The Executioner at the Institute for Contaminated Children (5 page)

She had parted my hairline on the side and flipped half my hair over to intrude on the right side of my face. The rest, she cut on a diagonal so my hair was to my neck on my left and to my collar bone on my right. It curved like a winding stairway around my head. Completely transformed. And completely abnormal.

“I like it,” I choked out and leaned back against the cushion, my eyes shut. I had to keep calm. If I revealed all of what I truly felt on the inside, she would have won.

Eva scoffed. “No, you don’t.” My eyes shot open. “But it suits you, don’t you think? New style, new hair, new school.” She smiled. I looked at her in awe. True enough, it did reflect my inner self—when I designed a game character, I always went for a punk look—and she had done a great job, especially with the train moving, the spiral in a smooth geometric curve and the tips trimmed just right. I felt the layers in the back with my hand and could tell the cut was professional, even if I hated to expose myself like this. How is it I knew absolutely nothing about this girl with whom I shared a classroom?

“My sister taught me how to cut my own hair. She used to cut it before. I was her guinea pig. At first, she was terrible.” She chuckled. “I used to get teased at school for it too. I really hated her for that. But she got better, and eventually, I picked it up too. She wanted to be a hair stylist, see, but my family would never allow for it, no matter how high-end. Her dream was to become a stylist for celebrities. She always told me to pretend I was Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie when she’d style my hair.”

Mist came over Eva’s eyes. Somehow I got the feeling her sister’s dream came to an end. But how?

I waited for her to tell me.

“I guess you deserve to hear it now, since you so bravely earned it. My ability.” She sighed. “You see, my ‘contamination’…is self-reproduction.”

I stared at her as though into oblivion. She was kidding. She had to be. “You mean…like…an amoeba?”

Eva wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. Her features turned melancholy.

“Worse than that, I’m afraid. My eggs self-fertilize somehow. I get pregnant…at least twice a year.”

My jaw floored. And at the same time I felt like a complete and utter jackass.

“So…you and Mr. Presley weren’t…”

“None of the pregnancies are successful. I didn’t even know I had them until this month when I went to see a doctor. I would miscarry all the time. The doctor said because I was a minor he would have no choice but to tell my parents. And I would have to tell them the truth. I couldn’t put them through a loss, not again…” She paused. Again? What did that mean? I was about to open my mouth when she continued, “I asked the doctor to give me a month to talk to the father. Of course, there wasn’t one, but he didn’t have to know that.”

“I’m guessing…you’re not a virgin?”

Her hand dug into her skirt. “I thought it would make it stop. It didn’t.”

I moistened my dry throat.

“To prevent my family from finding out…and from getting sent to one of the Institutes…I did the unforgivable. I told them I had an affair with one of the teachers. Mr. Presley was the only one who would help me.”

I sprang up from the seat. “How could you do that to him?! Wasn’t there someone else—?” Just then, the train turned and I swayed, knocked back down.

“I didn’t do anything.” Eva looked down at her hands. “He suggested it.”

“What?”

“Nobody else wanted to help. Everyone turned from me, including my boyfriend. Mr. Presley…is a great guy. He asked me what was wrong, why I was so depressed and…I don’t know why but…I told him everything. He said his family would understand. He could find another job. But if they found out what I was, they could use me for something terrible.”

Mr. Presley was extremely perceptive and always looked out for his students, so I could believe he’d do something like that. Although I found it more difficult to believe Mr. Presley’s wife would understand, but what did I know? Maybe their marriage was already shaky. Or stronger than anything I could imagine. I frowned. “They? Who are they?”

Eva’s shimmering eyes nearly stabbed me. “Seems like you’ve lived quite the oblivious life. Or have your parents completely blinded you from reality?”

“Like what? Quit beating around the bush.” I almost wanted to cry. How unfair. Why hadn’t anyone told me? What else had my parents kept from us?

“I envy you…and at the same time, I pity you. You’ve lived an ideal life. Safe from the truth, sheltered and provided for. So did I. My family is very wealthy. But…the truth still came out.” She breathed in. “I was about to accept it. To live with the guilt. And then guess what happened? Donna Cassidy was pronounced contaminated. To leave for LeJeune first thing tomorrow morning.” Eva beamed and my chest shook. “It was like a sign. Like God told me, ‘Release Mr. Presley. He has done nothing but treated you with kindness. And I will not let you go alone.’ Now here we are.”

I couldn’t look away from her, my breaths irregular, like a deer in headlights. Just what was so terrible about the institutes? Why had my parents done everything in their power to keep my contamination a secret? Acted like the world ended when I was getting sent away? And now this. A teacher was ready to sacrifice his job and reputation to keep Eva from that place.

It had to be the bombings. I mean, I was on my way to a school that could potentially explode at any time! There was a chance I had seen my family for the last time. Regardless of what Von van Vaughn said, it’s not like he could guarantee an end to terrorism. But what if there was more? What if that was just the tip of the ice berg?

Probability?

Oh, shut up, already.

After a few minutes of silence, I rubbed my arm. “Just a few days ago…I really wanted to meet a contaminated person. To find out if they had superpowers, sort of like superheroes, and if I might have them too. I even snuck out of the house to a state competition. Ironic, isn’t it?”

Eva smirked, and it sent shivers down my spine.

“Where we’re going, Donna, trust me…you’ll find out everything. More than you ever wanted to know.” She looked out the window again, all the way across the cabin. “They say Lake Superior looks like the head of a wolf on the map. If so, LeJeune sits in its jaws. To me it looks more like a demon hand, and we are in its claws.”

She said no more. Were those the lyrics to some song or had she just made that up? I tried to get it out of her and bit her with questions every few minutes. She wouldn’t budge. Her ears were plugged with earphones, the music turned on loud. I even tried to swipe them from her, but she slapped my hand away. I sat rubbing the whiplash on my wrist until the train screeched to a halt…and none other than Von van Vaughn walked in.

“Hello, ladies,” he said with a grin, his porcelain hands rubbed together. Eva merely stared at him, her headphones blasting.

And I knew the greatest guessing game of all was just about to begin.

CHAPTER NINE—Justitia

“H
ave you decided on your names yet?” Von said, seated across from us, a miniature clipboard in his hands. His face looked like it had one too many Botox injections, his eyebrows set at one level. “Do remember they must sound something like your extraordinary talents.”

“Evalin Surrontez,” Eva said and I stared at her in peculiarity. Sur…don’t tell me…surrogate? A lump stuck itself in my esophagus. Did she seriously need to carry that name around with her? Moreover, how could she be okay with a label like that? Like a scarlet A pinned to her chest, only worse.

Von nodded along and penciled the request like a maitre d’. “And you?”

I blinked. My mouth opened and closed. For some reason my mind shot to Lisa.
“They call me Lisa Paw.”
If I had a nickname, what would it be? Well…I was always right…

My eyes brightened. “Donalie…Wright,” I said. “W-R-I-G-H-T.”

Von’s mouth curved down a bit and he nodded. “Smart. I like it.”

He didn’t sound like he liked it at all.

He struck the point of the pencil into the board and said, “Excellent to have you both on board, girls. We’ll have you join us, if you don’t mind, in our van to LeJeune.”

“Just us?” I said.

“Well, of course, Ms. Ca—I mean, Wright, of course. Not everyone shows signs of contamination on the same day.” His smile spread into a plastic grin. He reminded me the cartoon version of the Joker, with the outlined nose and mouth, minus the paint, eyes squinty and too much gel in his hair. “How fortunate you two are together.” I looked at Eva, but she simply stared at the man stone-cold. “Now, then…please follow me.”

“His name is Von van Vaughn,” I whispered to her, my bag flung over my left shoulder, as we went to gather our baggage. Eva stared at me with a raised brow. Trees peaked over dark hills all around us, soldiers who had us surrounded in the dark.

“Von-Von.” I cracked a smile.

“Von Vonderson,” she quipped, her lip quivering from suppressed laughter.

“Von Vivont.”

“Von…von von von—”

“What are you two doing?” Von scrutinized our mocking expressions and they faded into serious masks.

I cleared my throat. “Sorry…Von.”

Eva scoffed, but retained her straight face, which almost made it even funnier. I held in my laugh until Von turned around and we both cackled. 

Well, that was nice for a change. It wouldn’t last, seeing as when we got into his black von—I mean van (Eva laughed)—we’d have to sit across from him and his skeptic gaze. Our brief moment of…friendship?...was over.

None of us said a word as we rode through the dark forest. My mind raced back to the train, how we had traveled through a tunnel of harmless trees that actually looked beautiful in the panorama. Now that night had fallen, the trees no longer looked so welcoming, and the black forest devoured us, at the edge of which supposedly stood LeJeune. And at the end of which began Lake Superior.

That glimmer of hope lifted my dread and I tried to think of the gorgeous view in the morning. A surge of excitement came over me. I wanted to see those cliffs, to stand in the mouth of the wolf—or the claw of the demon, as Eva called it.

Besides the towering boarding school that reminded me so much of Marquette, to my immense pleasure, the first thing to catch my eye when the van rolled to a stop and they let us out was the oval bust of Justitia. It stuck out from the entrance of the school, her eyes blinded, and the light that shone down on it cast sharp and eerie shadows across the brick wall. I’d recognize her anywhere; she was in many of Mom’s law textbooks. On her left was another oval with a balance. On her right, that of a sword.

Above the trio ovals was a lit sign in gold letters, which read, LeJeune: The Seventh Institute for Extraordinary Children. Only someone had knocked out the letters “extraordinary” and spray painted “contaminated.” Was that new? If not, why had they kept it like that?  

“I’ve always thought she was somewhat beautiful,” said Eva. She stared at Justitia and did not look at me. I couldn’t agree more. The cloth that covered her eyes reminded me of a superhero mask, only with no slits for the eyes. “Maybe it’s because she’s not real.”

What did she mean, she wasn’t real? Of course she wasn’t real, she represented justice. Did she mean justice didn’t exist? No way.

“Love that piece, myself,” said Von. He smiled at her but Eva simply walked past him. Poor guy. I always felt for adults who couldn’t connect with the younger generation. Probably because my own parents were professors.  

“Aren’t you going to fix that?” I said to him, nodding at the sign.

He glanced at it with an awkward smile. “Oh, you know kids. Rebels.”

The word came out of his mouth with more malice than I expected. My brow shot up and I remained silent as he led us onward. Bet he didn’t think much of my new “rebellious” haircut.

“At least they’re not liars,” Eva murmured. Von pretended not to hear, but I smiled at her quietly and she briefly exchanged a knowing look.

Oh, yeah! I hadn’t called home yet. I wondered if Dad had gotten out of jail by now. I was still pretty mad at my parents, so I’d call Torrey instead. I already missed them all so much. I turned on my phone and frowned.

I looked over to Eva. “Do you have service?”

She stopped walking suddenly. Her expression made me shudder.

“Ah,” said Von, who kept walking, his back to us, “yes, unfortunately we don’t have reception here. And as for internet, you’ll have to do without. Wireless dead spot. We don’t have the funding to provide cable to all the students either. But you’ll adjust. Everyone here does.”

“There’s gotta be a phone line, then,” I said, my voice shaky. No internet meant no email, no Facebook, no games. How was anyone supposed to adjust to that?!

“No,” Von replied. “There doesn’t.”

Eva continued to stare at me and she honestly began to scare me. Her pupils stood out in the white of her eyes. When she had penetrated my soul enough, she finally looked away, but I could still see that stare in front of my eyes, like a haunting. Just then, it didn’t matter what they had done or kept from me; I really wanted my Mom and Dad.

CHAPTER TEN—Roommate

W
hite tile with black imprints coated the floor of LeJeune, its ceilings tall and staircases vast. With barely a dust particle in sight, I could see my reflection in the tile. I’d never been inside a private high school, and they probably didn’t come close to this, but it’s exactly how I imagined them, castles inside and out. The government supposedly funded all the Institutes, but nine guesses out of ten said some millionaires definitely pitched in. Did millionaire children get contaminated? No doubt there.

Eva and I were handed a set of uniforms and a “rule” book. Thicker than any history book I failed to read. Pocket-sized too, like a miniature bible. They piled it on top of the red clothes, to be worn at all times on the school grounds.

“Except for Sundays,” said the girl who handed them out. “Then you can wear whatever you like, but only then.”

She had a slight southern accent, pale with orange freckles, her hair pulled back with a headband. A senior, most likely, with droopy eyes and an uninterested mouth. She reminded me of what Mom or Dad looked like when they came home after a late lecture. Her manner sat all right with me since I didn’t like flashy people. And the uniform didn’t look too bad on her, but it reminded me a bit of a cheerleader’s. Blech.