by Shiloh White
The Headmistress walked over to her son lay writhing in pain, and knelt down next to him. “Even despite the resistance you brought me, costing many Agents...” then she stood up and faced us again.
“I came into contact with many volunteers that have more than filled in the cracks,” she said, gesturing to Takao. He smiled and waved at his honorable mention, taking the moment to walk up to the right-hand side of the Headmistress' chair.
“Volunteers? You kidnapped them!” Chug protested. “In what way did they volunteer for—”
“That's enough!” The Headmistress boomed in anger. She swept her hand throughout the air, and Chug's mouth promptly closed. The Headmistress paced around her chair, with two fingers rubbing her temples. She stopped pacing after rounding the entire chair, and faced us again.
“Right now they may be unwilling,” she said, “but after tonight, they will be as willing to join the army as Woodstock.” She gestured with her left hand to him. The best way I could describe his composure was like a quivering zombie—he moved in fearful steps to his mother's chair, eyes glazed over and no visible consciousness as he moved.
“Woodstock, don't—” Chug went to reach for his friend's arm but Takao stepped in his way, blocking the way as Woodstock joined his mother on the left-hand side of her chair.
A dark feeling washed over me. If this lady could do this to Woodstock, who I thought was beating out her power just a few minutes ago, then...what chance did we stand?
“You're going to do this to Dart and the rest of the Abandoned too?” I asked, my voice empty and dry. The Headmistress chuckled at me.
“That rag-tag gang of misguided Agents?” she asked. “Yes, of course. They must know who they are, and what their true purpose is. As for dear Pascal? He has the greatest honor of all—he'll pledge his loyalty to me as the general of my army and lead the assault out of the Academy!"
“What do you mean 'pledge his loyalty'?” Chug asked. “And why Dart?"
At once, it felt like all the air had left my lungs. I knew why it had to be Dart.
The Headmistress smirked. “It's pretty simple, actually. There's no better way to pledge loyalty to someone than by severing a tie with someone else...”
She turned to face me with an evil red-lipped grin. Severing a tie...that was the only piece I hadn't figured out yet. But now I understood.
“It looks like your Topsider friend is beginning to get it as well.” The Headmistress smiled.
I wish she hadn't singled me out. Chug looked at me confused, and at that moment, I just wished I could shrink into a little ball and disappear.
“What the heck is this lady talking about, Lucy?” he asked.
I could barely croak out “I-” when a tear jumped off my cheek before I could catch it.
"...Lucy?” Chug said in a small voice.
“Yes, Lucy,” the Headmistress echoed, “is there something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?”
Another bitter tear dove off my face, and I hid it by scowling at the Headmistress. She knew about my vision of her somehow, and now she was breaking me down because of it. She knew her plan, and that I was helpless to do anything about it. She just wanted me to say it out loud.
“Severing a tie...” I thought back to the vision—that long object in Dart's hand that the Headmistress threw at me. It must have been a knife. "...she means having Dart kill someone.”
“What?” Chug growled. He looked from the Headmistress back to me, and his eyes began to fill with anger. His hand closed into a fist.
“And not just anyone,” I continued. “Someone close to Dart, remember?"
“And you'll never guess how I managed to get him here.” the Headmistress teased, as if this were all just a game she happened to be winning.
“No,” Chug said, “we won't. So just tell us."
“Watch your mouth, boy. You're testing my patience—and you're not the first to do so."
“So?"
The Headmistress squinted her eyes at Chug, making Lieutenant Hollister's electric gaze look like child's play. I thought Chug might burst into flames at any second.
“So,” she said slowly, “there isn't much left for you. Now where was I?"
“How you got Dart's murder victim here.” Chug grumbled obediently. It seemed the Headmistress' scolding did a number on his arrogance. I glanced over at him, and it looked like he was having trouble looking her in the eye.
“Ah, yes,” she continued. “I searched Dart's mind—which was plenty fun—and found someone. He was a stubborn young man with a fierce loyalty."
“Scott.” I whispered.
“That jerk?” Chug asked. “Really?"
The Headmistress ignored the both of us and continued.
“One look and I knew he'd willingly walk into the belly of the beast to get his friend back. Especially when those around him didn't want him to.” The Headmistress nodded her head at me. Salt in my wound. But...her tone made it sound like it was more than that. Like she didn't just 'know' Scott would do that. It was almost like...
“You used me.” I said. “That's how you got Scott to come."
“Finalmente!” The Headmistress clapped her hands together in joy. Condescending joy, like...well, like when a teacher finally gets a point across to a slow student. “Come on then, mija! You almost have the whole answer. How did it all come together?"
I bit my tongue. I felt humiliated. Somehow, I'd been roped into the Headmistress' quiz—her entire scheme, with no idea how.
“I'll give you a hint, mija. Your friend walked into the belly of the beast. I am that beast. Never underestimate anxiety. It grows from a teeny-tiny seed of worry"—she held up two fingers in a pinching position when she said 'teeny-tiny'—"on the deepest of emotional and mental levels."
A seed of worry? Did the Headmistress plant something in me to bring Scott here? What was she talking about? I reached over and grabbed my arm, pulling it towards me as if it were the only thing keeping my thoughts and emotions falling all over the place.
“Your vision.” Chug said to me. “She must have caused it—like mind control."
“What?” I asked.
“Good job, nino,” the Headmistress clapped again. “But not mind control. Something much more subtle, as you can tell. You two had no clue until it was too late."
I gritted my teeth. I felt ugly and angry at the same time. All of a sudden, I wanted to throw up. I felt violated...and the worst part was, this woman had done it with my own emotions. All the while, her son lay writhing in pain beneath her. The Headmistress was cruel. In that moment, something about this lady reminded me of all the oppressive teachers I'd had in the past. All of the ones I kept my head down for. Woodstock was...he was right not to want to come here. But right now, the urge to stand up to this lady—despite Woodstock's warnings—was overwhelming and burned in my chest out of anger.
“Mind control or not, it's still evil.” I said, wrapping my fingers into a fist.
The Headmistress held up her index finger and wagged it at me. “A matter of perspective, mija. It was evil how my beloved Disorder was locked up by those wretched Officers."
“And I assume you don't think it was evil that you made Dart...” Chug's voice choked up beside me.
“Kill those other Agents?” The Headmistress asked. “Of course not. They were nothing but a simple miscalculation."
“So then the reason the others died,” Chug said slowly, “it's because—"
“Yes. They didn't count.” The Headmistress broke in, spreading her lips into a thick red smile.
Chug screamed besides me. “Those miscalculations were my friends! My family!"
He ran at the Headmistress and she flinched. Fortunately for her, he didn't make it another step before Mr. Smug & Freckles yanked him back.
“I know you're upset. But just think. Scott will work perfectly. No more of your friends will die when we wage war on the Depression Force. With Disorder on our side, we will win. And it will st
art with Pascal."
I wanted to tell her she was crazy—no, that she was a monster.
“This is an insane idea,” I told her. “You can't brainwash people to do your bidding!”
Woodstock shrugged at me from next to the Headmistress' chair. “Unfortunately, yes she can, mija,” he said to me.
“I made him say that,” the Headmistress grinned at me. Then she pointed at the two of us, and pursed her lips in thought.
“Now, I was going to allow the two of you in my army as well. You especially"—she nodded at me—"would've made a large contribution to Disorder's rise. But you've gotten on my nerves one too many times, so that's out of the question. I'll just leave you to the boys.”
Behind me, Mr. Smug chuckled smugly. Glasses grinned, his eyes looking hungry for revenge.
Then the Headmistress exited the room through a large door at the far side of the room. She beckoned Woodstock to follow with a wave of her hand.
“Woodstock! You said not to give in! You gotta fight it!” Chug said. He surprised the boys by pulling away from them, and running after Woodstock.. He tried to shove past Takao, but the taller boy was ready. He sent a punch straight into Chug's gut that made him double over.
“Oh, I don't think so,” Takao said, loosening his shirt sleeves. “You heard the woman. You're not walking away from this. In fact, by the end of this, you won't be walking at all.
42. Do People Even Die Anymore?
I pulled my red paintbrush out of my bag and stood ready to fight Takao. I didn't like the idea of not walking away from anything, so I figured we should take care of that problem. But we needed to move quickly; the Headmistress was getting further away by the second.
Takao didn't attack, though. He and the student Agents formed a circle around us that shrank in size until Chug and I were standing back to back.
“We're boxed in,” I told him. “I'll take Takao. Are you ready?"
“That's not gonna happen,” he said.
“He’s going to get in your head. I'm trying to help—"
“It's not that,” Chug said. “Forget Takao. We can't let the Headmistress get away. We need to save Woodstock, and all the others. You need to find Dart."
“Oh, and I suppose you're just gonna take on the rest of these guys?"
“Yep. I'll be fine.” he assured me.
I knew even then, without seeing his face, the teenage boy back-to-back with me holding the silver gun was anything but fine. His role model stood above him, ready to light the match that would burn down the only safe house he'd ever known. All his friends had been stolen from him, and the only person who'd cared to help him through all this was next on the brainwash list.
There were a billion other reasons to be here and win this fight, but right now, it came down to not letting Chug down.
“Okay,” I finally agreed. “Are you ready?"
“Wait for it…” Chug whispered. “NOW!"
Chug and I pushed on each other's back's, using the momentum to pull a one-eighty until I was facing the exit door the Headmistress took, and Chug was facing the door we'd entered the room in. As we spun, I splattered my red paintbrush at half the Agents, launching acid paint at them. Chug loaded bullets at the other half.
Some of the Agents were quick on the uptake, so they either dodged the attacks or shoved another Agent in their way to take the hit, (Takao was among those who chose the second option) but it was enough to create an opening. Chug dashed off back towards the entrance, and I sprinted in the direction the Headmistress had gone, telling myself not to look back.
It'll slow you down, I told myself. You'll only see Chug fighting off way too many Agents. You'll want to help. But you can't—just keep running.
“You two, go after her!” Takao ordered, his shout echoing behind me in the large room. “The rest of you, with me!”
I couldn't help it. I looked.
And my heart sank. There were thirteen Agents circling us, counting Takao. The four we'd hit were now writhing on the ground, which left the two coming after me now and the six others being led by Takao. Surprisingly, Chug had already cleared the room, which eased my worry a little, but he didn't have the endurance to take on seven Depression Agents by himself. Especially not when six of them had super-human capabilities and the last one was a major jerk.
I wish I focused on running now, because I could see two Agents running toward me, at a speed vastly superior to mine. The first one showed off his physical prowess by leaping over me.
So of course, I stood and watched like an idiot.
He completed a somersault in midair and landed in front of me, blocking the door the Headmistress left through. Then I noticed the pair of glasses on his face, and the dust and wood splinters in his hair.
It was Glasses.
“A fall through the floor didn't get rid of you?” I taunted. Where the confident words came from, I don't know. But I appreciated them. I almost believed I wasn't scared out of my mind.
“Maybe you should try it and see how it works,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “Only I won't need paint to put you in the ground.”
I waited until he started running, then I slung red paint at him. He tried to get out of the way, but he was running too fast to dodge the paint. He ran right into the melting capabilities of my new weapon, and strangely enough, Bartholomew Stark's words found their way to my mind in that moment:
It's a shame to have that much power with no idea how to use it.
As I watched Glasses melted into a liquid and dissolve into Depression smoke, I realized the inverse of what Stark said was also true. I missed my paint whip, but having more than one weapon definitely helped.
I kept running, and went to jump over the pile of acid my paint left eroding the floor when I remembered a crucial point about my escape: There were two Agents after me, weren't there?
Mid-jump, a large hand wrapped around my wrist and yanked me back to the ground. I barely avoided landing directly in the pile of acid, which was quickly turning into a hole. Instead, I landed flat on my butt, looking up at the Agent.
“You didn't actually think you were leaving, did you?” he asked, standing over me with his hands on his hips.
He looked strong, but not like Woodstock. Instead of bulky arms and muscle, this guy was just big—in every sense of the word. He towered a head and a neck over me, with arms almost as long as my legs coming out of broad shoulder sockets. He wore a muscle tee and shorts, and his arms and legs were ripped. How this guy was considered a student, I could not give you an answer.
But the strangest part wasn't how tall and beefy he was. It was how he sounded. His voice didn't match at all. It sounded more like a twelve-year-old pretending to be someone this big.
“Now then,” he said in that unmatched voice, “it's time to finish what I started.” He reached into his pocket for something while bending over to grab my arm again. What the heck did he mean “what I started?”
I'd never even seen this guy before getting here. But if it came to finding out and dying, or not dying, I was choosing the latter.
I swung my red paintbrush at him with everything I had, but nothing flecked off at the Agent's face. Was I out of paint?
The Agent grabbed my hand, tight enough to make me drop the brush, and I caught a glimpse of something shiny coming out of his pocket. A knife?
I didn't wait to find out.
I reached over with my other hand and grabbed the paintbrush. Then I brushed it across the Agent's face, leaving a weak stroke of red paint across his face that began to sizzle and steam. He cried out in pain, and his entire face erupted in Depression Agent smoke. The smoke enveloped his neck and shoulders, moving down until all of him was nothing but flailing—and screaming—dark smoke.
I'm ashamed to say this is the moment when I waited. I didn't recap my paintbrush. I didn't bolt out of the room. No, instead, I looked on in horror. The sound of the Agent's scream glued me to my spot. I watched him writhe in agony as the smoke morp
hed and changed shape. Suddenly all the screaming was cut off. The smoke began to solidify, showing me not the shape of the tall Agent boy from before, but a girl with pale olive skin and eyes of different color: one gold and one blue.
✽✽✽
“Lara?” I asked?
“I see you've learned some new tricks since our last fight,” she said, rubbing her face. From right under her blue eye, down her cheek to the corner of her mouth, there was a burn scar from the acid paintbrush.
My mind raced with a million thoughts...
Wait, no, it didn't. It just took me a second to realize it was the same thought, just a million different times: How was Lara alive?
She'd gotten stabbed by Stark and exploded in a dark mess of madness and Depression Agent-y smoke, and on top of that, her Depression Zone crumbled. That last part was supposed to be proof she was gone, right? So then...
The only logical thought that kept creeping back in—which wasn't entirely logical at all—was that Stark was supposed to have died in there as well, but that didn't happen either. In fact, everyone but her in that Zone walked out of it. Why couldn't she? After all, this was the Dust; just when you thought things started making sense, everything did a handstand and walked around like it was normal.
“You're wondering why I'm standing here right now, aren't you?” she asked slyly. I nodded. No sense in playing it cool—she totally read my mind. But it wasn't that hard, was it?
“I'll tell you this: it doesn't matter. Or,” she paused, “at least not to you, since you'll be dead soon.”
Lara twirled the shiny syringe in her hand with expert dexterity—and a creepy smile. There was no liquid in it, but something told me an empty needle that large jabbed in the right place would do the trick all the same. Then she ran at me.
I fiddled with my paintbrush in a panic, trying to get some more red paint on it, but there was no time. Just before she reached me with the syringe, I dove out of the way. Or at least, that was the plan.
I actually dove into Lara's path, causing her to trip over my side and fall to the ground. Meanwhile, I suffered a kick to the stomach, but I forced myself to put the pain away. I took in a large breath as I rose to my feet and ran to the door. I grabbed on the handle but it didn't budge.