by G. P. Ching
“Take your seats,” she said. “Standing while the bus is in motion is a punishable infraction. We wouldn’t want an incident.”
Finn incrementally lowered himself onto the seat next to Jayden, never taking his eyes off Applegate. She gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Very good. We’ll be on the island before you know it.”
She strolled up the aisle and disappeared through the curtain in the direction of the steering wheel. The engine rumbled to life and the bus jerked into motion. Out the window, the snow-covered branches of sleeping trees flew by as the bus accelerated along the manor drive.
“That was odd,” Jayden whispered. “I didn’t even hear her coming until she was standing right behind you.”
“That’s what you find odd about all of this?” Mike said. “What about her uniform? It’s like a fox hunting costume.”
“Fox hunting? I thought they were dressed as ringmasters, like from a circus.”
Mike pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and showed Finn an old painting of people on horseback wearing bowler hats and red coats with long tails. The outfits matched exactly, subtly different from a ringmaster’s outfit that usually had a tall hat, dark pants, and unbuttoned coat.
“Why would they dress like they were going hunting?”
Mike shrugged. “Why do they show up on people’s doorsteps to recruit students? Seems like an email would be easier.”
“Maybe they like the personal touch. Makes the school appear more exclusive?” Jayden said.
“An exclusive school with no tuition?” Mike leaned his head against the back of the seat and stared at the ceiling.
“HORU couldn’t find much on the web about it. There was one thing, an email, about the performance being lucky.” Seemed ridiculous, saying it aloud.
“Revelations puts on a massive show, twice per year, and most of the world doesn’t know the place exists or even how to get to the theater.” Jayden spread his hands. “Makes perfect sense.”
“Judge Warren knew about it. He agreed to the terms in the contract.” Finn shrugged.
Mike shifted in his seat. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Weird or not, we’re going.”
“Yeah, why are we going exactly?” Jayden’s face reddened. “Why the hell did you two lie about seeing the stranger?”
“I didn’t lie,” Finn said defensively. “You did.”
Jayden shook his head. “It was a bald black man.”
“No, a wealthy older man. White,” Finn insisted.
“Bullshit. How could you not tell it was a woman?” Mike said, without a hint of humor in his voice.
A chill coursed up Finn’s spine and he rubbed the base of his neck. He shook his head slowly. “Wait… You guys weren’t lying? You really believe that’s what you saw?”
Mike and Jayden nodded, eyes narrowing in confusion.
“Do you think the cigarettes Vox was smoking were laced with something, like a hallucinogenic drug?” Finn shoved his hands in his coat pockets.
“We all inhaled his secondhand smoke before we saw the guy,” Jayden said.
Mike didn’t look convinced. “This is like a nightmare. None of it makes sense.”
“Hey, don’t worry so much. We can handle anything they throw at us. We’re together. We have each other’s backs. We’ve accomplished a hell of a lot as Deviant Joe. Mike is strong. You’re smart, Jay. We can survive anything.” Finn tried his best to sound reassuring.
“You’re right. Whatever Revelations throws our way, we’ll put in our time and get back to our lives.” Mike leaned against the wall of the bus and stared out the window.
“You guys haven’t mentioned the creepiest part,” Jayden said through a half grin.
“What’s that?”
“The swastikas on their buttons. Don’t panic, but we may be going to a school run by neo-Nazis.”
Finn grunted. “Nice, Jay. They were not swastikas. The symbol was like the letter X but with curved ends, almost a spiral.”
“I don’t give a flying fig what’s on their buttons,” Mike said through clenched teeth. “I don’t care what either of you think you saw. It doesn’t matter anymore.” He glared at Jayden. Finn couldn’t remember seeing Mike so angry. “We’re here because you brought your idiot brother, Jayden. None of this would have happened to us if it weren’t for Vox. And now my entire future is up for grabs because unlike the two of you, I don’t have a trust fund. So both of you are going to do whatever it takes for us to succeed at this place and not make any waves. That includes not accusing the admissions counselors of committing hate crimes. Got it?”
Finn stiffened as walls went up between his two friends. Fists tight, Jay peered at Mike like he was going to let him have it. But a smirk turned the corner of his mouth and a deep breath morphed into a low chuckle. “You could not be more right if you were missing your left arm. Vox is a human canker sore—no, a blight on the canker sore kingdom. He’s my brother, but he’s a prick. I should have known better. I’m sorry, man.”
Mike stared at Jayden for a second, pursed lips turning into a tight smile. “God help me if I ever become a blight on the kingdom of canker sores.”
“I calls ’em like I sees ’em.” Jayden held up his fist. “We okay?”
Mike nodded and bumped his knuckles against Jayden’s.
“Cool, because if we’re going to have any fun in a stuffy, private reform school like Revelations, we are going to have to stick together.” He grinned and bobbed his eyebrows.
“Do you smell that?” Finn sniffed the air. A strong, chemical-sweet scent had permeated the bus. “Smells like a Slurpee.”
Mike sniffed. “Yep, the Slurpee machine. All the flavors mixed together.” His eyes drooped, and he leaned his head against the wall.
“Blue raspberry,” Jayden said. “I gotta…” His head hit the table.
“Jay?” Finn tried to reach for him to make sure Jayden was all right, but he didn’t have the energy. He gave in to the weight of his eyelids, slumping in his seat, and fell asleep with his cheek pressed into the table.
8
Arrival
When Finn woke, the scene outside the bus’s window was vastly different from the view when he’d fallen asleep. Bright green gardens spread beneath a darkening sky. No snow. They weren’t in Beaverton anymore. A long pebbled drive led to a massive brick-and-stone building with gables and parapets and winged gargoyles that overlooked the gardens. Finn’s lips parted as he took in the grandeur. The brochure hadn’t done it justice.
Jayden shifted in his seat and rubbed the top of his head. “I thought we had to take a ferry?”
“Do they drive the bus onto the ferry?” Finn squinted out the window but couldn’t see the ocean in any direction.
Mike smoothed an eyebrow. “I slept through the whole thing?”
“Me too. We all did. And I’m hungry. How long do you think we’ve been asleep?”
Jayden pulled his phone from his back pocket. “I don’t know. My phone is dead.”
Twisting in his seat, Mike pulled his phone from the pocket of his coat. “Mine’s dead too.” He looked to Finn expectantly.
“I didn’t bring one.” Not exactly true. He suspected his dad had hidden one in his trunk. He would check in private when he was sure the prying eyes and silent footsteps of Ms. Applegate were not a threat.
“We left at noon and now the sun is over there. Late afternoon?” Mike stood slightly to get a better view out the window.
Finn shrugged.
“Please exit at the front of the bus and form an orderly line with the other students,” Ms. Applegate called from the front. Finn glanced at Mike and Jayden, then led the way up the aisle. As he exited the folding doors, a light sprinkle of rain dusted his coat, leaving a scattering of dark dots. Tropical humidity hung in the air around him, and despite the rain, he stripped off his parka and tied the arms around his waist.
Revelations Institute was a castle.
He wandered into line and pe
rused the side of the building with slack-jawed wonder. The shadow the looming monstrosity cast over them blocked out his view of the sun. His eyes drifted up the ivy-covered brick, three stories before reaching the gargoyle-lined roof. Finn couldn’t see inside. Most of the windows were masked with blood-colored curtains. Except one. Finn’s eyes fell on the parted red damask of a wide window on the third floor. A face stared back at him, pale white with black-lined eyes and lips. A clown.
“Do you see that?” he asked Jayden, who was in line behind him.
“See what?”
“In the window.” Finn pointed.
Jayden followed Finn’s gaze, but the clown was gone. “I don’t see anything.”
“There was a clown.” Finn searched the neighboring windows. The drapes were still parted, but there was no face.
“Like a red-nosed, rainbow-wig clown?”
“No. Black-and-white stripes. Like a mime.”
“I hate mimes.”
Finn clammed up as Ms. Applegate passed by. At her side was a massive black dog of indiscriminate breed. The canine reminded Finn a bit of a wolfhound, although the face was uglier with a distorted jaw frozen in a permanent growl. Another hound waited with Ravenguard at the front of the line.
“Welcome to our school. Meet our snarling masses of canine aggression,” Jayden whispered.
“No shit,” Finn said. “They’re really upping the intimidation factor.”
Jayden made a low throaty sound. “Hello, beautiful.” His chin pointed in the direction of another bus that was parked beside the one they’d rode in on. A girl waited on the steps, frowning at the drizzling sky. A gorgeous girl. The type people wrote songs about. Platinum-blond hair. Oversized blue eyes. A ridiculously thin physique. She looked like a human Barbie.
“Plastic.” Finn smirked and shook his head.
“I like plastic,” Jayden said through half-exposed teeth. “I call dibs.”
Mike, who’d slowly made his way up the line to be behind Jayden, nudged him and lifted his eyebrows. “No dibs. You can’t call dibs on a human being.”
The girl finally braved the rain to join the line behind Mike, who greeted her with a falsely double-bass hello. Finn snorted and glanced back toward the bus, as another girl descended the stairs.
The second girl did not look like Barbie. Although her skin was smooth as porcelain, it stretched across features too sharp to be pretty. She was tall and graceful but not exactly thin. More athletic. He could see her bicep stretch her long-sleeved T-shirt as she adjusted the backpack on her shoulder. She wore no makeup and her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her narrow eyes flashed some cold, pale color—either blue or green—as she glided into the rain without hesitation, as if she couldn’t care less if she got wet. A silver pendant around her neck glinted when lightning cut across the sky overhead, and she tucked the necklace inside her shirt. To Mike’s dismay, she cut in front of Barbie at the back of the line. The big guy took one look at her and turned around to face Jayden.
“Damn, she’s built like Ronda Rousey. Remind me not to piss her off,” the girl in front of him said.
Finn laughed, noticing the girl in front of him for the first time. She was small, smaller than he was. Cute, with freckles across the bridge of her nose and warm eyes the color of dark chocolate. Two brown braids fell across her shoulders, framing a quirky, understated smile that made Finn feel warm and tingly all over. When he looked at her, he wanted to keep looking at her. He opened his mouth to say something, but his tongue turned weirdly stiff.
“I’m Wendy,” she said.
“Finn.” He nodded his head. Yes, that was his name.
She smiled bright enough to stave off the shadow cast by the school. Not plastic, he thought. “Where-are-you-from, Wendy?” His mouth wasn’t working right and it came out as one slurred, unintelligible word.
“Huh?” she asked.
Finn didn’t have a chance to clarify.
“Can we go in?” a boy at the front of the line bellowed, a big kid who looked as though he played a rough sport like football or rugby. He shifted restlessly in the sprinkling rain.
“No talking,” Ravenguard snapped. “That goes for all of you. Single file.”
To Finn’s disappointment, Wendy turned back around.
Rugby crossed his arms over his chest but quieted down, as did the rest of the students. Seemingly in defiance of the boy, the rain chose that moment to transform from a sprinkle into a full-blown storm. Groans and barely muffled complaints filtered through the line. A strong wind out of the west joined forces with the storm to pelt Finn’s face and darken his T-shirt with fat wet drops. At least it was warm rain. The climate was inexplicably hot here.
“Stay where you are,” Applegate warned. The dog at her side growled. A dark-haired girl near the front stepped back into line.
Although Ravenguard and Applegate opened umbrellas over their heads, no such courtesy was offered the students. There was no awning or lip to the building to stop the onslaught. Finn shifted from foot to foot as the rain soaked through his clothes and his hair. Water dripped off his bangs, his eyelashes, his nose. He tried to wipe it away, but it was raining too hard for that. He shielded his eyes.
All the students in line stared at Ravenguard, who was the closest to the door, as if by force of collaborative will they could get him to let them inside or at least explain why they must wait in the rain. There was something cruel about it. Ravenguard’s mouth, under the shadow of his umbrella, held an understated smirk, almost as if he was enjoying this. He made no move toward the door.
The temperature dropped and the rain started to sting against his skin. In front of him, Wendy untied her hoodie from her waist and pulled it on, although it was far too wet to make a difference.
“Do you think I should say something?” Finn whispered over his shoulder to Jayden. Only Jayden wasn’t there anymore. At some point, he’d switched places in line, he and Mike on either side of Barbie. Which meant the auburn-haired girl with the silver pendant was in his place, looking like she might flatten him with one punch if he set her off.
“Don’t say a word,” she whispered. “Whatever you do, don’t call attention to yourself. Look straight ahead and shut your mouth.”
He obeyed, although not without a pang of resistance toward the bossiness of the girl he didn’t know. While he was considering how to say, “You’re not the boss of me” in a way that wouldn’t sound like he was in third grade, the dark-haired girl behind Rugby—the one who’d previously stepped out of line—snapped.
“Hey, it’s raining out here!” She splayed her arms to the sides. Her pierced lip curled with her raised eyebrow. “What are we waiting for?” She’d pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt, but it couldn’t hide her retro-goth appearance. Purple streaks poked out of her hood along with her long black tresses. The spiked leather collar she wore around her neck was the same shade of black as the thick smudge of mascara that had formed beneath each of her eyes.
Ravenguard gave her a stern look. “Amanda Tidwell, remain silent and stay where you are. This is your second warning. Speaking out of turn is an infraction.”
The girl released a series of expletives that made Wendy back up and step on Finn’s toes. She turned her freckled face toward him. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” It was completely okay. She could step on his toes all day long. Finn untied the parka from around his waist and was about to offer it to Wendy when Amanda stepped out of line again.
When she opened her mouth, she hurled her words like knives. She nosedived into some sort of meltdown with hand gestures even Finn found vulgar. Some of them he’d never even seen before, but there was no mistaking what they meant. The tirade ended with “and get us the bloody hell out of the rain!”
No one moved. Icy sheets of wetness pelted Finn’s skin as the temperature dropped again and gusts of wind threatened to knock him over. Seconds ticked by, Amanda and Ravenguard locked in some kind of staring duel. Of t
he two, only Ravenguard was smiling.
Finally, Ms. Applegate nodded. Ravenguard opened the door, allowing Rugby to step inside.
“It’s about frickin’ time,” Amanda yelled, stepping forward. Ravenguard’s hand landed just under her neck. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Don’t touch me.”
Applegate folded her umbrella and handed it to Ravenguard before pulling Amanda roughly to the side, keeping her from entering the building. Amanda wasn’t having it. She twisted and swung, her punch flying at Applegate’s jaw with her entire body backing it up. The admissions counselor caught the girl’s fist in her hand, grinning in the pouring rain like a spider toying with a fly.
“Ow! Stop.” Amanda didn’t sound angry anymore. She sounded scared.
“Move along,” Ravenguard said to the rest of the line. “Or join her.”
No way was Finn going to call attention to himself after witnessing that spectacle. Amanda’s whines turned to screams as Finn followed Wendy inside. The shrieks, slaps, and thumps grew quieter as the door closed behind them. Soon, he couldn’t hear Amanda’s struggle at all. Did laws about punishing children apply on a private island? Because based on her screams, Finn was sure whatever they were doing to Amanda would not have been legal anywhere else.
We’ve never lost a student yet, he remembered Ravenguard saying. He tried not to worry about the girl named Amanda and concentrated on keeping himself from panicking.
“This way,” Ravenguard said. He led the group down a dim hallway to a grand foyer flanked with dual curved staircases. The sconces on the walls barely combatted the darkening windows, the storm giving the outdoors the color of twilight. “This island has certain unusual natural properties that interfere with electronic devices. We have heat and power from geothermal sources, but you will find that light can be a scarce resource.” He gave a tight little smile that seemed to have its own shadow.
Finn followed as he climbed the walnut staircase on the left, his wet shoes squishing with each step on the patterned red carpet. The wood-paneled hallway above was something from another time. Gilded gas lamps burned between portraits of stern-looking adults dressed in hunting attire. He squinted at one painting of a stunning blond woman holding up the carcass of an animal, indistinguishable due to its missing skin and gutted torso. He grimaced and had to look away.