezing heavily. His chest was rising and falling in shallow increments. He had his palms pressed against the bullet wound, trying to slow down the bleeding.

“Ned, stop breathing so loud, would you?” Allen asked. He was staring blankly out the doorway into the dark foyer.

Ned nodded, and his breathing actually grew more normal.

Rose poured a drop of heroin onto her thumbnail and snorted. Blood and Salvaserum were dripping from her hair. “What do you hear, boss?”

Allen shook his head and relaxed. “It’s nothing. I hear nothing. Let’s get out of here. Ned, do you think you can get up for us?”

Ned spoke softly. “Yeah.” He removed his hands from the bullet hole, which Asa noticed was now no longer pouring with blood. He had been shot in the chest only moments ago, and yet he was bleeding as much as a normal person would with a small flesh wound. Color was returning to his face.

“I knew you wouldn’t die,” Rose said. Her eyes were limp and red from the heroin she had just snorted; she broke out into sick cackles as she sucked on the end of her cigarette.

31

The Interrogation

             
Allen walked over and looked out the doorway into the dark foyer, and then he turned to the open door. “Was this door locked when we got here?” His blue eyes looked at the knob, then around the room.

             
“I didn’t open it,” Rose said. She dropped her cigarette and it sizzled out in a puddle of blood.

             
“Something isn’t right here,” Allen said, returning to the room. He was striding quickly in between desks, his eyes on the area where Asa and Jen were hiding. At first, Asa tensed. He believed that Allen had heard he or Jen breathing under the desk and was on his way to reveal them. But something in Allen’s blue eyes made Asa think that there was a different motive behind his action. A faint smile played on Allen’s lip, and then he turned, sprinting towards the door that Bruce was behind.

             
Asa watched, helplessly as Allen took superhuman Multiplier strides towards Bruce. Time seemed to slow down. Asa thought about how, if it weren’t for him, Bruce wouldn’t be here. Teddy wouldn’t have been bitten. If only Asa’s father hadn’t made the contract dependent upon Asa staying in the Academy, these Multipliers wouldn’t be here. The Sharks would be just another team in the Winggame league, and there would have been no need for the Multipliers to interrogate Stan and plan an ambush.

             
If it weren’t for me, Bruce and Roxanne could continue on with their secret relationship. They are happy with each other.

             
Asa looked over to see that Jen’s eyes had widened in surprise and anxiety. Asa thought;
maybe if I push the desk back and stand up, they’ll just take me. Maybe if they have me, they will see no need to search the rest of the room.

             
As Asa turned to look through the hole in the back of the desk, he had made up his mind. He was going to come out of hiding in hopes of saving Bruce.

             
But he saw that it was too late. His sacrifice would be futile.

             
CRACK

             
Allen punched his arm through the door to the restraining closet. Four inches of solid wood shattered.

             
Asa wanted to scream—to cry out—but there was nothing he could do.

             
Rose was on her wobbly feet, watching in anticipation. Asa guessed that her intoxicated brain wasn’t fast enough to realize what was happening yet.

             
Ned had pulled his body to a seated position. His hands, slick with blood, reached for one of the school desks as he tried to pull himself up.

             
In the moment, Asa forgot about Bruce’s special mutation—Bruce could see electric currents, even though solid objects. As Allen was charging, Bruce had been able to detect him through the wood. He had moved his body accordingly, and was able to dodge the punch. Allen’s hand groped inside the closet, but found only air.