CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Walking to Shilah’s door, I fidget with my fingers—cracking them, pulling them back. Why am I nervous? It’s just Shilah. I hesitate before knocking but then just tell myself to grow up and do what needs to be done.
When he answers the door, he doesn’t look angry, doesn’t look happy. He looks empty, hollow, like there are no feelings there at all.
“Hey,” he says shortly. “Come in.”
“Come with me, I want to show you something,” I say. He may not understand the gravity of what he’s going to have to do, but I can show him.
I lead him down the halls, down the elevator, and through the maze of corridors and buzzing doorways until we finally reach the stairs to the cells.
“What is this place?” he asks, grabbing my arm.
“A place you need to see, and there’s someone I want you to meet,” I say, starting to walk down the stairs.
“I thought the guy you hooked up with was the one you were with in class and in the cafeteria?”
Stopping dead in my tracks, I turn and look back up at him a few steps above me. “Hooked up with? Who told you that? Drew, I’m guessing? Why would you believe anything he says? Actually, why would you even talk to him?”
“Well, Miss Stress Pants, I’m not talking to Drew. Everyone knows about you and the guy.”
Well, this is a new revelation. “Everyone?” I ask.
This really is like high school, even more small town than Eminent Falls. Is there nothing better for them to sit around and talk about? I can think of a ton of different things that could be discussed—the state of our country, the divide between the “normal” and the Defective, and the conditions in which we’re treated. Although I guess I can’t complain about that anymore having one of the biggest single apartments in the place. That doesn’t excuse how they treat Tate or anyone else in The Crypt though or how I was treated when I was first arrested.
“I may not have heard it from Drew, but I can guarantee it’s him spreading it. He’s been trying to mend his sore ego ever since we got here,” Shilah tells me.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I sigh. It hurts me that he’d do that. I don’t know why, I don’t want it to, but it doesn’t surprise me; this has Drew written all over it.
We head over to Tate’s cell, a guard lets us in, and Tate and I embrace. I hear Shilah think ‘So they are together?’
Tate and I laugh.
‘Your brother?’ Tate asks me.
“Yup, Shilah, this is Tate. I don’t know what I would’ve done without him while I was down here.”
“Umm, hi,” Shilah says awkwardly.
It’s moments like this I can see the resemblance between him and me. We both have the same awkward greeting when we’re uncomfortable. We shift our feet and look around the room as opposed to the person we’re talking to.
“Nice to put a face to the name,” Tate says, and they shake hands. “So how was your first day of training, darling?” He looks over to me.
“Very funny,” I say and look at my brother. “Shilah, we’re not together, he’s just teasing.” That doesn’t take the confused look off Shilah’s face, though.
‘Yeah, it’s the same look you’ve had since you got here. I can definitely see the family resemblance.’
“I’m choosing to ignore that,” I say to Tate.
‘Ignore what?’ I hear Shilah ask himself.
“And in response to your question whether you were being sarcastic or not—training was hard. You’re lucky I made it down here to see you. I’d really love to be passed out in my bed right now.”
‘What about Chad?’ Tate asks.
“He’s breezing through the training, but I guess you aren’t surprised by that.”
‘Who is?’ Shilah wonders.
“Sorry, Shilah, I’ll explain back upstairs. Have you seen all you needed to see?” I ask him.
“I don’t really know what you’re showing me, but I guess so.”
“Shilah, seriously look around this place, use your brain. Who do you think they house down here?”
‘The dangerous ones, they tell us so in class. It was just a mistake that they put her here.’ Shilah doesn’t answer me aloud and just shrugs his shoulders.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” How could Shilah be so naïve?
“Allira,” Tate speaks up. “You can’t be too hard on him, he hasn’t seen what you have, and if I’m completely honest, you were just as naïve when you got here.”
I was?
“You two have some talking to do. Come and see me whenever you can.” He turns to Shilah. “It was nice to meet you.”
Tate and I hug again before Shilah and I make our way back up the stairs in silence. That definitely could’ve gone better. Maybe bringing him down here wasn’t such a great idea after all. It’s not until we’re walking through the hallways that he finally says something.
“So who was that?” he asks.
“It’s a long, tiring story. Can I come back to your apartment so I can explain a few things? Please?”
He doesn’t answer me and nods. We get back to his room, and Chad wasn’t kidding about the rooms down here being as small as a cell.
Shilah’s looking as exhausted as I feel. “So, the guy?” he asks.
“They tell us our whole lives that if you’re Defective, you have to live at the Institute because you’re too dangerous to live in a normal society. But then when we get here, they turn around and train us to go out and bring in more Defective people? If we’re so dangerous, why send us back out into the world? And why keep completely innocent people in prison cells where no one will ever find them? Do you realise not everyone down there is even Defective? And if it is as they say, and that’s where they’re keeping the most dangerous ones, why is it so easy to come and go there?” My thoughts come out in a jumbled rush.
“I figured it’s because you have security clearance.” He taps my shoulder where the stripes are on my uniform.
So that’s what the stripes mean? I’ve been too preoccupied to ask or even think about the stripes again. I notice Shilah only has two stripes on his uniform.
“But anyway, there are dangerous ones out there, you’ve seen what they can do,” he says.
“There are dangerous normal people out there too, they just choose to use knives and other weapons instead of Defective abilities. Should every non-Defective person be punished because of them?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know what you want me to do. You want me to agree with you and pull out of the training program? Move back to a dormitory, or worse, to where they were holding you?”
“I just want you to really understand what you’ll be doing when you make it through the program. I want you to realise you can’t believe everything they’re telling you. I understand the want to get out of here, I share that desire, but I’ve also experienced firsthand what I’m going be forced to inflict on others.”
“And yet it’s okay for you to do so, but not for me? If I don’t do it, you know they’d just get someone else to, and I’d only be punishing myself by not doing it. I’d be taking away my own freedom by choice.”
“I have let you continue with it, haven’t I—”
“Let me?” he yells.
I guess that was the wrong choice of words to use. “I just really want you to think about it. You may get more freedom than you do in here, but it comes at a cost. Just remember that I was housed in The Crypt because I didn’t know what I could do. They are innocent people, and I know I couldn’t live with myself if I took someone like Dad away from their family because I guessed wrong about their identity and what they can do. Don’t just believe everything they tell you, okay?” I’m trying my hardest not to lose my cool. Getting angry in an argument just means you’re losing. That’s what Dad used to say anyway.
He’s silent again and nods at me. I decide to get up and leave before I lose it with him. I just want to shake him and make him see.
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I make my way back to my room, take my shoes off, and jump into bed. My normal clothes are regularly becoming my pyjamas. Someone should invent pyjamas you can wear outside; they would make a fortune from me alone. I can’t believe I have to do today all over again tomorrow.
Why am I doing this? I can yell at Shilah until I’m black and blue in the face, but he will still be right. Why is it okay for me to do this, but not him? At first I agreed to do it because I wanted to protect him, but he clearly doesn’t want to be protected. I know if I try to pull out now, they’ll just threaten Shilah. They’ve already referred to him as my bargaining chip. Tate’s words come into my head again. “Give them a chance.” Is that why I’m still going with this? Can I really make a difference out there?
I should try. I have to try.
The Institute Page 38